The World According to The Rock

More on San Francisco and the Blog

2011-02-27T09:40:00.000-05:00

Among the wonderful things I learned at the San Francisco Writers Conference was to blog seriously and well. I have blogged seriously, but not always well. More than a couple of entries have done me less than proud. One was my infamous pity party on the page. Another was my cutesy attempt to turn some of the hundred best movie lines of all time into a lesson on dialogue.

Ouch.

With that one I started toward point A and wound up zigging and zagging to the unknown. No doubt, Rod Serling would call it "The Twilight Zone."

From here on I'm going to set up a different set of guidelines. The problem is I don't have them all finalized. I will promise not to post haphazardly, to consider each entry as a representation of my writing thrust into the blogosphere. Because lord knows I learned the hard way about admitting to the world that I'm bleeding. I'll bleed privately from now on.

In the original guidelines of the blog, I promised to post the good and the bad. I can still do that, but with great care. Therefore, I may not post every week, or I may post twice or three times in a week. Depends on what's happening. I'll formulate this as we go along, entry by entry. It'll be a constant work in progress.

For now, though, let me share some of my San Francisco experiences. I'll start with the Top of the Mark, where Princes, Presidents, Judy Garland and Elvis have spent time. The view is amazing. With good peripheral vision one can see both Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. I have good peripheral vision. Breakfast is a bit pricey. It's a solid $12.95 buffet for $35.95. And Sunday's brunch is $70.09 per person. I'm a cross between cotton candy and a medicine ball, and I couldn't eat thirty-six bucks worth of breakfast.

I discovered that a cab ride to many restaurants in North Beach, combined with a glass of wine, is less expensive than a single glass of wine at the Top of the Mark. Still, I had a few up there because the view is so breathtaking. It's what I'll think of when I hear the name San Francisco.

I adored Fisherman Wharf, particularly Scoma's, where a friend and I had a wonderful dinner.

I enjoyed the City Lights Bookstore.

San Francisco is not Maui, but it shouldn't be. It is what it is and that's pretty damn awesome. I understand why people love the life there.

Yes, I'll be back next year for the conference and the city. It's a place that grabs you and holds on until your heart opens to it. And, according to the song, you can leave your heart there. Thanks, Tony Bennett. I've had the devil's own time bringing mine back. And the writer in me likes that.

Flowers in What's Left of My Hair

2011-02-20T09:54:00.001-05:00

I'm writing this entry from my hotel room at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, the sight of the 2011 San Francisco Writers Conference. I'm sure my view isn't the greatest, paying a conference discount rate, but I can see a bit of Fisherman's Wharf and the bay. The view is spectacular at the Top of the Mark on the nineteenth floor. With minor blocks, it gives a 360-degree view. From it you can see a bit of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and most of Fisherman's Wharf.

The sight blew me away and brought a tear or two, as friends and acquaintances have lauded the praises of San Francisco for decades. I can't forget all of the movies I've seen set in San Francisco including Hitchcock's Vertigo, which shows this very hotel. And the novels I've read set here. Finally seeing some of the sights with my own eyes pulled the emotions just over the edge.

And then there is the conference.

I feel like a junkie in the middle of a fix.

Dorothy Allison the first of our keynoters is one of the most amazing speakers I've ever encountered. One sentence will break the room into belly laughs while the very next will send chills everywhere.

Yesterday featured David Morrell, father of Rambo, who holds the room with an economy of words.

Both inspired.

I'm going to post this now, short as it is, because I won't have time later. Next week, I will lay out new guidelines for this blog based on suggestions from industry professionals. And also post some of the many things I've learned here at the conference. If I listed any now, I would miss breakfast because I wouldn't be able to stop.

I will say, though, that I learned how to use a coffeemaker to brew tea.

I might have to invest in a coffeemaker for home.

Let's All Play

2011-02-12T23:09:00.001-05:00

I think more people should learn how to play a musical instrument. How about a guitar? Keyboards? Maybe even an autoharp? It's fun. I'm reminded of that from time to time when I play alone or with friends.

I'm not kidding myself. I'll never be a star. Never trot onstage with my guitar to the roaring screams of crowds and break into song, be that in an arena or a ten seat pub. But it's fun to imagine it. More so to get together for a mutual jam session and play as a group, everyone getting a chance to shine a little. Maybe the experience stops there. So what if it does? It's a great way to while away a few hours enjoying either our own company or that of friends.

In the decades before television; the time when live concerts weren't nearly so prevalent; when radio was the primary entertainment for families, more people played instruments, in their living rooms, on their front porches, wherever and whenever the mood struck.

Stars emerged. From Jimmie Rodgers to the Carter Family. Robert Johnson to Doc Watson (pictured on right). Most of the great blues artists from the 20's through the 40's were discovered playing on front porches or small joints.

Let's set that aside a second. I've already said that we're not going to become stars here. But we can become a little closer, sharing a creative endeavor rather a position in an audience. Make no mistake, I love watching other people create whether at a monster arena or a ten seat pub. Truth be told, most times I'd prefer the ten seater to the monster.

So why don't we do more of it?

Because we ... myself included, and I've been playing for forty-five years... aren't particularly happy starting with folk songs and one-four-five rock and twelve bar blues then, working together, building up the more complex material. We want to play the guitar like Clapton or Slash or not at all. We want to be Elton John on the keyboards instead of enjoying a little Heart and Soul.

Listening to the perfection of those who practice six to eight hours a day, five of which is nothing but scales and bleeding fingers has spoiled us.

But I say let's all learn an instrument. I'll learn a new one. I'll buy a banjo, or maybe I'll learn to play the autoharp like Maybelle Carter played it.

And writing songs is pretty fun, too.

I leave for San Francisco this Thursday for the conference. I'm not expecting anything. I have hopes, but mostly I was to see a beautiful city.

Revenge of Tom and Tex

2011-02-05T21:25:00.003-05:00

When Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys in 1989, his first order of business was to fire Tom Landry, their legendary coach of 29 years. The only coach they'd had up to that point. Anyone could understand that a new owner might want to go in a different direction, but a fair and decent man, a man with any class at all, would have explained that privately to Coach Landry and given him a chance to retire with the dignity his place in professional football had earned.

Jones's second order of business was to hang on to Tex Schramm, the architect of the Cowboy brand, long enough to learn the ropes before putting Schramm unceremoniously out to pasture.

Had Jones any sense of honor he would have renamed Texas Stadium, Tom Landry Stadium. He didn't do that. And it took four years for Jones to induct Landry into the Cowboy's Ring of Honor, three years AFTER the NFL waived the usual waiting period and inducted Landry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Schramm wasn't inducted into the Ring of Honor until 2003, three months after his death, and eleven years after he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

It took the Texas Legislature to properly acknowledge Landry's contribution to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area by naming Interstate 30 between the two, "Tom Landry Highway." They did so in 2001, the year after Landry died. We used to call that stretch "The Turnpike."

The Cowboys have had success with Jones as owner, winning 3 Super Bowls and Cowboy fans remain fans, but there still exists a resentment of Jones for the way he treated Landry and Schramm, and, later, his Super Bowl winning coach, Jimmy Johnson.

In 2009, Jones built, thanks to the city of Arlington, an amazing Stadium that will host the Super Bowl tomorrow (Sunday February 6th). Jones was hoping that this would put his dream stadium over the top in terms of legend.

Slight problem.

The weather.

From this past Tuesday, ice, snow and amazingly cold temperatures for this area (I've never seen it like this) have come close to shutting us down. Add to that, this last day when the ice and snow started to melt, much of it slid off the top of the stadium damaging structures and injuring some workers. One wonders whether the stadium will be deemed fit by the various safety marshals to allow people in. This has caused many to wonder whether Dallas will ever get another Super Bowl.

If the game is delayed, then we have the answer.

All for you, Jerrah.

And somewhere, I suspect that Tex Schramm is laughing, and Tom Landry is smiling.

I leave for San Francisco in less than two weeks, and am proud of the first hundred pages of Catch a Falling Star. I've said this before, but I'm quite serious when I say that this draft will be the last until and unless someone wants it. I have too many other stories to tell.

I'll Miss You, Kaye!

2011-01-30T12:18:00.000-05:00

A storyteller passed away this last Tuesday evening. One I will miss for the rest of my life. This person when pressed, and to be honest, it didn't take a lot of pressing, could spin yarn well into the wee hours of the morning. It is true that this weaver of tales would tell the same story a number of different times in a number of different ways only occasionally matching a previous version, and that most likely by chance. This didn't matter because charm and sincerity made up for it.

I inherited the first part without question. If I ever spun a yarn the same way twice, it was under oath and hence couldn't be called a yarn. I hope I inherited the charm and sincerity to go with it.

You can tell by the title that the storyteller was my aunt Kaye. I'm writing this in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. She will be buried here, next to my uncle, one of the best men I've ever known.

Do any of you blues aficionados recognize Clarksdale, Mississippi? It is the home of Ground Zero Blues Club. One of the owners is Morgan Freeman. And it was the place where legendary blues singer Bessie Smith died in 1937, currently memorialized at the Riverside Hotel as the fourth historic marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail.

I remember it as the home of my aunt, uncle, and cousins. True, most of the time we all met at my grandparents home in Joiner, Arkansas, but from time to time, we made it down to Clarksdale. One in particular stands out, which I may relate some time. I'll just say now that it involved my father and me escorting my grandmother back to Texas thirty-eight years ago.

Kaye told family histories mostly, things that happened when she was young, or things she heard that happened from people who saw. The flood of the Mississippi River in 1936 is an example. Maybe "histories" isn't a good word. I think that "tales" is a better one.

I had so looked forward to many more years of swapping tales with her and listening to her correct my versions with inaccurate versions, which was fine because my versions weren't that accurate anyway. I'll miss visiting her in Hattiesburg, though I'll still come to visit my cousin from time to time. What seems odd to the point of the surreal is that on my mother's side of the family, I am now the oldest living member. Yikes! Me! Holy shemama!

No new stories will issue forth from anyone born before 1957. So the stories of the family are mine to tell, with only two left to collaborate with.

In a family of storytellers, that's quite a responsibility to carry.

See y'all next week!

A Case Against the Bullies.

2011-01-22T23:20:00.000-05:00

The parents of a 9 year-old boy are suing the Lewisville School District in Lewisville, Texas. I should say the parents of a deceased 9 year-old boy are suing the Lewisville School District. The parents allege that the school district did not properly protect the boy from bullying.

The child was not murdered.

Young Montana Lance (pictured) hung himself in a bathroom at Stewart's Creek Elementary School, you see. I find it interesting that the school district found no correlation between the suicide of Montana and bullying.

If I were a parent, I would see that as self-serving bullshit, kinda like the fox guarding the henhouse. If the school district admitted finding a link, then that would set them up for potential liability. Hence the lawsuit, and a conflict for me.

On the one hand, I hate lawsuits filed when something goes wrong, including, and maybe especially, when a loved one dies and no criminal liability exists intentional or unintentional. It just smacks of greed or vengeance, neither an admirable quality.

I’ll leave that for another day.

On the other hand, bullying is a subversive, persistent, criminal behavior that has been tolerated forever with nothing more than lip service paid to it. It is the bane of childhood for many, and is often met with disappointed looks from some parents who are secretly ashamed of having a wimp for a child, or aggressive parents stepping in to protect their child without teaching coping skills. I came from both camps. Name me a parent who wouldn’t secretly prefer to have a Super Bowl winning quarterback for a son than a bestselling romance novelist, particularly the dads out there. If you can name one or two, do they really mean it, or are they paying lip service?

I have to ask.

We as a society secretly admire bad boy behavior, even when we condemn the violence and criminal activity often associated with it. Look at Big Ben Roethlisberger and his Big Ben. Even if half of what was reported about his exploits with women is true, then he deserves complete and total censure. Women should never have to be subjected to that. But because he’s a multi-Super Bowl winning quarterback, we look the other way after a paltry four game suspension. Actually, do we look the other way, or do we forget about it completely? Gents out there? If you or I did just what Big Ben admitted to doing with his Big Ben in a restaurant restroom, would we escape with a little suspension? Unlikely. Most of us would probably be fired if word got out.

We would then be properly ostracized.

Might be a little tough to get another job, you think?

But Big Ben is still making millions of dollars, and no one boos him, not even opposing fans. He still has a shot of winning another Super Bowl this year, and three wins in the big one is Hall of Fame time. Doesn’t quite seem right putting him next to Roger Staubach and John Unitas, does it? Those men kept their wicks dry, or, I assure you, we would have heard about it, even post mortem in the case of Johnny U.

Then again, Lawrence Taylor is in the Hall of Fame.

Character doesn’t really matter, does it?

In my childhood, I didn’t have as much trouble with bullies as some of my friends. They tried to fit in, and paid a price, usually in the form of sucker punches and blackmail. I tried slipping away, keeping out of their path. Sometimes I would hide in the bushes until the bully passed by. Other times, I took a different route home.

Oh, I had my share of trouble, and even a couple of fights. Well, I can’t say they were really fights, but I tried. I’ll spare the details, but suffice it to say that I learned to stay below the sightline of the big bad bullies.

Some laughed at me. I cared, but not that badly. I had a keen sense of self-preservation.

I wish the Lance family every success in giving Montana a voice in the horrors of bullying, and hope the lawsuit succeeds to that extent. Alas, I think I know what will happen.

We’ll all raise our fists crying, “Yes, bullying is bad. Bullying is horrible. No one should be subjected to bullies.” We’ll rattle our sabers for a month or two, but when the smoke clears we’ll still be cheering for the assholes of the world.

What do y’all think?

Using Dialogue

2011-01-15T22:44:00.002-05:00

Reading the list of AFI's top one hundred movie quotes reminded me of the importance of great dialogue. Passive readers may think, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," when it comes to the distinct ways characters speak, but if a fiction writer really wants his or her agent to "show me the money," the characters have to sound unique. They have to be themselves and a great deal of that is shown through dialogue.

Great dialogue is really "the stuff that dreams are made of." It shows truth, and when the writer sits down at the computer and looks at his or her reflection in the screen, feeling that he or she should, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night," afraid that the page will scream out, "You can't handle the truth," he or she has to say to the world, "I want to be alone."

With no on around, you pick up the "Rosebud" sitting in the vase next to the laptop, sniff it, dreaming that some editor in front of the editorial board saying, "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." And the editor named Louis makes that offer, and after you ask, "You talkin' to me?" and he says, yes, then you reply, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," then when he asks if you want to know the numbers, you reply, "Go ahead. Make my day." and then he can have, "My precious."

Dialogue is communication, and as a writer you never want an agent or editor to pick up your manuscript and think, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." So you pick up your "Martini. Shaken, not stirred," and resist the urge to procrastinate, to put down that manuscript believing that "After all, tomorrow is another day," you build that story for Louis, because, "If you build it, he will come." And because stories come organically from the writer, you can, upon completion, proclaim, "It's alive! It's alive!"

Remember that your manuscript is your baby, and when your agent puts it in the slush pile, you call that agent, named Tom Houston, and say, "Houston, we have a problem," "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

When it comes to writing, "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death," but you can take that manuscript and scream out, "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

And that day when you get that sale you call your friends telling them, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the fact of the earth."

How about a little scattershooting?

When you're writing murder mysteries you're telling your readers, "I see dead people."

You don't have to write at Starbucks. I've tried and believe that "There's no place like home." And when you have to force a line or two of dialogue, "May the Force be with you."

After that first novel hits the bestseller list, tell them, "I'll be back." And when you look at your sailing craft in the marina that you paid hard-earned writing money for thinking, "What a dump," the answer is simple, "You're going to need a bigger boat."

When everything falls into place, look in the mirror, nod knowingly and think, "I'm the king of the world."

See y'all next week. "Carpe Diem."

Censorship of Huckleberry Finn

2011-01-08T23:14:00.001-05:00

I have great respect for editing and those who practice the craft. Those who write for a living and those of us who aspire to depend on editors for so many things, from catching a misplaced modifier, to an illogical plot point, to letting us know that our protagonist had blue eyes in chapter one and brown in chapter thirty.

And that's just the beginning of what good editors do.

There is, however, an ugly beast called censorship, and Auburn professor Alan Gribben, to my mind, has ventured into that territory. I think he means well, but so do most censors. Remember that the Volstead Act, prohibiting alcohol, brought organized crime to the forefront where it's been ever since. But we had to protect our kids from the saloons and pool halls and drunken slobs, didn't we? Hence Prohibition. Hence Al Capone and all who have followed.

So what has Professor Gribben done?

Censored a classic to make it more "palatable." Gribben has taken Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and changed the 219 uses of the word "nigger" and replaced it with the word "slave," and changed the colloquial term "Injun" (remember Injun Joe?) to "Indian."

As a white man, I had to take a little time to see whether my knee-jerk reaction was well founded and not insensitive. I think it is well founded and not insensitive.

Read the book. I just did in the last few days. It doesn't take long.

In no way is Twain (pictured) or Huck racist. In fact, some critics have argued that Huck and Jim are lovers. I personally thing that's overdoing it a bit, but there is no doubt that Jim is far more of a father and father figure to Huck than that mean, drunken sot of a bastard who actually sired him was.

I read a thoughtful opinion piece from Clarence Page, a member of the Chicago Tribune's editorial board. Mr. Page, who also happens to be black, writes ...

Besides, making the book less controversial might make it more palatable for many classrooms, but it also risks taking away its edge, the risky subversive power of Twain's words and story that kept my classmates and me awake, alert and talking about it.

And that's the key, to my mind. Let's talk about it. In class. Let's allow our young people to read literature and discuss all of the implications. That's what literature is supposed to be about, isn't it? It was when I went to school. Let's not hide from the time that Twain writes about. And let's damn sure not censor it.

I read it first (along with Tom Sawyer) when I was in the fifth grade. Granted we were in the early years of civil rights legislation. In fact, that was 1968, then year Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. We actually discussed Tom and Huck in class, discussing the evils of racism, we called it race prejudice back then, and ways to help all of us understand each other.

A whole bunch of racism was exposed, in society itself, and in the printed word, but not one serious accusation about Twain being racist was made to my knowledge.

I read Huck again as a junior in high school, and then again in college. We had some lively discussions, I can tell you, but nothing about Twain's choice of words being bad or evil.

I agree with Mr. Page when he writes ...

I would rather see "Huck Finn" restricted to eighth-graders and older than see it shoved out of sight or watered down.

So would I. Are you listening Professor Gribben? Or are you hopelessly caught in the PC vortex? One again, from Mr. Page ...

We should teach youngsters about history, not try to protect them from it.

I couldn't have said it nearly so well or compelling.

Now for a little scattershooting.

First, I weighed in at 265 this morning (Saturday morning). I feel better, and am looking forward to the day when I can return to the pool and swim real laps.

I can't wait until my trip to San Francisco and the writers conference.

I know I haven't posted on my other blog for awhile, but I'll try to post twice this month to make up for it.

I'll see y'all next week.

Into the Woods

2011-01-02T00:28:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I know it's traditional to have a list of resolutions on the day of Janus, the two-faced God. I've constructed one of those, too. More than that, though, I want to keep on with the process of self-discovery. Not the self-pity kind I indulged in a couple of months ago, and maybe not even the Scrooge-like analysis I had last week. Real honest-to-goodness self-discovery is the goal here.

So, at the top of my list is to cultivate the good parts of my personality, to understand that my frequent lack of self-confidence stems from the fact that I ignore those good qualities and let them wither. Many folks in various words have said that I must exercise those good parts to strengthen them like muscles.

Remember the movie "The Dead Poet's Society?" Remember the bit that opened each of the Society's meetings? In typical Hollywood arrogance, the screenwriters changed the wording of the great Henry David Thoreau (pictured), but let me quote the original.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

It's long past time I went into the woods. Time that I stopped being frightened of my own potential. Time that I discovered exactly what my potential is. Time that I risked to gain rather than letting time catch up with me. "To front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

New Year's Resolution Number One: I'm going into the woods. I'll read more. The classics. The genres I hope to write in. To follow my own path wherever it may lead. I've always wanted to be a great storyteller, and couldn't give two shits in a piss pot about being a great writer. Well, what-the-eff is wrong with wanting to be the best possible writer as well. BTW - a single word meaning "couldn't give two shits in a piss pot about," is "eschewed." So, what's wrong with cultivating the ability to use either or both of those expressions depending on the situation? Hmmm?

None, to my mind. They're both expressive in their own ways.

Oh, and part of that is watching less television. Sorry TVFN

New Year's Resolution Number Two: I will not knowingly read any more bad writing or bad stories. Period. It'll take a little more time in the bookstore to accomplish this one, but I will. I'll have to pick and choose carefully, because life is quickly becoming too short to read shit. But along those same lines ...

New Year's Resolution Number Three: I will read more new material than old, because I'm not writing in the world of Dickens, or Austen, or Thoreau. I'm writing in the here and now, and even those stories I write about periods long since gone, I have to write from the perspective of the here and now for the here and now.

Ain't that right? :-)

So, New Year's Resolution Number Four: I mentioned last week, I will learn to love the man looking back at me in the morning. He's a pretty good guy most of the time. I'm resolved to make him better and to understand him better and try to understand other people better.

New Year's Resolution Number Five: I'm going to cultivate courage. I can't say I'm going to stop being afraid. That's not realistic. Fear is not a light switch to be turned on and off. But I can resolve to ... what's the common phrase? ... feel the fear and do it anyway.

The art of doing that is called courage.

I have been afraid most of my life, you see, for stupid reasons and rational ones. But setting all of that aside, a new almost overwhelming fear has latched its claws into my skin. It's best expressed by a poem I learned in college, one you won't find in "Dead Poet's Society." It's called, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

I'm walking up to that point of blushing unseen, and it's scaring the shit out of me. So, by cultivating courage, I can accept this and make sure it doesn't happen, that I don't die without at least giving it my best shot. To have the guts to walk out of that desert air and not waste myself and my gifts. I feel I've done that to this point.

I want to contribute something. To realize what Walt Whitman meant when he wrote ...

That you are here--that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

And yes, this one is in "Dead Poet's Society."

I'd so love to contribute a verse.

New Year's Resolution Number Six: I will contribute a verse. This year.

How about another verse from "Dead Poet's Society?" Robert Herrick - To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day 

To-morrow will be dying.

And so that I can put off the last part as long as possible ...

New Year's Resolution Number Seven: In three parts ... eat healthy ... deliberate exercise three times a week ... reach out to others and care for them.

This last part may, in fact, be the most important one. So be it resolved that I pay particular attention to that.

I weighed in at 270 yesterday morning. We'll start there, and I'll resume posting my weight.

See y'all next week.

A Christmas Introspection

2010-12-25T11:11:00.001-05:00

Many will have dreamed of a White Christmas this year. I dreamed of one like I used to know. It was the wonderful dream of a tree decorated with scores of lights and ornaments and tinsel, topped by a star. Underneath, a wave of presents looking like a wheat field waited for our anxious hands to tear the wrapping off and discover the treasure within.

There, the five of us (mom, dad, sister, brother, and me), opened presents at four or five in the morning, whenever my sister woke up, and enjoyed each other's company. Even while living on my own in the Jack in the Box days, I'd stay either stay over or, more likely, come after closing the place down.

I even remember the last present I gave my father, tickets to the Cowboy playoff game. Christmas 1978.

He took my brother.

Dallas beat the Atlanta Falcons 27-20 on December 30. They went to the Super Bowl that year, losing to Pittsburgh 35-30.

Starting the year after my father died, Christmas's changed. Not the loot portion. Neither of my parents received much when they were young due to depression finances so they took it out on their kids with extravagance. My mom became even more lush without anyone to check her, but something else changed. The spirituality of the season left never to return, so my brother, sister and I clung to what was left ... the packages. Since my mom wasn't particularly demonstrative in handing out affection, we took what we could get.

There's something obscene in having a thirty-five year old, a thirty-one year old, and a twenty-six year old all still getting presents from Santa Claus, but my mom insisted at a certain point in Christmas preparations up until that time that all three of us go to bed while she finished up ... before Santa came. And she would get mad when we told her that if there any heavy lifting to get me or my brother. No, she said. Santa would take care of it. And she determined to spend to the penny the same amount on each of us. She even apologized to me one year for spending five dollars less on me than my siblings. Five bucks out of three thousand.

Did it occur to us at the time that something was dreadfully wrong here? No it didn't, because the loot was the loot, and Christmas morning was all about the loot. It would take a level of maturity our mother took great pains to check for us to refuse to accept so much.

About the adage, "'Tis better to give than receive," my sister expressed our attitudes perfectly by saying, "That's true. But if someone gives, someone has to receive. That might as well be us."

I laughed, having nothing more than a vague idea just how wrong these Christmas's were, that my mother was trying her damndest to buy our love when we should have reassured her, letting her know that she didn't have to go into debt at Christmas. But hey, the loot was the loot wasn't it?

I tried so hard to find something more, like attending midnight mass, saying the rosary, whatever ... but looking back, it was cold on Christmas morning, even if the outside temperature was in the seventies.

My mom died the night before Thanksgiving 2000, and Christmas changed again, becoming about me and my sister. I would spend some of it with her and her husband, then with her alone when he left her, and would visit other friends as well. I did find a measure of spirituality but didn't really appreciate it, didn't really understand the dynamic of it or of my life for that matter.

My sister died six days before Christmas in 2006, and the day then became no more relevant to me than President's Day. I spend it with wonderful friends and have dinner and conversations and even present exchanges, but try as I will, I can't seem to find the magic anymore.

It's not there.

I wonder now if it ever was.

It wasn't there this year, either, though my friends Aaron and Jill were gracious enough to cheerfully have me over again. I am most grateful.

But something has become clear now.

Thanksgiving and Christmas have lost their meanings for me and I have to find them again.

It goes beyond that though. I've lost my way through life. I had a long conversation with a mentor at work, and damn, at the tender age of fifty-three I still have very little confidence in myself as a person. She obviously hasn't been the only person to have noticed, though I thought I was brilliant at hiding it.

Well, actually that's not quite true. There have been times in my life when I've had far more confidence in myself than now. Never as much as I would like, but certainly more than now.

Which begs the question, how do I get it? Or how do I get it back?

Books have been written on the subject, but it's not books that are going to get me through this unless ... unless they are mine. :-).

A friend of mine told me not long ago that I changed after mom died, and then again after my sister died and not all of the change was good. Those things I can't see, but I'm feeling that he's right. And if he is, then have I wasted more than ten years of my life?

No. I've already had that pity party. I'm not going to have it again.

But, factually, I allowed myself to be controlled by my mother from the beginning of time. She, herself, was so scared that she couldn't be loved that she spend years trying to buy the love of people, her mom, me and my siblings, and even friends. She had no concept that people could love her just because she was a good person.

So, she dangled the carrot and I jumped. That cost me a marriage, and whatever self-confidence I may have developed. Okay. That's done and over with.

So, what steps do I need to take now?

Well, I need to lose weight and finish Catch a Falling Star. No doubt. But I'm thinking that those will have to be by products of a more confident me. So I can't use those as crutches. In reality, they are the symptoms.

Okay. Fair enough. So what do I do? How do I gain self-confidence? Don't I have to have at least a measure of success to be confident? I haven't yet had success as a writer, less than zero success in relationships since I haven't really had many ... but I'm a friend and am blessed with a number of friends!

Let's start there, shall we? That resonates. I'm a friend and am blessed with a number of wonderful friends.

You know something? I'm writing this part Christmas Eve. I'm going to pause a while to watch It's a Wonderful Life, so let me do that and I'll be back next paragraph.

And here I am. Can anyone watch that movie without crying? I sure-as-hell can't. And the only reason it played this evening on my television was tradition. Since I first saw it, I haven't missed a year seeing it, so I thought to just put it on as background so as to claim that I watched it another year even if I really didn't "watch" it. Couldn't do that, though. Not at all. Like reading nearly 900 pages to read Agnes telling David Copperfield, "I've loved you all my life," ... the most emotional line I've ever read in fiction ... I had to see the buildup to Clarence getting his wings.

What a marvelous character actor Henry Travers was!

Anyway, back to my introspection. It's impossible to gain confidence without success, isn't it? Even George Bailey in the story had to face that. Of course, George had amazing success that he didn't see. He just had to be shown the difference he made in the world.

So where to start? It's going to sound trite, and sentimental, and stupid, but I have to start each day by looking in the mirror and finding a way to like the guy looking back.

The dude I see there now is one selfish son-of-a-bitch and has been for a mighty long time. That's pretty harsh, but true. So I have to start by looking past that and into the good parts. They are there. I know they are. From time to time they just sort of jump out and announce themselves briefly before returning to the safety my heart's cellar.

My friends can see those good parts from time to time. I have to look with better eyes. And, well, I have to start another Christmas tradition, someway, somehow. Too late for this year, but I can certainly spend this next year considering just how to do that. A possibility occurred.

Prior to the publication of a particular work of literature, Christmas was a time for revelry and celebration. Lord knows I've been through those times, haven't I? But from the time of this particular work of literature, the emphasis has shifted to giving, particularly to the poor.

That particular work of literature? You know it. It's pictured above. It's, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens published December 19, 1843. Then came the popular carol, "Good King Wenceslas" in 1853, about a king bringing meat and drink to the poor.

And the last line of that song is, "Ye who now shall bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing."

Wow. So what do I do? I'll start greeting the dude I see in the mirror every morning like my best friend in the world. Every morning. Right now, that's the poor guy I need to bless. Dude? Guy? How about man? Never have I been comfortable referring to myself as a "man," or being referred to as a "man."

That's telling, too.

I have a lot of work to do, but it's not too late. Not at all, and there is still time to make progress before San Francisco.

It's now Christmas morning, and I feel good. I've taken a step. And I suspect that if I can somehow develop some measure of confidence, then other good things will fall into place.

Including finding my way to help the real poor.

See y'all next week.

Oscar Time For Colin!

2010-12-18T22:24:00.001-05:00

I have to be reminded from time to time that stories don't have to be about war or forbidden romance to be compelling. Sometimes, the best stories are about simple things brought into an intense spotlight.

The movie "The King's Speech" is exactly that. The evolution of war and the consummation of forbidden romance are supporting tales to this wonderful story of the courage of a king and the development of a friendship with a commoner.

The king is George VI of England, the reluctant king, and the man who ascended to the British throne when his brother Edward VIII abdicated to marry twice-divorced Wallis Simpson in what was called "The Love Story of the Ages." This tale tells how the King prepares to present a speech over the radio.

Huh? What?

How he prepares to make a speech?

How about if I added that the speech was to be broadcast live over the radio? Not convinced?

How about if this speech had to rally the British Empire against the tyranny of Adolf Hitler? A little better?

Let's add something to that. We already know he never wanted to be king. Now you see...

... the poor man suffered from a bad stammer and had since boyhood. Most of us take for granted the ability to speak with one another, or even speak with several at once. This man was uncomfortable speaking to individuals he didn't know, but as the son of the king was expected to speak publically. When in 1925 the, then, Duke of York, botched a speech at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley he sought the help of Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist and hack actor and resolved to make as few public speeches as he could get away with.

His father dies. His brother abdicates.

Now, what happens when this shy, reluctant king with a cataclysmic stammer must rally the British Empire for war with a speech broadcast live over the radio? Ah! That is what the very best stories are made of.

That, and the developing friendship between a King and a commoner, probably the only commoner who could get away with calling the King of England, "Bertie." And how the latter helped the former overcome the impediment to give a brilliant speech and prepare the Empire for the dangers ahead.

I don't suffer from a stammer, but don't think I could broadcast live to the world with the intent to rally the troupes. What a burden that would be to carry, don't you think? How many of us could do it, even without the extra challenge he faced?

Oh, folks, what a movie this is!

Colin Firth was brilliant as King George VI, and Geoffrey Rush shined as Lionel Logue. This is the best movie I've seen this year, just nudging out "The Social Network." I'm going to see it again, maybe a few times. What that man did way back in 1939 was courageous beyond belief. Courage is doing something you're afraid to do.

I have a newfound admiration and respect for King George VI.

And Colin Firth should win the Oscar for playing him.

Now on to a little scattershooting...

My sister died four years ago today (Sunday the 19th). I still miss her, but am determined to enjoy Christmas this year.

For the first time in awhile, I have a Christmas song of the year, one that really touches me. It's Vince Vance and the Valiants, "All I Want For Christmas is You."

I am determined to not gain weight over the holidays, and have composed a list of reasons to lose weight. The first item on that list is that I want to be able to tie my shoes and breathe at the same time.

Catch a Falling Star is progressing nicely. I'm nearly at page 200 on draft Lucky 13, and liking the way it's coming along.

I'm looking forward to my trip to San Francisco in February, hopefully to sell the novel, and head toward writing for a living. Damn I want to be writing for a living.

But then that's what this blog is about ... the road toward that very thing.

Happy Holidays to all of you!

See y'all next week.

Turn Out the Lights, the Party's Over

2010-12-12T09:46:00.000-05:00

I watched the "Ice Bowl" on television. The game in1967 when Bart Starr on fourth down quarterback -neaked into the end zone behind guard Jerry Kramer and tackle Forrest Gregg (later a Cowboy) to win the NFL championship.

That game solidified Vince Lombardi's reputation as a coach, and Starr's as the quarterback just behind the great Johnny Unitas.

But what about the losing quarterback that day? The one who had the game won until the final few seconds?

Don Meredith was a brilliant quarterback. He was tough. He was intelligent, and, in the words of Tom Landry, "the best player I ever coached."

Every home game he ever played was in north Texas. He played high school in Mt. Vernon, college at SMU, and his entire pro career with the Cowboys.

When he retired, I couldn't understand why. He had barely spent nine years in the NFL. He was just coming into his prime. Had barely lost NFL championship games to Lombardi's Packers. Barely. Each game could have gone either way. A play here or there could have turned the tide. But he called it a career a season after the Ice Bowl.

Then he gave pro football his greatest contribution ... his presence from 1970 on Monday Night Football. How many of us remember that the original Monday night trio was Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and Don Meredith. It was 1971 that Gifford, Cosell, and Meredith became a team.

And what a team. The three of them changed football. They blended together like the Three Stooges, or Johnny, Ed, and Doc. And Dandy Don was the analyst and the comic relief all at the same time. He brought the concept of entertainment to pro football announcing, something no one ever had before and no one has since. He knew the sport and knew how to entertain while keeping the sport serious.

He became more famous than when he was a player.

I remember once when the camera showed a fan live flipping the bird to the nation. Gifford and Cosell were dumbfounded. Didn't know what to say. Meredith told a shocked nation that the fan was "telling everyone that his team was number one." It broke the tension and brought Gifford and Cosell back into the picture.

Of course there was controversy. Like when he was stoned on a broadcast from Denver and said, "Here we are in the Mile High city ... and I sure am." Of course, the fact that Cosell had once puked on Meredith's cowboy boots and passed out, forcing Keith Jackson and Meredith to do the game alone doesn't get that much press. Yes, he referred to the then President as "Tricky Dick." Who cares, now?

I don't.

I just miss the man and what he brought to the sport.

He died this last Sunday, after hurting for a long time. What I'll always remember about Dandy Don was that on any given Monday night, when a team would make a play to put the game out of reach, he would sing the lyrics to an old country song.

So, Don, I sing it to you now. "Turn out the lights, the party's over. They say that all good things must end."

Oh, heavens, I haven't said what I learned from Don Meredith. Simple. I learned to have fun doing what you do. And I learned that having fun will get us through the most difficult of times.

And Don, stealing from Bob Hope, let me add, "Thanks For the Memories."

On To The Next

2010-12-05T10:32:00.000-05:00

Every aspiring author has chosen at least one book off the shelf, read all or part of it, and wondered how the hell it got there in the first place. I have one of those sitting next to me right now. It's title I will keep to myself because a friend fervently recommended it to me and I'm still pondering how I will answer the question, "What did you think?" when this person asks.

Oh, hell, I already know how I'll answer it. I'll be honest.

And I know the why those books end up on the shelf. Other people like them. Or some editor thought that people would like them. I am progressing well on Lucky 13, preparing for the San Francisco Writers Conference over President's Day next February. But here's what has to happen. Regardless of what happens with Catch a Falling Star there I will be done with it until and unless an agent or editor requests it.

I'm tired of it. Sick of it as a matter of fact. It's time to move on to other stories and other characters. Other books. Sometimes I wonder at all the time spent on Falling Star. But why? I've learned so much. Grown so much as a writer through those pages. And I'll keep growing until it's finished.

Then it's on to the next.

For now, here's a little scattershooting.

Recently I saw a wonderful production of The Nutcracker. So here's a big time shout out to Victoria as Clara and Olivia as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Both of you were amazing! And, both are daughters of friends of mine.

And how about a shout to Tchaikovsky for writing such diverse, memorable music that is as much apart of the Holiday Season for me as Christmas Trees and ... whoa! ... Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

So what will be my next project when I'm through with Falling Star? I have two in mind, one a Young Adult fantasy. I'm leaning toward that one because I can already tell that it will be fun to write. The other will be for readers coming out of Young Adult mode and is a more complex story.

Hell, who knows? I might work on them simultaneously, though I've never been successful when trying that approach.

I'm looking forward to the release of the latest movie based on the Narnia Chronicles, this one, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." I loved the books when I was a kid, and ... well, we'll see.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to Part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows next July. And ...

I got away last week from admitting to my weight last week. To be honest it didn't occur to me to do it. So, this morning I weighed in at 266, down a total of 19 pounds, but up two from the previous week. I think dinner at Rathbun's followed closely by Thanksgiving had a lot to do with that.

OH! And I posted the prologue to Catch a Falling Star on my other blog. Catch it at this link ...

http://storiesoftherock.blogspot.com/2010/11/prologue-catch-falling-star.html

Happy Holidays!

See y'all next week!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

2010-11-27T23:33:00.004-05:00

I'm cheating this week. The following isn't my own, but I wish it was. This famous editorial was originally published in the New York Sun on September 21, 1897, and is widely available on the internet today.

But no one under thirty I've spoken to in the last few years has heard of it or it's one-time famous proclamation. The writing is antiquated, using the masculine for the collective whole, but it's the idea that still resonates.

The writer? Francis Pharcellus Church (pictured).

______________________

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

115 W. Ninety-Fifth Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

________________________

Virginia O'Hanlon Douglas went on to a career as an educator that lasted nearly half-a-century. Until she died in 1971, she would send a nice copy of the editorial to anyone who wrote to her.

Maybe one day I'll write something as good and as lasting.

See y'all next week!

Hello, Harry

2010-11-20T22:35:00.001-05:00

I just saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One today. And what a wonderful movie it was. Just after walking out, I marveled at how fortunate moviegoers have been to have such a wonderful cast, for the most part intact, throughout the series. The one notable exception resulted from the death of Richard Harris. Even with that, Michael Gambon stepped right in and played a very different but just as brilliant Dumbledore.

Like the books, we've had the opportunity to watch the trio and company grow into adults. This last movie doesn't have any of the whimsy of the first one, and shouldn't to my mind. By now the perils in the wizarding world are coming to a head. Childhood is at an end.

I've seen a few movies series, and read a fair few novel series. In both areas, Harry Potter is the best. Yes, better than Star Wars. Better than Indiana Jones. Better than Sherlock Holmes. The stories have deepened as they've gone along, both in the books and the movies.

This is what I love about storytelling.

I told some folks after reading the novel of the Deathly Hallows, that taken as a single work ... and I do think of the Harry Potters as one long novel in seven parts ... then it supplanted David Copperfield as my all time favorite. I'll back off a little on that, but depending on which day you catch me, one or the other will be at the top of the list.

I can't remember if I've mentioned it in this blog, but I'll write it again anyway, I think writers everywhere should bow to J. K. Rowling for nearly single-handedly creating a new generation of readers.

I can't claim to have my finger on the pulse of society now or at anytime, but it seemed that in the time before Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone came out, video games took up an amazing amount of time in a lot of kid's lives. Harry Potter didn't stop it, but did wedge into it just enough to show folks the joys of reading and of imagination.

I was actually a late convert to Harry. Didn't really jump in until I heard rumors that movies would be made. So I hopped on the train early in 2001, reading all four (by that point) just in time for the first move. I loved it. Totally. Completely. No, it didn't conform to how I envisioned the story and characters, but I didn't care. I started seeing them as different ways of telling the same tale. Kind of like one parent will tell you the story of the Three Little Pigs, one way. The other parent will tell it totally different. And you love both.

Ah, then I got serious. After a two/three year wait, I pre-ordered my copy of Order of the Phoenix and picked it up at the midnight party. Sat it down on my nightstand and tried to go to sleep. I couldn't sleep. I had to read a chapter ... or two ... or three. I set it down at about four in the morning, woke up at eight and started some more. My friend Bruce called and asked if I would like to join him and his family at a Ranger game. We went. They lost. I read through until the next morning loving every minute of it.

A similar thing happened with the Half Blood Prince, only I didn't go to a Ranger's game.

I made no pretence of sleeping when my friend Jill and I picked up our copies of the Deathly Hallows. I read taking naps until I finished the whole book.

What a time I had with each one.

So, having read all seven more than a couple of times, and having now seen seven of the eight movies, I'm so looking forward to the completion of the tale in July, but will be sad to see the final "new" Harry Potter of anything on the other.

Wow. There will be a day when nothing new will emerge from the Potterverse. Whoa!

Then again, like Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris, we'll always have the books and the movies.

Here's hoping that Part Two will live up to the magnificence of Part One.

I weighed in at 264 last Sunday. Down a total of 21 pounds!

See y'all next week!

This Is What I Know

2010-11-13T21:43:00.002-05:00

I just read a wonderful blog entry by Roger Ebert. Actually, all of his blog entries are wonderful, he happens to be one of the best writers in the country, but this one resonated. It was about loneliness.

His previous entry had inspired some 400 replies, many from people who had no friends or never spoke to their family or were just recluses. Some were victims of abuse. Some not. Some had never had sex or even dated. Some not. Some relished the solitude. Some not. All found solace on the internet.

It made me think about my own writing; the characters I create. To one degree or another nearly all are lonely. There is a reason for that, I suppose, and I’ve been thinking about it all morning. Looking back, my parents were horribly lonely people. For the better part of my acquaintance with them, they could not, for the life of them, get together for any length of time. They were two people under the same roof, but they didn’t like each other. They loved each other, but neither knew how to express it. How they managed to produce my brother remains a mystery. One night they must have independently decided any port in a storm, and turned to each other for some comfort.

My mother told me after a couple of glasses of wine, that she decided the moment she laid eyes on my father that she would marry him. Looked back with regret that he didn’t have a chance. My father wanted a Southern Belle for a wife you see, and my mother played the role brilliantly, bringing up the curtain on the real Janell only after the wedding. It didn’t come up at once, though. They had me a month after their first anniversary. I have pictures of them from back then. They were in love. Their eyes shouted it through the black and white image into the real world.

My sister came along four years and two days after me.

The love was still there. Then my father had what he called a “nervous breakdown.” Totally lost control of his emotions. He wasn’t violent, though he possessed a temper he struggled to control with every ounce of strength he could muster. He couldn’t stop crying, you see.

He checked himself into a mental hospital and went through something they called “shock therapy.” Quite literally, they attached electrodes and shocked him when his behavior deviated from the desired. He claimed until he died that it helped. I don’t believe a word of it. Like a prefrontal lobotomy, it changed him. Made him distant, even cold. And didn’t even come close to addressing the cause, which we discovered in 1979 was a hereditary brain tumor.

From here things went south for my parents. We moved from Memphis Tennessee to Dallas Texas (my mom wanted to move to Phoenix, which may have contributed to their issues). My father’s father came with us. Once there, my mom immediately found work, but my father didn’t. Mom took on a second job, and a third. My grandfather rode my father hard for not having a job, particularly when Mom was supporting the family. The old man was born in 1890. His values wouldn’t permit the “little woman” supporting the family.

So he left on bad terms. My father found a job not long after, but the loving part of him became a shadow. Only once since then did I see real tenderness from him, and that was when I caught him in a bout of insomnia petting our dog Trina, talking to her.

She understood.

By the mid to late seventies, no one in our family knew who the others were. We existed. That was all.

I’ve written about spending entire summers alone with my own imagination from sun up until my parents got home, traveling the area on my bicycle, or, occasionally on foot through the sewers (how I never got lost is as much a mystery as my brother’s conception).

I’m sure that whatever I write loneliness will be a theme. Write what you know, they say. I’ve known loneliness since childhood.

I should say here, before I’m accused of another round of self-pity, that I’m blessed with wonderful friends, even friends who consider me part of their family. I certainly didn’t follow the path of many of those Roger Ebert wrote of, the ones his friend the late Studs Turkel would have beautifully profiled in his many studies of people. Too, loneliness is universal. People read and watch stories about it because all of us understand it like Trina understood my father.

I’m a happy person overall.

In the grand scheme of things, that’s what matters.

Stay tuned. On one of the Sundays past Thanksgiving, I will post my favorite piece of Journalism. It is, to my mind, brilliant old-fashioned though it may be.

I weighed in at 266 last Sunday, nineteen pounds down from my high. See y’all next week.

A Shout Out to William Martin

2010-11-06T20:11:00.003-04:00

Let me introduce you to Peter Fallon, a character who plunges into history seeking anything from a Revere tea service made for George Washington and missing since 1812 to an unpublished Shakespeare play supposedly located in the hallowed halls of Harvard. These are the setups to William Martin’s novels Back Bay and Harvard Yard. Three years ago saw another Peter Fallon tale called The Lost Constitution hit the stores. This year features City of Dreams.

I highly recommend all four.

I love Peter’s character and am secretly in love with his fiancée Evangeline Carrington. Both are complex characters plunged into complex plots that take place in modern day and back in American history. William Martin effortlessly blends the past and the present, giving us powerful characters from different ages.

Let me introduce you to William Martin (on the right with me).

I first met him at the Maui Writer’s Conference in 2006. I was studying with his friend Gary Braver (another wonderful novelist), and approached him to sign a copy of Back Bay and Harvard Yard after one of his wonderful presentations. He did so, inscribing the latter with “For Rocky, who has a great writing teacher ... Bill Martin.”

For now, though, let me say that Bill Martin is what I would like to be as a novelist. He tells a great story, and he’s a great guy. I can’t think of any better combination for me to try to emulate. AND, Bill loves secrets and hidden things.

I like those things, too.

Therefore, let me issue a challenge, if I might. Read City of Dreams. Then read Back Bay, and Harvard Yard. Then read his other novels.

I’m challenging you especially on the Peter Fallon novels because ABC has optioned City of Dreams and is developing a series based on Peter’s and Evangeline’s adventures. Wouldn’t you like to say you know them BEFORE the series? Of course, you would!

Now, on this day after the first day of deer hunting season, let me do a little “scattershooting.”

First, my dad took me deer hunting a number of times. More than a couple of times I had a deer lined up in my sites and just couldn’t pull the trigger. Some will know, some may have guessed that the movie Bambi was responsible. With the barrel aimed at the deer’s heart, I heard a voice in my ear. It was the old stag after man had entered the forest. “Bambi, your mother can’t be with you anymore.”

My father was disappointed in me. But ‘twixt you and me, I would have been better served with a camera. I may turn that story into something for my other blog.

Next, I need to say that I’m so proud of my Texas Rangers, who boldly went where no other Ranger team has been before. Here’s wishing them a wonderful offseason. Can’t wait ‘till next year, guys!

I’m signed up for the San Francisco Writers Conference. You know that. I also have my hotel reservations. All I need to do now, is to book the plane fare. I’m hoping I get a bonus later this month. If not, then I’ll figure something else out. But I’m going. And I will have Catch a Falling Star ready. And it will be amazing.

Last Sunday, I weighed in at 270, down two from last week. I’m anticipating another couple of pounds lost when I weigh later in the day because I really did eat healthy this week, adding the occasional homemade smoothie to my diet ... Acai berry juice, soy milk, Greek yogurt, frozen fruit (blueberries and strawberries last night) and a banana. Mmmm.

I do need to start commenting on my friend’s blogs. Yesterday, in a bit of a misunderstanding over a bad joke I made on my Facebook status update, I was properly admonished for not doing so. Some of my friend’s have so many followers, I wrongly assumed that my comments wouldn’t really matter. That’s my own self-esteem issue that I need to get over pretty quickly.

There is a give and take here, isn’t there?

I do appreciate all of you who read this and my other blog whether you comment or not. I write this for me, but it wouldn’t be complete without you.

And, I’ve decided to post this blog on EITHER Saturday night or Sunday morning rather than dogmatically waiting for Sunday. Sometimes (like now) I finished writing on Saturday. :-)

Dogmatic? Sounds like a contraption that will feed and walk your dog, doesn’t it?

So, back one last time to the challenge. Add William Martin’s novels to your various lists of books to be read. I didn’t mention earlier that I was a fan BEFORE I met him, and am a bigger fan now.

OH! And most of you should have already done this (or will be doing this soon), but don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour, or you’ll be early for everything until you do.

See y’all next week.

Happy Halloween! The First Novel That Scared Me.

2010-10-31T00:09:00.000-04:00

Welcome to All Hallows Eve, more commonly known as Halloween. A time to be scared and laugh about it, and if you’re under 12 years old, get some sweet treats for your trouble. I haven’t been trick or treating as a recipient since the 1960’s. But I have been plenty scared since then.

This blog will be a tale of the first novel I ever read that cost me sleep. Oh, make no mistake, I had seen many movies that had done so including The Exorcist in its original release, but had never read a novel that had ( I had NOT read the Exorcist at that point).

Until William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

Just a warning here. I’m going to be giving away major plot points on this book. I have to do that to show how it affected me. Stop here if you want a virgin reading of Lord of the Flies.

Otherwise, I’m honored to have you join me.

In my July 11th posting, I mentioned an English professor I once had who assigned this brilliant twentieth century novel in a course on English Literature through the Restoration and Eighteenth Century. Her reason for assigning it? “I just read Lord of the Flies for the first time last summer and loved it! It is my privilege, then, to foist it onto you.”

Foist it she did, and frightened I was. Oh, my goodness. I had trouble reading about those wonderful boys degenerating into savages. Jack’s disgusting ego and cruelty. Ralph’s internal conflicts. Simon’s etherial goodness. Piggy’s whiney intelligence.

So what kept me up at night? Two things. One was the sow’s head and Simon’s vision of the damn thing talking to him ... the Lord of the Flies. The second thing, for some ungodly reason, struck me as cruel beyond belief ... when Jack’s hunters stole Piggy’s glasses.

I can tell you why.

I first read this novel thirty-four years ago, and I have had a few nightmares since. No more than most, I suspect, but a number of them featured the cruelty of taking my glasses off my face and stomping on them. It demonstrated how much that scene affected me. I’ve never forgotten the fat kid (Piggy) having his ability to see stolen from him. Anyone could see the cruelty in someone poking out his eyes. Doesn’t take a genius to see that. But stealing the poor boy glasses? Seems innocuous. Like a prank. Maybe even a good-natured prank depending on how it’s told.

Could anyone other than a glasses-wearer understand the real cruelty behind it?

Golding did, and showed it brilliantly.

Just like he showed so many things about the human condition and human frailty and how civilization is as sweet and as fragile as cotton candy.

Even in the age of Lasik, I still have those horrible nightmares of even my best friends stealing my glasses and stomping on them so that I can’t see.

My heavens. When I read what they did to poor Piggy, I wept.

If necessary, I could function without my glasses. I could recognize people within twenty feet or so.

Piggy could only see light and shadow without his. He was fat (like me). He needed glasses (like me). Call me crazy ... many have ... but damn it was cruel to steal the fat kid’s vision. I don’t care how whiney he was.

The smashing of the glasses has haunted my dreams a long time. The sows head speaking to Simon in that vision kept me awake. Simon was the one character who maintained his decency ... until he was brutally murdered, showing just how easily good can be overcome by evil.

So, that was the tale of the first novel that scared me to the core. Dracula didn’t do it. Frankenstein didn’t do it. Lord of the Flies did.

Happy Halloween, folks!

Check out my new blog featuring my writing. This first one is a short piece about my first heartbreak ... in second grade.

http://storiesoftherock.blogspot.com/

I gained a couple of pounds last week, coming in at 272. Damn, it’s looking like surgery next August.

Please, Lord, no!

I’ve also been outlining Catch a Falling Star, and have revised a couple of chapters. That’s so cool. I’ll keep working on that.

I’ll let you know next week, how I did.

The First Scattershoot

2010-10-24T09:21:00.001-04:00

Former Dallas sports writer Blackie Sherrod, still kicking at 91, once wrote a Sunday column called “Scattershooting.” It was just that. Random thoughts about sports in no particular order ... kind of.

Today’s blog will be scattershooting, but certainly not on his level. Somehow he managed to organize his into an organic whole. But mine will include sports. In fact, I’ll start there.

The Texas Rangers are going to the World Series to face the San Francisco Giants! They have indeed, won the American League pennant. And I can’t be prouder of them, from the Manager of the Year (if there is justice) Ron Washington, to the newest pitcher on the roster. “Wash” thanked everyone including the “guys who sell the hot dogs,” after their fourth victory over the Big Bad New York Yankees, who will never be quite so big or bad again.

He must have been happy. Still ...

YAY!

I’m really trying to gain stability while walking the high wire of the writing industry. Stability while walking the write is always a good thing. See the photo.

I’m looking forward to going to the San Francisco Writers Conference, but can’t seem to get that Scott McKenzie song out of my head. Honestly, I don’t have much hair to put flowers in.

I spent a good portion of this past week working on a new piece, one about my very first date, then promptly submitted it for my first long assignment in my online writing class. I just might change the real names and post it as my first piece for the new blog.

We’ll see.

Today, I’m continuing my outline of Catch a Falling Star.

Wow. I’m feeling that after my rant a couple of weeks ago that everything else in this blog must be boring.

Then again, I’m still a tad humiliated for having slobbered all over the page.

I’ve been to the movies twice to recharge the storytelling batteries and highly recommend both “The Social Network” and “Hereafter.” Got me to thinking about a number of story possibilities.

I saw “Secretariat,” a couple of weeks ago, and while I thought is was a good movie, it didn’t have a good story arch. It tells about a winning horse who kicks some serious ass. The conflict was in the financing, and whether the horse could take the triple crown. I thought “Sea Biscuit” was a much better tale, one about an underdog who captured the hearts of America during the Depression. Far more conflict.

Conflict in a story is good.

Note to self: Add conflict to Catch a Falling Star.

... and every other story I’ve ever written.

Why did ESPN not air their Baseball Tonight show after the Rangers clinched? They only mentioned the victory on Sports Center. Seems like the whole Network shut down because their beloved Yankees lost.

They chose to gush over a Lakers pre-season game.

Thanks for picking up your toys and going home, ESPN.

Bad sports. Bad journalists. Sore losers.

And regarding my choice of photo. The pictured group is part of the Flying Wallendas. My dad took us to see them two generations ago in Fort Worth circa 1963 or 64. Karl Wallenda, in particular. We followed his exploits until his death in 1978. The woman standing on the man’s shoulder is Aurelia Wallenda, Karl’s great-granddaughter. The man on the bike is Tino Wallenda, Karl’s grandson.

The circus is a dying art. Circus performers a dying breed.

Cirque du Soleil isn’t real circus. It’s a spectacle. A damn good one, but not those acts Cecil B. DeMille immortalized in his movie, “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

Then again, does anyone remember that movie?

I weighed in at 269 pounds last Sunday. I’m eating less. Now it’s time to eat healthy. I want to have Falling Star completely outlined this week. And ...

GO RANGERS!!!

I’ll let you know next Sunday how thing went. Thanks for following.

San Francisco

2010-10-17T02:57:00.002-04:00

The pity party is over. I am myself again. But boy, it wasn’t easy. I don’t think I could have done it without private e-mails from three special people. Thanks to you all. You know who you are.

What hurt the most about the two comments? They were right. Something about having to go back from page 155 to page 72, conjured feelings of hopelessness. And I rarely feel that way. These days, MAYBE once a year for a few hours or so. MAYBE. Well, this year twice. My friend Cathy (with a C) knows about the other one.

I am ashamed of my reaction, but it was honest, and I realized fairly quickly, thanks to those e-mails and a couple of good nights sleep, that I would snap out of it. So I went right back to the drawing board (page 72 of Lucky 13) and started the re-outline. Excuse me, the re-re-re-re-re-outline.

The book will be better for it.

That’s why I love my writers group. They will tell me when it doesn’t work. It’s my job to take it from there. And, I’m doing so.

You read my meltdown. Now read me coming back with a vengeance.

I will NOT give up.

Storytelling is what I was made to do. And do it I will. And make a decent living at it.

To that extent, I have taken one helluva risk folks.

I’ve signed up for the San Francisco Writers Conference knowing that I will have to sell a story or two, possibly even the novel ... or create a book proposal of some kind that someone wants ... to pay for it.
I have just enough paid on those pesky credit cards to afford the conference and make the hotel reservation. I have to wait a few weeks to make the plane reservations, but I’ll be able to fly Southwest. Deficit spending. What a concept. Still, I am excited.

I’ve laid over in San Francisco a couple of times, but have never seen the city. I’m going to now. I don’t have much hair left, but I’m damn sure going to wear flowers in the remaining strands.

I won’t be flying back in time, but I will. When I walk the streets, eat the magnificent seafood and sourdough bread, my cousin Charles, one of the early AIDS victims nearly thirty years ago, will be on my mind.
He danced with the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the all-male ballet troupe. They were good. He was good. They were legit, and funny, and one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. And it was both amazing and amusing watching males dancing female roles en pointe.

Random thought – my heart just overflowed watching my cat walk, sit, and start licking his front paws. Saw it coming a mile away. Now, if I can only tell when he decides to lick where his gonads used to be. :-)

My online writing class started again yesterday, and I’ve already posted my quick write. I’ve already revised two chapters of Catch a Falling Star, and am working on a long assignment for my group.

Damn! I’m feeling pretty good.

I weighed in at 270 pounds last Sunday, a total of fifteen pounds down since August 1. Not a lot, really, but I certainly haven’t been starving. It’s probably time to cut back just a little more.

And, one more thing. The length of these blogs is getting a little our of hand for my taste, so I’m cutting them back to less than 600 words. This will be just over that. Suffice it to say that I am writing, and am enjoying it again.Perhaps the meltdown was inevitable.

I’ll let you know next week how I did. Also, stay tuned for my new blog coming later this month.
BTW – If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend “The Social Network.” It’s the best movie I’ve seen this year.

What Have I Done?

2010-10-10T23:59:00.001-04:00

I stated at the beginning of these blog entries that I would write about everything. Things that excited me, and things that made me cry. It’s been building these last weeks with a couple of boring entries, but the dam just broke. I cried today. Big time. On my way home from my writers group meeting. I wondered all the way home whether I had it. Whether I’ve been spinning my wheels all of my life.

At fifty-three years of age, and decades of working from my imagination, which Einstein said was more important than knowledge, I wondered on that trip home whether my life has been worthless. I thought for a time that it just might have been, folks. And, let me tell you that at my age, that’s a debilitating thought.

Makes you feel your life has been worthless.

And, maybe mine has been.

It’s possible that I’ve been walking day to day from the light of the living world into oblivion. I have to look into the mirror and decide that. And I’m scared. Oh, my God! To look into my heart and mind and through my eyes into my soul? Do I have to? Really? To see the gray in my beard and in what’s left of my hair? Can’t I turn the other cheek and pretend that I’m just beginning my life instead of being ... oh, let’s face it ... more than half way through. Maybe even two-thirds. Heaven help me, I could die tonight. Do I have to face that having accomplished NOTHING worthwhile in my life?

People like me. I know that. But the question is, if I died today, how many would attend my funeral and drop a tear or two rather than just sending flowers and feel like they’ve done their part? Hmm? I’d say six people, including my estranged brother who would carry on quite a bit and focus the attention on his loss rather than my demise.

Hemingway swallowed the pipe. I have no such intention. So no one should concern themselves about my immediate health.

And ultimately, maybe this is a good thing. It just doesn’t feel like that now. When you read new material from a novel and you’re told that it doesn’t belong in your book, whoa! Even when someone tries their damndest to tell you how to fit it into your book and fails valiantly ... you just have to ask those deep, dark questions.

When you write a short story and are told it isn’t a short story, whoa!

You have to look into your eyes and ask. Has it been worth it? Or perhaps the better question would be ...

Will it be worth it?

I don’t know. I have to see how it plays out, but right now, I just feel like I’ve sacrificed everything for a single lottery ticket that, if I win, will result in a stoning. “The Lottery” you see, was a short story about the secret society of small town America. I think we can expand that. Look at corporations. Look at the various industries, including the entertainment industry and the publishing industry. So, if I succeed, it might just kill me. Thank you, Shirley Jackson (pictured), who herself died at the age of 48. At least she was married. Created a partnership with a person she spent the rest of her life with.

She suffered, I know. Untold issues. But she didn’t die alone.

Tonight, I suffer.

What do I do? Where do I go?

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Probably not. This is quite an intense blog entry. But I did promise to report the good and the bad.

All of this, and I’ve still managed to hold a skeleton or two in my closet.

I guess the bottom line here is, can I tell good stories? I’ve said a thousand times that I’d rather be a mediocre writer telling great stories than a great writer telling mediocre stories. It appears that I’m doing neither.

And I’m doing neither while desperately alone.

Call this an extra entry. And it’s beddy bye time.

As always, I’ll let you know how I did next Sunday, even if I feel differently about this entry.

Go, Rangers!

2010-10-10T00:09:00.008-04:00

I am like the Texas Rangers in a number of ways. The major league baseball team that morphed from the second incarnation of the Washington Senators in 1972. Anyone remember Tom Vandergriff? He was a hero to me. Brought major league baseball to my part of the world. I went to see a double header against the Minnesota Twins that year with my dad. He took me. Harmon Killebrew hit a homer, but the Rangers salvaged a split. That was about the time I decided to make a living via stories, and the year I became a Ranger’s fan.

I wish I had done that with my dad a little more often.

I watched the great Ted Williams (our manager) conduct batting practice, giving pointers here and there, then hopping into the batters box himself and putting on a show at the age of 54 basically telling his players that if he could do it at his age, then they should do it. Wayne Terwilliger (Twig), our third base coach, actually ran the game with Williams’ blessing. I still think the world of Twig. The man just can’t retire, and at 85 is still coaching minor league baseball.

Williams really should have managed the club. But it was so cool to see such a legend live and in person.

At the time, I thought that teaching was my calling, getting students to read the great tales with me as their guide. Just like my teachers had been to me throughout school.

I really should have been writing my own stories. But it was so cool to see such great teachers live and in person.

The Rangers have had great players over the years. I have read great writers. One of the greatest of the Rangers, Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry (pictured), cheated by throwing the illegal spit ball and the (at the time) legal puff ball. But you still loved the guy!

I cheated by chunking the teaching and writing and becoming an actor. And met a number of my life long friends that way. So I can’t regret it. How could I when I enjoyed it so much more than even watching the Sultan of Spit. And I really did love the Sultan of Spit.

He cheated, but he was always fun to watch.

Bringing the ship into port on this one, the Texas Rangers are in the baseball post season. They’ve never won the World Series. I’ve published nothing since I started writing in earnest in 1994. Yet on both counts. They’ve now won twice as many playoff games in two days (this past Wednesday and Thursday) as they did in the previous 37 years.

I’m hoping I can be as fortunate.

Too bad they lose yesterday, but there is today!

The Rangers have been patient, done the right things, had a break here and there. They’ve had confidence in their manager, players, and ... yay! ... are under new ownership.

I’ve been patient, am learning the right things to do, and am renewing myself in many ways. Coming under new ownership, one might say.

Just as I’m sure the Rangers will break my heart in the future, so, too, will the publishing industry. But oh, when the excitement hit ...

I can’t wait.

Having the Rangers winning the World Series would be like me being on the New York Times Bestseller like. Neither has been done, but there’s always the first time.

This entry will be shorter than most. Oh, well. I weighed in at 275 last Sunday, a gain of two pounds. That, though, was residual from the reunion. I’m confident that my weigh-in later this morning will some progress.

And I’m looking forward to posting writings on the new blog starting somewhere around All Hallows Eve. And, of course, I will be working on Catch a Falling Star, and my short stories.

I’ll let you know next week how I did.

A Lesson From George

2010-10-03T08:48:00.002-04:00

George Blanda (pictured) died on September 27 at the age of 83. Of all the pro football players I’ve seen in nearly a half-century of following the game, he was my favorite. A man among boys. Craggy ol’ George’s year of 1970, perhaps the most memorable season a football player ever had, turned my mother into a fan of the game.

And to make my mother a football fan took some doing, folks. Let me tell you.

Then again, she was a mere thirty-five at the time.

Blanda played quarterback and kicker for twenty-six seasons starting in 1949, and, in his early years with the Chicago Bears, he played linebacker as well. More importantly, though, he just loved to play. Mike Ditka, who knew him well, said he was the one of the toughest competitor he ever knew whether it was on the football field, the golf course, or playing gin at the dining room table.

But you never heard a bad word about him. He was gracious, kind and adored his family and friends. Len Dawson, former quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, said that off the field, “... he was a gentleman.”

Hmmm. Competitor. There’s a lesson to be learned here. I think I found it.

As a player, George’s goal was to beat the other team. To knock them out of the playoffs. To get to the playoffs himself by knocking the snot out of them.

Craggy ol’ George did it better than all but so very few.

So how does this apply to me? I’m not trying to knock other writers off the shelf. As if I could. Or even want to. I’m a reader as well as a writer. I wouldn’t want to knock good writers off the shelf because I want to read them.

But I am trying to get on the shelf.

Hmmm. Competitor.

Maybe that means that I’m competing with myself to write something worthy. So maybe we’re not talking real competition here. Maybe we’re talking determination, and not just in the writing. Maybe it’s the determination of getting my book in the best shape it’s ever been in and start sending it around. ‘Cause it is headed for good shape.

What would The Grand Old Man do? He’d throw a touchdown pass or kick a field goal. Hmmm. So, in addition to the short story submissions I’ve been making, it’s time to throw Catch a Falling Star out there again. To go ahead and finish Lucky 13 and to move on, just like George moved on to the next game and the next for twenty-six seasons.

Oh, to hell with these analogies, I have to get some doggone determination. I got a little off track with my 35-year high school reunion, and the wonderful visit from Brent and Michelle, and I just went on loan to another department at work which will change my schedule for awhile. Now, I have to get back on track. Bum glue. Determination. Competitiveness. Whatever-the-hell it takes, I’ve got to do it. Time is running out.

The lesson to be learned here is that in the world of professional football, George Blanda was an old man at forty-three. I’m now ten years older than that, and my career as an author hasn’t even begun. He died at eighty-three. That age is only thirty years in front of me. If I plan to be an author, and I do, then I need to snap it up.

For more reasons than just authorship.

The stories in my mind are changing, you see. I don’t view them the way I did ten years ago. Lord knows Catch a Falling Star has changed in that time, significantly. It’s taken on a real seriousness instead of the faux seriousness I gave it in the first draft back in 1998 and 1999. There’s more pathos now. The humor is a little more refined.

Better? Definitely, but ...?

There’s those other stories I desperately wanted to write back then. They’re either long gone or have mutated dramatically. Maybe that’s a good thing.

So, maybe a goal should be that I want to get stories on the page as I originally conceive them. I know I’m going overboard here, but I am convinced that some of those stories I conceived of back then but didn’t write were damn good. Losing them was bad.

Then again, Blanda was a first ballot Hall of Famer and in 1962 threw 42 interceptions, a negative NFL record that will probably never be broken. He’d say let it go, Rock. The past is the past. Over and done with. Just write your stories now. Throw the next touchdown pass. Kick the next field goal. Onward.

One last story about George Blanda. The TV show Happy Days was set in the mid-fifties. In one episode, Richie (Ron Howard) and Malph (Donnie Most) are watching a Chicago Bears game with George Blanda as quarterback and he’s just getting creamed. Malph said that Blanda is finished, washed up. Richie says, “Naw, I think he has a few years left.”

The joke was that at the taping of the episode twenty years after the show was supposed to take place, The Grand Old Man was still playing.

Rest easy, George. Thanks for all the memories.

I weighed in at 273, only gaining a pound during the reunion period, including Brent and Michelle’s visit.

Starting tomorrow, I’m on a Monday – Friday schedule working until 5:00 in the afternoon. I won’t be nearly as tired after an individual day as I am now from a ten hour shift. I’m looking forward to that, as I am to hopping back on my healthy eating regimen.

I’m also looking forward to starting the new blog. ETA Halloween. Stay tuned. As for this next week ...

I’ll let you know next Sunday how I did.

Another Blog?

2010-09-26T09:05:00.001-04:00

My friend Dawn recently suggested that I start a new blog in addition to what you see before you. One with a once-a-month entry focusing on creative writings, rather than this forum, which functions as a journal of sorts. I’ve thought about it and like the idea. Some entries would draw from my childhood and young adulthood up until about 1994 or so. At that point, one can definitely argue that I was NOT a young adult. Not at the age of 37. Damn that’s funny, now that I look at it. Because from this vantage point in my life, 37 is quite young.

But we’ll take it up to about 37 or so. Through my acting days.

I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I eased into the house of middle age and took up residence with a vengence. From this past Thursday, I am 53 you see. Well past youth, but not, I hope, forgetful of what it is to be young. In fact, I’m confident that I can look back at my youth with clarity, respect, and a little bit of tenderness. The fact is, I have looked back on it, particularly in the quick writes Ariel assigns us every week of a session. I’d never really examined my youth before, but in doing so this last year have found much to laugh about, to shed a tear or two over, and to learn from, because I don’t think acquiring worldly wisdom is a good thing if it means sacrificing those magnificent child-like qualities.

But we all do it.

As we up, the simple quality of having faith in other people evolves from wonderful and childlike, to sweet and naive, to inexcusable and insane. Insanity being defined as “doing the same thing time after time expecting a different result.” So. Look at the lessons we learn and how they’re phrased. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” “Once burned, twice as cautious.” “There’s a sucker born every minute, and two to take him.” I could go on. You could provide some I’ve never heard of.

The fact is, I hung onto that faith far longer than many. Some friends would argue that I haven’t totally given it up, and that I’m the worse off for it.

One thing I have become aware of is that much of my childhood fell outside the norm for a boy. Boy, remember, is 37 and younger. :-) People in my online writing class have shown an interest. So has my friend Dawn. Few others, because I haven’t allowed many to read that material yet. The class was easy. I’ve never met any of them. Chances are that I might one of these days, as Ariel teaches out of Santa Fe, New Mexico now. A 650 mile drive for me. I’d like to study with her in person one day. But I probably won’t meet many from the class. That’s just the way it goes.

I trust them, though. All of them. Because they have been as revealing in their writing. And most of them write memoir. Period. Remember my blog two weeks ago? They really do bleed on the page. You have to respect the blood and treat those kinds of wounds kindly.

I can hide a whole lot in the guise of fiction. Would any of my friends believe that there’s a part of me in my villain Goodtime Charlie? A character one of my classmates has termed “my favorite despicable character?” Who knows? He’s fictional, but I assure you that a part of me understands Charlie, despicable as he is. I might have wound up just like him had I become a bestselling novelist in my twenties. Check that. I might have been worse.

So, I think this new blog idea might fly ... at least for me. Obviously, I hope people will follow it, but it’ll be a way to get my creative writing into the public eye. Slowly, I know, but surely. When I go to the San Francisco Writers Conference in February, and a prospective agent or editor asks about a blog (and I’ve been assured they will at some point), then I will have a body of work to point them too.

I’m thinking of posting memoir work at first, then maybe I’ll add in some short fiction, then some experimental fiction. Since it’s a once a month endeavor, I don’t think a maximum word count will be necessary (I set 1,000 words as the max here, and occasionally abide by it), but I doubt that anything will exceed 5,000. I will post the word length at the beginning to give the reader enough information to decide whether to read it now, or later, or not at all.

I don’t know. Maybe I won’t post the word length. For me, I’ve read 5,000 word stories that seem like 500. And 1,000 word stories that seem like 10,000. Einstein’s theory of relativity at work. Einstein also said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

I like that.

So, what are some of the things I can write about/have written about? How about one of my tours through the sewer system of Dallas, alone? How about visiting my father with my girlfriend the night before he died? How about the LA earthquake of 1994? That one takes us right up to my limit and was, as Bette Davis once observed, “a bumpy ride.” Like all stories, though, it not just the story, but how its told. I’ve always had a knack for skewing a story for a particular audience. My ex-wife would say that I reinvent the story each time I tell it, and to a certain extent that’s true. Heaven knows I got just as tired of her saying in mixed company, “That’s not the way you told it last time,” as she did with me not telling it the same way as last time.

In my view, its a story, not a speech. In my ex-wife’s view it’s a “whopper.”

It is true that I have been accused of coming from the John Steinbeck (pictured) school of story telling. The writer of such greats as “The Grapes of Wrath,” and “Of Mice and Men,” told a man a story at a party that, Steinbeck had forgotten, the man had told him the previous week. When called on it, Steinbeck smiled and said, “Well, good storytellers never pay attention to the facts.”

I’m not quite that bad (or that good a writer), but I will twist the facts depending on my audience. Twist isn’t such a good word, now that I look at it. Let’s just say that I emphasize some facts over others depending on the situation. There we go.

So, let me think a little more about this new blog thing. I’ll let you know. AND, I’m past 1,000 words. Oops.

I weighed in at 272 last week, up a pound. This last week has also featured my birthday and my 35-year high school reunion. More on that next week, and probably a little more weight. No time to get it into this one. But it is a pleasure to have my friends Brent and Michelle visit.

The Sword of Damocles

2010-09-19T00:01:00.002-04:00

A young woman of my acquaintance has been calling my name these last few months. She started with gentle whispers. “Rocky. I’m here. Look at me.” Progressed to the shoulder-grabbing, head-tilting, “Dammit, I’m right here, dude. Pay attention.” Then migrated to the cheek-smacking, eye-poking, “You’re going to forget all about me if you don’t open your eyes, you ...!”

Yesterday, she screamed.

I’ve thought a lot about her. Spent blocks of times with her dreaming about all the possibilities. But as she pointed out to me yesterday morning ...

“You’re not bringing me to life. You can’t just dream me into existence.” Or, more like “YOU DAMN WELL BETTER GET ME ON THE PAGE.”

Her name is Miranda. She’s one of the main characters of my next novel. My heroine, one might say. And I’m falling for her. She wants it to happen, and so do I. Now, we have to make it so.

So what’s prevented it so far?

I’ve been taking my own sweet time on Catch a Falling Star. A page here. Three pages there. I have a couple of friend’s manuscripts that I’m reading and commenting on. After all, why does mine have to be finished this very minute? I don’t have an agent or editor with a deadline dangling over me like the Sword of Damocles.

Yeah, right.

That must change, because Miranda is waiting not-so-patiently. She wants to live, is fighting for existence, and I’m the only one who can make that happen.

Am I crazy for assigning living status to fictional characters? Maybe, but so what? I’ve always read that way and always will. I try my very best to live in their world while reading. I celebrate their triumphs, cry at their tragedies, laugh at their follies. I well up even now just thinking of the line, “I’ve loved you all my life.” (see David Copperfield, the chapter entitles “A Light Shines on My Way.”) Some part of me does manage to keep the two worlds separate, sometimes with a dividing line no thicker than a theatre scrim, but it’s there and in no danger of dissolving.

Not yet, anyway.

It’s difficult to start reading a new book because of that intensity. When I crack open one I haven’t yet read, I’m looking to form a connection. A new one and a strong one. How could it possibly compare to the many times I’ve lived in the world of David Copperfield? Obviously, it can’t. But I’m always looking. Occasionally, I form an immediate bond like I did with Harry Potter. He yelled and screamed at me, and along with Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore and McGonagall pulled me into Hogwarts. Before I knew it, I learned to live there and loved it.

To that extent Catch a Falling Star has become like that for me. And I’ve just entered another growth phase with it. I’m finding new things about Gina and Christine, and they affect Jerry and Shirley. I can feel them growing, changing, becoming far more complex than I envisioned when I created them eleven years ago.

Eleven years with these characters. Wow! A long time. The last four have been pretty intense.

I’ve grown to love them. They’re part of my family, though I can never see them in a corporeal way. But with that love comes an abiding hatred. Love and hate are closely related, you see. Not opposites at all. And I’m vacillating back and forth.

The damn book itself has become like the Sword of Damocles in my life. I’ve tried to reach the heights of the great storytellers and have been granted permission to sit in the thrown with no real power, just this sword handing over my head dangling by a single horse hair ready to fall and slice me to ribbons.

Unlike Damocles, though, I refuse to relinquish my uncomfortable occupancy of the throne. I’ve kept trying to earn my place with the great storytellers, period. I’m one of those who had much rather be a small fish in a big pond.

To that end, I’ve put away Miranda and Laura and several others to hang with the Falling Star family a little longer. I feel that I’m close to setting Falling Star in stone. That the growth will end. The new discoveries and twists will go away and the final representation of that world will be on a shelf. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. But it has to happen and Miranda is reminding me of that.

She’s becoming insistent. Persistent. And I’m becoming less resistant to her considerable charms.

So, I need to finish Catch a Falling Star, that is true. I can’t leave it unfinished or the horse hair will break and the sword will impale me. I also have to finish reading and commenting on my friend’s manuscripts. But I also need to take some time each day, even if it’s no more than thirty minutes, to spend with the lovely, tough, vulnerable, frightened, brilliant Miranda.

When she finally secured my attention yesterday, I nodded noticing just how lovely she’ll be.

“Bring me into the world, Rock,” she said, smiling.

“I promise.”

She took my cheeks in her warm hands. “I’ll be good to you.”

She will. And I will keep my promise to her.

But there’s that dreaded sword ...

No weight change last week. I came in at 271 for the second week in a row. Something will have to give, I know as my 35-year reunion is coming up next week and I have friends coming in from Cleveland.

I’ll continue on with Catch a Falling Star, and begin an outline of Miranda’s story.

I’ll let you know next week how I did.

BTW. This came in at under a thousand words. Yay! That was my self-imposed word limit. :-) But this is the first in awhile under.

Let the Blood Flow, But Clean It Up

2010-09-12T00:11:00.003-04:00

I quoted Rod Serling (pictured), creator of the great television show of the early 1960’s The Twilight Zone, on my Facebook status update the other day. “Writing is the easiest thing in the world. I go into my study, put paper into the typewriter, and bleed.” That was wrong. Serling himself was quoting that grand ol’ source Anonymous when he said it.

I believe it, though.

Anyone who has isolated himself or herself in a study alone trying to achieve that psychic connection with a reader by means of words on paper can understand the sentiment. We do bleed because part of ourselves winds up on the page if we’ve done it right. And that applies to all writers, not just fiction.

The power of the writer comes from the spilt blood.

Up to a point.

The problem with some, myself included, is that we bleed onto the page, but don’t see fit to clean it up. And this has been a HUGE lesson for me to learn. We want the reader to see the blood we’ve spilt. To cry the same tears. To laugh at the same situations. To think those great truths we espouse. But readers, myself included, want what’s underneath. The blood hides that from view.

What I’ve learned from watching Rod Serling and others is that, while it is important that I, as a writer, find my stories compelling enough to make me laugh and cry and think, that’s not enough. My job is to create stories that make the reader laugh, cry and think regardless of how I feel about it. And while the former is a great starting place, the latter can only be achieved when I emotionally divorce myself from the story and give it lovingly to the reader.

I clean off the blood I spilt.

An example is a particular airport scene from my novel Catch a Falling Star that breaks my heart every time I read it. I had trouble getting through reading it out loud with my compadres in The Writerie. My voice hitched and squeaked and hesitated and oh were those tears so close. I choked them back gallantly. That had to be brilliant work. Had to be. I sat in that chair melting and kinda liked it, to tell the truth. Both Kathy and Glenna said, essentially, “cut the scene. It doesn’t work.” They didn’t actually say that. They said they needed more of a reason for the scene to exist. I hemmed and hawed about writing scenes from England that will justify it, blah, blah, blah. Ariel Gore and a couple of the Wayward Writers said the same thing asking, “Why is this scene even here?”

My answer was simple and, I thought, compelling. That brilliant scene of mine (‘cause it had to be brilliant) showed the changing nature of the relationship between father and daughter.

Okay. Fair enough, but ultimately it was ...

Hogwash. Bovine excrement! I’m trying not to write the word bullshit. Can you tell? But it was bull with a capital SHIT.

The scene featured me bleeding all over the damn page and not cleaning it up for the reader. So, quoting Morales from that wonderful musical A Chorus Line, “I dug right down to the bottom of my soul,” and ... deep breath ... discovered that I really wanted the reader to cry when s/he read it. Not to learn more about the characters, not to find out what’s happening next. I wanted the reader to see the blood that I shed writing it and wallow in it just like I did. THAT’S why it didn’t work.

We may wallow in our own blood, but we really don’t want to wallow in anyone else’s.

So the idea then, is to bleed on the page (fine), then clean it off in the rewrite to allow the story underneath to shine. To expose it to the light of the reader’s mind and imagination. To let it been seen and allow the reader to make what s/he wants. The story has to be for the reader, otherwise it’s nothing more than intellectual or emotion masturbation. I’ve been unforgivably guilty of the latter, probably for a long time.

Those of you who know the theatre will recall a classic warning to actors, “You don’t cry until the audience does.” The same should go for the writer (me) in the rewrites. Anything else is self-indulgence, and I’m so damn tired of it I could ... bleed. It’s taken a few weeks for all of this to sink in, but that scene has to go. Period. Lucky 13 has to be my gift to the reader. Not blood to wade through.

I’ve said it before. I will do whatever it takes to tell the best and cleanest story I can to get published.

I studied with Steve Berry in Fiji. He preached writing tight. I’m interpreting that from now on to mean, don’t let the blood show. Get every spot out of the story so that the reader can see all of it. From start to finish.

I wish Rod Serling had lived to write a blog. I would have followed it religiously. The closest thing we have are interviews and some film where he leads an informal seminar on writing for television. He is eloquent and well-spoken, but maintains a respect for the young people in the seminar. It’s divided into a number of parts on YouTube. Check them out.

I can’t say I know a lot of television writers. I’ve met a few, worked with a couple. But to my mind Rod Serling was the very best of television writers. His early work followed by his episodes of The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery took television to places it had never been and rarely has been since. He tackled real issues in entertaining ways, including human equality, governmental abuse, and war. He also had a preoccupation with death as both of his father and grandfather died of heart issues in their early fifties.

In 1975, Serling had two major heart attacks within a couple of weeks. The doctors decided that open heart surgery was in order, risky though it was back then. During the surgery, Serling suffered a third heart attack and died. He was fifty years old.

Looking back at some of those old tales he penned for television like Patterns, Requiem For a Heavyweight, The Comedian, (each won him an Emmy) plus the many episodes from the shows, maybe we did see a little into Serling’s psyche.

But the blood never showed.

Last Sunday, I weighed in at 271, down two pounds from the previous week and fourteen from August 1st. I feel better, more in control. I’m continuing on with Catch a Falling Star these coming days.

I’ll let you know next week how I did.

Bump It With a Trumpet - Cultural References

2010-09-05T00:00:00.004-04:00

My novel Catch a Falling Star takes place in 1970, a specific period in time. We know that in that year, Richard Nixon was President of the United States. That “Bridge over Troubled Water,” was the number one song. That Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix died.

The Vietnam conflict was still in full force. Ethan Hawke, Jennifer Connelly and my online writing mentor Ariel Gore (see last week) were born. Love Story by Erich Segal was the bestselling novel, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex but Were Afraid To Ask by David Reuben, M. D. the bestselling non-fiction book, Ball Four by Jim Bouton the bestselling sports book, Better Homes and Gardens Fondue and Tabletop Cooking the bestselling cook book.

Anyone remember that Rod McKuen was Caught in the Quite while basking In Someone’s Shadow?

These thing happened. They were real. Nothing can change, except the interpretation.

I’m bringing this up because one particular person I admire told me to eliminate all cultural references from my story. S/he pointed out that they freeze a book in time and prevent it from continuing generation after generation. I understand his/her point. Clive Cussler is famous, among others, for using the term The President in his thrillers, rather than actually naming someone. If he used President Obama, the book at some point would slide back into the jaws of the past and stay there (here). Understood. Many thriller writers use The President rather than an actual name. But many of these same writers also cast the Soviet Union as villains back in the day. There is no more Soviet Union. So those books slid back, didn’t they?

My critiquer had a point, though. I am a huge Clive Cussler fan, but even I had trouble opening Raise the Titanic again after Robert Ballard found the quintessential monument to human arrogance, and that it had broken into two large pieces while sinking. Cussler, of course, wrote his tale before that, and I read it several times.

I’ll read it again one day. It’s a good tale. But it’s hard to take the raising of the Titanic seriously anymore.

Unless we as novelists create our own Neverland or Wonderland or Hogwarts, then we’re always at risk of books becoming dated. Remember my example of the Soviet Union? How many thrillers did that freeze in time? And who knows. Texas has the legal right to vote itself into as many as five different states. Do we stop using Texas in our novels because a legislative vote might date our novel?

As I mentioned earlier, mine is set in 1970. Deliberately. I have three reasons. First, I like the time period having turned 13 that year. Second, I wanted to set my story in a time before Roe v. Wade. Third, and most important, I needed a period when a movie star could still drop out of site ala Greta Garbo and the press not be able to track her down. That an item might appear in Daily Variety, asking “Where is Regina Wilkes?” It was possible back then. Hell, I remember in 1970 there was serious speculation whether Adoph Hitler might still be alive and in hiding. He would only have been 81.

In 1970, the disappearance works.

Try dropping out of society today during an age when the paparazzi knows every celebrity’s bathroom habits, and by extension so do we.

I decided, contrary to the advice of this admired individual, to not only include cultural references but to augment them, adding some into each chapter to keep the reader grounded in the time. Ariel liked, in particular, that I referred to Joan Baez and patchouli incense saying that it felt like 1970. Hey! Pretty good huh? That was supposed to happen. She’s encouraged me to keep them coming in moderation.

So in a period piece (and at forty years, my novel is leaning toward that category) isn’t it good to have references to ground the time into the mind of the reader?

I certainly think so. To wit, I’m expanding the concept in Lucky 13. I’m adding real life figures to the novel as characters, like Bette Davis, and June Havoc (pictured above). In one of Gina’s nostalgic day dreams, she will sit next to Bette Davis at the Academy Awards ceremony. And will write a letter to June Havoc (in another of these nostalgic day dreams), who will give her solid advice via return mail.

I wrote a letter to June Havoc with the above publicity still.

For those who don’t know, June Havoc was the original Baby June of Vaudeville fame. She ran away from her mother and married at the age of thirteen. Had a successful stage and screen career in the thirties, forties, and fifties. She passed away earlier this year at the age of 97. Her older sister Louise carried on the vaudeville act for awhile then made quite a career in burlesque taking it to new heights, practically inventing the strip tease.

June’s older sister is better known as Gypsy Rose Lee, and, coincidentally, died in 1970. Check out the musical Gypsy (preferably the stage version, but the film is also good) to get a dramatized/musical version of June’s and Gypsy’s early life. It’s quite fascinating, and contains some of the best songs in all of musical theatre. Three include, “Let Me Entertain You,” “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” and the show-stopping “You Gotta Get A Gimmick.”

I watched it last night.

Bringing the ship into port, I disagree with a bestselling novelist and have solid reasons, other than the defensively egotistical, for doing so. But I do disagree on this issue of cultural references, and am re-dotting my 1970 novel with 1970 cultural references. No person will ever be President of the United States in 1970 other than Richard Nixon. No song will be the top song of 1970 other than “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Neither Janis, Jimi, or Gypsy will die in any year other than 1970.

In fact, no one will ever die again in 1970, or be born for that matter. Nothing else will happen in 1970, except for the story I’m telling or tales other writers tell.

I want those who read my book to feel 1970, or at least touches of it.

I have taken this wonderful person’s excellent advice on everything else s/he said and am proud of her/his notice, but on this one I’m having my own way. And for the best, I think.

No, I won’t mention the bestselling author’s name. Several of you will know who it is anyway. :-)

I weighed in last Sunday at 273. No change. I’m not worried yet, as I know that the first 12 pounds was water and the rest of me needs to catch up. I’m not quite to page 125 on Lucky 13, but I think I made real headway this week. I’m going to work as hard as I can the rest of this Labor Day Weekend ... when I should be on Maui.

I’ll let you know next week how I did.

My Online Writing Class

2010-08-29T09:12:00.003-04:00

Sometimes, I’ve found, it takes just a single word or a picture to jump start the writing. A couple of connections, a spark, and BAM, the engine starts and I’m on my way. I knew that about myself somewhere in the deep ravine that doubles for my mind, but never really understood the concept until enrolling in an online writing class. And not just any writing class, either. I am a proud Wayward Writer and a member of the Literary Kitchen.

The class format runs like this. Each of the eight weeks during a session, our mentor Ariel Gore issues a short and a long assignment. The short is called a Quick Write. She offers a prompt like a word or phrase or photo, then we write for eight minutes, polish another minute then submit. I confess that I kept to the letter of the law the first couple of times and the results sucked. I let the time factor get to me and I could get out of my own way. What to do?

I noticed that a couple of submissions from the vets ran a little longer than might be expected for eight minutes. Example. One had a word count of 796 words. Even just straight typing, that’s a touch under 100 wpm. I couldn’t type 100 wpm for a lottery win. So I forgot about the time, totally. If it took an hour, it just took an hour. I’ve found, though that I can usually accomplish the mission in fifteen minutes with a three or four minute cleanup. Anything over fifteen, and I admit to the group that I cheated. This is not news, either. I told everyone in a conference call what I did.

The results have been startling. I’ve managed to be funny and powerful and poignant and insightful all in that fifteen minute time frame. Some of those writings have been better than things I’ve agonized weeks over. Some of the group, Ariel included, actually prefer my quick writes (particularly when it pertains to my boyhood) to my fiction. I confess I do, too sometimes. Going back and reading them, I’m astounded by how strong those experiences were. At the time they didn’t loom as large as now, probably because I was going through them.

They’ve made me a much better writer. Without question.

The long assignments I use for Catch a Falling Star or my short stories. I always get useful feedback.

The process of finding the class started in the Southlake branch of Barnes and Noble, the reference section, writing in particular. I saw the spine of a book with a long title, then ulled it off the shelf to see. How To Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead, by Ariel Gore.

I laughed. Opened the book and read a couple of pages. Bought it. Took it home. Read it from cover to cover. It touched me someway, somehow. I laughed. I cried. I learned. Because this book is unlike any I’ve ever read on the subject, more than 100 cover to cover over 30 years and parts of countless others. My particular favorite sections are when Rising Lit Star asks Magnificent Meteor. I won’t summarize the book here because you might want to read it someday, and I don’t want to take away any of the joy you might get from reading it yourself.

From there, I checked out Ariel’s website, saw the class listed, e-mailed her asking for a little more info. She e-mailed me back quickly with the info and I signed up.

That was one year ago.

I spoke last week of The Writerie, the writers group I belong to? This class is important to me as well. I’ve made some friends I’ll probably never meet face to face, and received wonderful critique. Notice I said, critique, not criticism.

And all of it started with a prompt. Seeing the book on the shelf. Buying the book. Reading the book. Joining the class. “Choose one of the following pictures and write a story around it.” That particular prompt generated one of the best stories I’ve written. I’m entering it into a contest this weekend (later today).

I didn’t intend this to be a testimonial for The Literary Kitchen, but I suppose it is. Or maybe just a reminder that generating kickass ideas is so easy its difficult. The Literary Kitchen takes away the difficulty. And I’m most grateful.

To Ariel: When I do become famous, I will tell The New York Times that you’re a genius.

Okay, I weighed 273 as of last Sunday, a total of 12 pounds down since August 1st. So far, so good.

My writing goals this week are to submit two of my short stories, and to pass page 125 in Lucky Thirteen of Catch a Falling Star.

I’ll let you know next week how I did.

Writers Groups

2010-08-22T02:58:00.003-04:00

To writers group or not to writers group, that is the question. I have my answer. Yes, but ...

Large writers groups are, in my view, to be avoided at all costs unless ...

To join a writers group is a personal choice. Steve Berry has been with the same writers group of four since he started writing seriously, and, even after becoming an international bestseller, stays with the same group under the philosophy, “Dance with the date who took you.”

I like that philosophy.

Stephen King, on the other hand, doesn’t belong to a group, but has a number of people he trusts to look at his work when he decides to open the office door. His wife is the number one person in that bunch. His “ideal reader.”

I like that philosophy as well.

I’m using both, and it is working for me.

My initial exposure to writers groups came when I joined one of the largest in the country. Its leanest times during my tenure boasted a membership of forty, its strongest, just a shade under a hundred. The advantages seem obvious, particularly when a number of those writers are published several times over. I confess that I goo-goo eyed a lot of those folks, and I got a lot out of it. I learned a lot about the industry, at least from their point of view.

The disadvantage is the same, a lot of different perspectives. For the most part, people in the group wanted you to do well. Others not so much. Many offered critique. Some offered outright criticism with smiles on their faces. Having been on the board of this group, I was privy to a number of conversations, and one that made my jaw drop was how one of these fine and lovely folks bragged about how his comments drove away a new member of the group.

“Hey, if they can’t take the heat, they need to get out of the kitchen.”

I’ll buy that, but there is the natural heat of the kitchen, and then there is arson. And this “gentleman” and a couple of others were pyromaniacs. After having driven home, delicate confidence totally shot a few times, I started to see what was happening and ignored most of their criticism. I don’t believe in stealing someone’s dream. The industry itself will determine whether someone should or should not be published. It doesn’t need any help.

I may have mentioned this in previous blogs, but I believe very much in critique and not at all in criticism when it comes to writers groups.

Critique is when you say, “This isn’t working and here’s how to fix it.” An example would be, “Your lead character isn’t sympathetic early on. You can give him a lot of sympathy by giving him a dog and show him petting it.”

Criticism is when you say, “I don’t like your main character. I’d never buy a book about a guy like that.”

Thank you for sharing.

Chances are high that both types are available in large groups. Ultimately, there will be five or six you really connect with.

Now, the ideal group is the one I currently belong to, big surprise. We are five who connected. We call ourselves The Writerie, and consist of Kat Goldring, author of the delightful Willi Gallagher mysteries (see the cover above), Glenna, Shirley, Jane and myself. We have the advantages of the larger group in that we all have knowledge we can share with the others, but without the meanness of the large group. We’re supportive, and believe strongly in critique, not criticism.

Criticism comes when the book is published.

We meet twice a month and read our work-in-progress to each other. And trust me on this. When I’m on the bestseller list, I’ll still be making my twice monthly sessions to The Writerie. These folks are SOOOO good to me and SOOOO supportive of me, that if I don’t get published it will be my fault. I hope I’m that way for them. I certainly want each of them to be on the bestseller list.

I’ll be talking more of these wonderful writers later on and at various times. Add to that my amazing friend Dawn, a brilliant writer I also want to see on the bestseller list. She has her own group and lives in Edmonton, but the two of us routinely swap pages and tell each other when we’re brilliant and why, and when we’re not-so-brilliant and what we can do to make it better. In other words, critique.

I’m also a big fan of the RIGHT online writing class. More on that next week. :-)

I’m now 85 pages into luck draft 13 of Catch a Falling Star. And I’m looking to make a lot more progress this week.

Thanks for the indulgence last entry. I do appreciate it. So here’s the update. On August 1st, I weighed 285. On the 8th, I 280. On the 15th, 276. So much for the water weight. Now is when it gets tough. I have to stay focused.

I’ll let you know next week how I did.

A Journey into the Personal

2010-08-15T00:03:00.004-04:00

When I started this blog, my intention was to stay focused exclusively on my journey toward publication. In essence, the writing, the submissions, the rejections, and, ultimately, the acceptances. The goal, then, was to stay clear of the personal except to the extent that it had to do with the world of writing.

Oh, I intended to drop emotion on the page, if I could. To celebrate and/or cry at the results of the process itself, but not the life things that affect the writer ... me. No one wants to read a writer’s angst bullshit splattered all over the page or screen, unless it’s in the form of a well-told tale. I suspect that Stephen King’s Misery came about that way.

So, doing this blog the way I originally intended would have been phony at worst, incomplete at best.

Ultimately, though, one cannot have the journey without the ancillary creeping in like bitter into tea. Be that as it may, I’m going to TRY to make this a little more like chocolate into milk, but either way, here goes.

When I left for Fiji in March 2008, I weighed in at a svelte 185 pounds, a workable twenty pounds overweight for my height. I felt good. My famous (or infamous) aloha shirts hung down past my hips as they should to allow those trade winds to slip underneath. I swam an hour solid three times a week. The pictures of me on this site were taken during that trip, including the one above.

On August 1st, 2010, two weeks ago today, I tipped the scale at 285 pounds, the most I’ve ever weighed in my life, at the age of fifty-two, an age where many healthy folks suffer heart attacks and strokes.

One hundred pounds gained. Holy shit!

No aloha shirts. None fit. No self-respect either. And heart flutterings that have since gone away, but not forgotten. Then I understood, perhaps for the first time, a Benjamin Franklin quote, “Nine men in ten are would be suicides.”

So, while I would love to be compared with Hemingway, I don’t want it to go THAT far. Then several circumstances occurred within the last few weeks that tipped the balance a little. Okay. Tipped the balance a LOT.

First, I had a customer ask me on the phone at work if I was okay. She said I was breathing heavily and wheezing. I THOUGHT I was breathing normally. But how could I have been at 285 pounds.

Second, I read about the death in April of the father of two of my childhood friends, David and Bobby Tamura ( he goes by Bob, now, from what I read). I always held Mr. Tamura in the highest regard and respect. When I would become lazy, or otherwise annoy him, he would laugh, shake his head and say something on the order of, “Rocky, Rocky, Rocky. What am I going to do with you?” When I saw his obit picture, I heard him say it again, as he last did in person nearly thirty-five years ago. He died having been the first person to whom the U. S. Judo Federation ever awarded the rank of Ku-dan, or ninth dan. Only 15 people in the history of the sport have ever been awarded the tenth dan.

Third, last Sunday evening I had a long phone chat with my friend Cathy Rosczewski. Well, it started as a conversation and ended as a Rocky monologue about how I’d never attract a woman in my life blah, blah, blah. I exhaled self-pity. And I hate self-pity. Just abhor it. And I wasn’t even drunk. I’m so sorry to have spewed that kind of bile all over her, and she was so patient in hearing me out, yet again. I’ll have to apologize to her and thank her in the same breath.

I will when I have the courage.

But she did mention, yet again, that I lacked confidence in myself, and I took us around the mulberry bush, yet again, by saying that you had to experience success to have confidence, blah, blah, blah. And, truth-be-told I’m probably never going to have confidence in myself as a man. I can accept that. But I sure-as-hell can have confidence in myself as a person and as a writer.

Make book on it.

And that’s where I start. I can lose the weight. I’ve done it before. Hell, I’ve lost thousands of pounds over the decades. I’ve even been able to keep it off for years at a time. The problem this time is that I lack focus and accountability. That happens when you get older.

So, here’s the deal.

I’m giving myself one year from August 1st to lose one hundred pounds. That’s about two pounds a week, well into the safe zone for weight loss. The focus will come from my conviction that if I haven’t fallen into the safe zone, I’ll resort to surgery. Plain and simple. The accountability is that while I’m writing about character and story and submissions and how far along I am on lucky draft thirteen of Catch a Falling Star, you will see notations on my weight loss progress. A paragraph here and there. Not huge entries. I hope this is the last time I devote a weeks blog to this. But it will be there in the shadows.

In the past, I’ve used a lot of things to motivate me to lose the excess weight, everything from puppy love to acting. So, this time I’m choosing threat of surgery (cutting me open like a cod fish), and weekly blog entries (stripping myself naked). I don’t want to use the ultimate one. At least not yet. But I hinted at it earlier, so I’ll mention it here.

I want to live, and I’m killing myself.

There. I said it. Not easily. I’m going to have to dry off the desk and my shirt when I’ve posted this, but folks, I've been killing myself for more than ten years. Slowly, sometimes painfully, sometimes with a smile on my face, but I’ve been doing it. It’s time to face the fact that my mother and sister are dead, and I have to keep walking down the road.

I want to keep walking down the road.

I crave the adventures, not just in the stories I tell, but in life. So, I may be asking those of you who read this for a little help from time to time. And from others, too. I would be most grateful. And I promise always to reciprocate.

There it is. My heart on a plate.

Please tread gently.

By the way, I wrote a pretty decent 2,500 word short story this week about a family who, once upon a time, had it a whole lot worse than I’ve had it.

I am pretty lucky all things considered. And I learned something else, too, this week. Right now, actually. I can seriously bust pages when I want. I cranked out the first draft of the short story in a day. This blog entry will run just over twelve hundred words, and I wrote it in less than an hour and fifteen minutes. That includes thinking time.

As always, thanks for reading. I’ll let you know next week how I did.

To Outline or Not to Outline

2010-08-08T00:01:00.002-04:00

The jury is still out, but I think I’m a convert to the yes side of a controversial technique in writing ... outlining. For years, I listened to the battle between John Saul and Terry Brooks (pictured) at the Maui Writers Conference. The one (Terry) touting the inherent story organizational qualities of the outlining, bringing the story step by step to the climax, while the other (John) swore to the surprise quality of spontaneous writing. “If I don’t know what’s going to happen, neither will the reader.”

Neither guarantees a great read if the story sucks, though. Both admitted that. And, as an aside, I’m missing those battles every year even though I thought they were petty at the time. Amazing the difference between petty and fun given the salve of time. Whew. I don’t know what happened to MWC, but what a good thing it was, and now it’s no more.

I remember Terry saying in his T-shirt, shorts and sandals. “Try my way. Just once. If you like it, keep it. If not, no harm done.”

So, as you wonderful followers of my blog already know, I have been outlining my novel Catch a Falling Star these two weeks and have loved the result. For the first time in twelve drafts, I can see the forest of my novel, the overall layout rather than walking from one tree to the next to the next, unable to peruse the whole of it. Wow! But even though draft thirteen is outlined, I’ve given myself permission to revise it as the story steams down the railroad track. Who knows, the characters may want to take me in a totally different direction. If so, I’ll stop there and revise. I love the old folk song “The Wreck of the Old ’97,” but I don’t want it to be my novel.

Damn, I really think this might work.

My next statement is going to sound like I’m straddling a fence, and maybe so, but my gut is telling me, ultimately, to use both. Just plow through draft one as John Saul would, putting the sweat and guts and tears and laughter on the page. Then, go back and analytically organize the story ala Terry Brooks. The Saul/Brooks method, I’ll call it. Gotta love it. Hey, I enjoy both of their stories. Both have sold millions. I can’t, in truth, disagree with either with credibility, but I can employ both. And am.

I’m one with the outlining process now. A single 3 x 5 index card per scene, and a flow chart of the entire novel. I’m stylin’. :-) Simpatico with the process. I can see the whole thing like I was in a helicoptor flying over Black Rock (Kaanapali beach on Maui). The prologue flowed pretty easily, as did chapters one and two. Chapter three is a little more difficult because I’m bringing back an event from later in the novel to the front ... thanks, Bonnie. But it’s coming together well. I’ll finish that today and move on painlessly to chapter four.

Obviously it’s too late on this one to do a single draft. Unless one could argue that I’ve done a dozen single drafts. But I sure can finish this one and polish it and start sending it out, then on to my NEXT NOVEL. And I’m looking forward to that day. More than you can know. I’d fallen into what Steve Berry (with whom I studied) said was the state where you hate your novel, you see.

And I was so there.

But with this outline, I’m back to looking forward to being with my characters again. Catch a Falling Star is a rite of passage for four people and I have to get them through, just as the actor Edward G. Robinson once said that he gave each character he played everything he had because he “owed them that.” And I owe it to them. I gave them life. And I need to give them every chance to live their lives between the covers of a book.

Every chance.

Oh, yes. I’m a convert to the outline while still a believer in spontaneously spilling everything on the page. And so I’m on to finishing chapter three then four and onward. I really am looking forward to continuing this afternoon. I’m jazzed. Six weeks? Maybe less?

And then ...?

My next lead character will come from one of two prospective novels, and will be named Miranda or Laura. I’m leaning toward Miranda. But I think they both ROCK! I can’t wait to spend time with both.

I’ll let you know next week how I did. And thanks for all of your comments. I appreciate each of them.

The Password For Today Is ...?

2010-07-31T23:55:00.005-04:00

Some idiot once said that, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” That idiot was Thomas Edison, and as the years go by the more I think he has an argument. And, of course, he wasn’t an idiot. I’m currently writing under the light of his genius.

For years I waited for inspiration to strike before sitting at the typewriter/word processor/desktop/laptop. Sometimes it hit. Most times not. And then I was left staring at the last sentence of an incomplete story or worse, a blank screen.

In 1999 I attended my first Maui Writers Conference and heard words from Australia’s Best Selling Author Bryce Courtenay (above) that were at once funny and profound. “Bum glue,” he said. The act of securing one’s ass to the seat of a chair and write, dammit, write. No, that’s not quite accurate. The act of securing MY ass to the seat of MY chair in front of MY laptop and typing one word after another until a story unwinds on the page. I have to apply these precepts to me, you see, if I’m going to get anything out of them.

So, for me to achieve Edison’s ninety-nine percent perspiration, I need a healthy dollop of Bryce Courtenay’s bum glue.

Having really done well with the new outline for Catch a Falling Star, I’m going to now give the bum glue a chance. On the evenings of the days I work, no television. Not even a ballgame. If it’s my beloved Texas Rangers, well, they will pull my focus and I won’t write during those precious two to two and a half hours I have from the time I get home from work until I go to bed. If it’s another team, an exciting game could divert me. If it’s a cooking show, “Damn, I definitely need to know how to fuse chicken tandori chili mac with a pineapple raisin right side up cake.”

So, NO television on the evenings after I get home from work. Period. What I will use is music. The ethereal strains of Enya, or the hard pumping rock and roll of any number of bands, or whatever my mood strikes me to ease my mind into the story, because I’m starting to believe that if I force myself to write three sentences, just three sets of subject/predicates, the muses will wake up and help me fly around my inner world grabbing this scene and that sequel for the story.

I am also starting to accept that working on the story itself is writing, too. Somehow, I’ve never really accepted that organizing scenes and braiding story lines is fully as important as dialogue and description and theme and metaphor. Stephen King says in his book On Writing that he usually produces two drafts and a polish per book. I want to be able to do that. Or at least be able to come in mid-single digits.

Bum glue. It all comes down to bum glue, doesn’t it? Bryce Courtenay writes twelve hours a day six days a week seven months a year. Stephen King aims for two thousand words a day. Lawrence Block, five pages.

Given my work schedule, I haven’t expressed my goals like they did, and don’t want to now. I’m happy that I’ve written every week. Now it’s time to make that every day. Every day. Every day. And I have worked on writing every day since my last post.

Okay, I didn’t work on it much the day my aunt and I went to the Beau Rivage in Gulfport for some battles with the one-armed bandit. I lost forty bucks. She broke even. And I might have missed a little time while introducing her to the Twilight movies. But I did some work every day.

I’m going to try one thing before getting back to the story proper, and that’s to devote one page per chapter to organize the actions and my thoughts. I don’t know yet, but I think it might help add more detail and depth. I’ll let ya know how it works. Regardless, I desperately want to get back to work on the manuscript itself, and, of course to those amazing assignments given by Ariel for us Wayward Writers.

And this morning I head down to Cleburne to The Writerie and Kathy, Glenna, Shirley, and Jane. I’ll have my revisions to do from that meeting as well.

So to accomplish all of this, I have to stay in my chair in front of my laptop as much as possible.

The password for today, then is “bum glue.” Okay. That’s two words. :-)

I’ll let you know next week how I did.

Patience is a Craft

2010-07-20T19:21:00.001-04:00

So what is the craft of writing? It encompasses many elements stated in many ways. What I’m going to try to do is to state a few of those I think I do well, and a few I don’t do so well ... yet. This post won’t be complete, obviously, as volumes have been written on each element. I own most of them.

First thing is to set the scene, and I think I do that pretty well when I take the time to walk through and experience it in my imagination. Night is best to do this. I just put on some music to establish an appropriate mood, close my eyes and envision a castle, a bar, a jungle, whatever and write what I see, hear, touch, taste, smell as concisely as possible.

That’s the ideal.

Where I go wrong is when I don’t spend as much time in the location as I should. What I try to do then is overwrite it. This leaf blew to a spot just beside the third largest of the seventeen bulges of the root system of the oak tree, that dandelion set two inches from the dividing line between the Carson’s Victorian house with all of the shutters in place, and the ... you get the idea. When I spend enough time in my location, I can pull out its essence and throw it out there in a few sentences that hopefully resonate. And it only takes a few sentences, because most times only a couple of the senses are engaged at a time. More importantly, though, I’m not necessarily trying to get the reader to see the exact image I’m seeing. I’m trying to get her or him to see something similar that makes sense.

THAT’S what I have to always keep in mind. Use the reader’s imagination. Tap into that amazing, wonderful resource. I got this notion from the Australian author Bryce Courtenay who recommended this very thing, but in different words. He said that in a romance, do we really want to give our hero blonde hair and blue eyes? What about women who swoon over brown haired men with those wonderful chocolate browns? What about the red haired, green eyes lovers? If we just capture the essence of the man, the readers imaginations will fill in the details that s/he wants and be totally enthralled.

Of course, he also said that in a mystery, we may need to indicate that someone has blonde hair and blue eyes. So the level of description depends on the type of story. Need to know basis.

The next element I think I do pretty well is dialogue. I do this using a touch of schizophrenia I acquired from my acting days. In a two person scene, I take on both parts and speak the dialogue out loud. If it makes sense and sounds like the character I’m trying to create, then I go with it. Again, I close my eyes and try to get a sense of who these characters are and what idiosyncrasies I can exploit. Because each of us has his or her own speech patterns. Unique speech patterns, when blended with body language. Like a character might wipe his or her forehead before delivering bad news. Or a character might have a particular speech quirk. He or she might start, then pause after a couple of words, then start again when delivering bad news.

Where I get in trouble with dialogue is when I get lazy and make the characters sound like me, or, worse yet, the narrator. I’ve been known to do both. When this happens, the characters come off flat and one dimensional. There are many great creators of dialogue, but the best I’ve ever read for making speech patterns unique to the characters is Dickens. As the Harry Potter novels moved on, I thought J. K. Rowling really came into her own using dialogue to distinguish characters. Great dialogue just enhances a great story and gives it depth and breadth and character.

My biggest challenge for improvement is organizing the plot and subplots into a logical upward movement to the climax. With all of the detail, I literally can’t see the forest of the trees. Forest? What’s that? Story? What’s that? I can only see this Jerry and Christine scene. Or the one between Shirley and Croft. And that’s it. My challenge was to get into a plane and fly over and look down. Ah! Forest! So that’s what it looks like!

I did this by taking letter size legal paper and dividing it into four columns, one for each of my viewpoint characters. Starting with the prologue, I put a one sentence description of the scene in the column for that viewpoint character. The next scene goes on the next line under that character and so on. I was amazed by what I saw. Oh, wow! So poorly structured. The beginning was fine. The ending was fine. But the subplots went up and down like a boat in a confused sea all the way to that ending. I needed a build of each of the subplots to a where the climaxes occurred fairly close together. Like one huge wave breaking on shore. Like fireworks. The flight to the sky (build), the explosion (climax), the fade away (dénouement).

I’m slowly getting a handle on story structure, and am focusing on this in draft thirteen. On this, I can’t get in a hurry which would be my nature. Get to the writing! Go for it! NO! I have to outline from start to finish. The emotion and character is there. I have to cultivate the patience to outline. Once I finish this, I have so many other wonderful stories to tell.

Yes, I can summarize the solutions to my challenges in one word.

Patience.

Patience is a craft.

Continuing on with the outline, and am excited about it. Come back Sunday August 1st and see how I did.

True Ease in Writing Comes From Craft, Mr. Pope

2010-07-18T08:45:00.002-04:00

Writing is a craft. Period. That’s the only way I can look at it and do my best. Seeing writing as more than that, seeing it as, say, art, would set me above the writing making me incapable of doing it well.

In my view, writers should never see their work as art, at least until it is on the shelf, and certainly not in the creative phase. It’s hard enough choosing the right word, the right description, the right story element to worry about that elusive something that takes a tale into a higher realm.

I am speaking of prose, here. Not poetry. That’s different. And as the current draft of Catch a Falling Star is lucky number thirteen, I’m still struggling with the craft. Thirteen drafts? Complete rewrites? What business do I have trying to cram art into it, assuming I even know what that means?

I have spoken to several writers, unpublished, who describe themselves as artists. A noble ambition, perhaps, but premature on the one hand, and downright elitist on the other. At least to me. But then again, every time I see a picture of Rodin’s The Thinker, I can’t help but feel that the dude’s constipated (see attached image). So take my view for what it’s worth.

I’m saying that art is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but in writing can only be defined in the hearts and minds of the readers. It’s the reader who determines whether a story is art, not the writer. And I believe it’s the individual reader as well. Not the reader as a collective entity.

As an example, I love Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I read it most every year, and watch at least one of the filmed versions around holiday time. To me, it celebrates the light of the human spirit by showing us the dark -- with a little bah, humbug stinginess along the way. In other words, art -- for me. Someone else may read it and say, “It’s about the redemption of an old coot.”

And that’s fine. That’s the beauty of diversity. The beauty of drunken brawls over the true meaning of existence or the shelf life of a Twinkie. A British gentleman I met in England told me that American football contains artistic elements. As an example, the long pass. “Your quarterback throws the ball,” he said as though it was taking place in front of him, “not to where the receiver is, but where he’s likely to be. When the ball falls into the receiver’s hands in stride, it’s a thing of beauty. It is art.”

I like football as much as most dudes, but I wouldn’t go that far. But it doesn’t matter really. To him, it was art. To me, not so much. Though I’d love to see the Cowboys do that a little more this year.

Bringing the ship into port, I just want to tell a good tale, and let the chips fall where they may. If I tell the best story I can, and people like it, and I make a good living off of it, that’s the absolute best I can hope for. Art is irrelevant to the process.

I’m not going to lie. One thing I dream of, and many writers dream or should, is someone writing or walking up to me one day and saying, “Rock, your story is art at its finest.” Immediately after silently questioning their taste and/or sanity, I will say something like, “Thank you. I really appreciate that.” And I will mean every word.

Because every writer wants her or his story to be read and create an impact of some sort on the reader. So, for me, there would be no difference between the above compliment, and “Dude, your stories rock!” And while the above “art at its finest” patron would see The Thinker as Rodin’s masterpiece, the “your stories rock” fan would agree with me and offer that poor man some Ex-lax.

As I’m visiting my aunt and cousins on Wednesday, I will post next Sunday’s entry Tuesday evening. And it will be on craft.

I am continuing on with my outline, and am liking it.

Follow-up

2010-07-14T22:28:00.003-04:00

Since my last posting, I found a couple of pictures of Dr. Dickey that will give you a better representation than the one posted. Even these were taken six years before I knew her.

I'm currently on track with my outline and chapters of Catch a Falling Star. I'll have two entrys fairly close together as next Wednesday, a week from today, I'm visiting my aunt and cousins in Hattiesburg Mississippi, and will dine on barbecue pork ribs and catfish. I'm going to TRY to eat healthy. Either way, though, I will write.

Love of the Written Word

2010-07-11T00:01:00.006-04:00

A Shakespearean Tragedy is a representation on the stage of a protagonist of colossal proportion who, through some tragic fault of nature, is brought to destruction carrying others with him. This spectacle arises in the audience the emotions of pity and terror with the catharsis of each.

I learned to recite the above definition in the fall of 1976 for extra credit in my college sophomore lit class. The title: 231 – English Literature Survey to the beginning of the Romantic Movement.

I wrote the above from memory. My notes from 34 years ago have been lost a long time, probably on some move or other. That’s fine, though. I’ll be able to recite it as long as I have a memory. Just as I’ll remember the professor who wrote it on the chalkboard all those years ago.

Her name was Dr. Imogene Bentley Dickey (later Mohat), and she had been on the English faculty of what was then North Texas State University since 1943 (at that time it was known as North Texas State Teachers College). From then until 1968 she also served as Dean of Women and was known by the students as “Big Red.” When she left that post, she returned to teaching full time. Indeed, she was quite tall and regal and had auburn hair (though with distinguishing gray when I knew her), hence the nickname. Her demeanor was of someone considerably younger.

Dr. Dickey was idiosyncratic. Despite the subject range of the course, she also required us to read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Dickens was from the Victorian period in the nineteenth century, and Lord of the Flies was published in 1954. Her rationale?

“No one should escape an English class without reading a Dickens novel,” she said. “And I just read Lord of the Flies for the first time last summer and loved it! It is my privilege, then, to foist it onto you.”

She didn’t stop there. She often quoted Dorothy Parker, Edward Arlington Robinson, Mark Twain, all Americans, in this Brit Lit course, so much so that I went out and read their work, though they weren’t required. I’d never read Life on the Mississippi until this British Lit course. Never heard of Parker’s amazing wit, or felt the emotional wallop Robinson delivered throughout his three Pulitzer Prize winning career.

I didn’t just read the half dozen assigned Shakespeare’s sonnets. I memorized those, and read them all. Didn’t just read Othello and King Lear, I devoured all four of the major tragedies plus the major comedies and a number of the histories. All during this semester.

Watching and listening to her enthusiasm for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (particularly the fabliaux ... which she called “bawdy, but so much fun”) infected me and everyone in that room on the third floor of the Auditorium Building, southwest corner. Not to mention her enthusiasm for Milton. And, let me tell you folks, if you can make Milton interesting, you’ve DONE something.

What she desired most for us was to learn how to think.

She once admonished me in class, “I know what the critics think, Rocky. I want to know what you think.” I was nineteen years old. I didn’t know what I thought. Didn’t believe it was important, anyway. She understood that, too. And the whole class walked out after the semester knowing better how to think. Myself, included.

And now, here I am trying to tell wonderful stories with great characters keeping those lessons in mind. What’s wrong with tossing a little Lord of the Flies with Shakespeare? What’s wrong with a topping of Dorothy Parker on a cone of Beowulf? Not a damn thing, in my book.

Our final exam was an essay. I don’t remember the question, exactly, but it was one of those topics on which volumes could have been written and had been. “You don’t have to complete it,” she said. “Just write for one hour, and I’ll know what you know.”

Whoa! They don’t make teachers like that anymore. I don’t believe they will again.

Dr. Dickey retired in 1979. Passed away in 2000, just short of her 92nd birthday.

I’d loved stories since childhood, could sit and listen to good yarns well into the night. Can still do that. But it was the inspiration of Dr. Dickey and that survey class that took me by the hand and led me to a love of the written word.

So those times when I “go without the meat and curse the bread,” I can fall back, not just on story, but on lovely words spliced together to make a sentence, a paragraph, a page until at the end something wondrous and beautiful is born.

Thank you, Dr. Dickey. I’m learning everyday how to think for myself, and to give less credence to the critics. And after all these years, I still have your definition of a Shakespearean tragedy memorized, though I have long since forgotten most things from other courses. I think the reason for that is what you told us at the time, “Just do it in the spirit of fun.”

Fun lasts.

I worked hard this last week, though I was sick a lot of it. I’m farther along on my outline of Catch a Falling Star, and I created a kinda fantasy story of about 3000 words. It would actually be a cutting from a novel. I like it. I think it has legs. We’ll see what the Wayward Writers think. They’re the ones who have it now. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I’ll continue with the outline, creating new scenes for my characters, deleting others. Come back next week, and I’ll let you know how I did. And thanks ever-so-much for reading. It means a lot.

The Art of Handling Rejection

2010-07-04T09:19:00.002-04:00

Behind every art is a craft. Period. At least in my view. But for the life of me, I can’t see it where handling rejections are concerned. People talk like there’s a craft to it. “Paper your walls with the rejection letters.” “See them as badges of honor.” “Picture the senders naked.”

Okay, okay, the last technique is for someone delivering a speech to plow through the nerves. It works, as long as you don’t laugh.

But as for the other two, I only have a 990 square foot apartment. I quit counting rejections at three hundred several years ago. Badges of honor? I must be one of the more decorated writers over the last sixteen years, assuming you have to take all of them down after you receive an acceptance.

Are there really ways to handle rejections? Or can we only cope with them?

The truth is, even after all the years of acting and writing, I don’t know how to handle all of the rejections. Particularly with no successes to show for it. I am human. I feel. And every time I send out a round of submissions, I brace myself for the backwash. I cast my fishing net into the ocean, only to be trounced by the returning wave.

And it hurts to be told that your creation is not wanted. That the world can live without the song you’re singing from your soul. That, when you die, nothing you’ve done will have mattered.

I cope. I know how to swim when the wave hits, but that’s all folks. But the ability to keep from drowning isn’t a way to handle the situation. It’s a way to keep from paying the ultimate price. Handling it means, to me, that we somehow gain control. Coping means we fend off the consequences without disaster. And, ultimately, maybe that does mean handling it.

Sometimes I still don’t know which is worse, the kind of rejection I referenced last week that says, “It’s almost there, but not quite enough,” or the kind I got twenty-five years ago that was essentially my query letter with a circle around my name and a line drawn by the editor to his written words, “not a chance.”

I have enough distance from that one to laugh, and regret having thrown it away in a fit of pique.

During what my late grandmother (Mama Drue) called, “them there olden days,” an agent or editor would take a writer under his or her wing, helping them hone their craft until the result transcended the dialogue and conflict and structure into spun gold we sometimes call art.

No more.

We live in a time where agents and editors no longer have time to do that, with rare exception. They require a manuscript that is all but ready to be published. It the NOW factor. It must be salable NOW. It must be publishable/marketable NOW. And that’s a crying shame, but it’s become the reality of the business.

I would do exactly the same thing in their shoes.

I’m bringing all of this up because I received a couple of rejections this week, one from Glimmer Train. I found out by logging into the site, checking the “My Submissions” page and seeing the word “Completed” next to my entry. In Glimmer parlance it means, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

That’s the bad news.

The good news, of course, is that I am submitting.

More bad news is that submissions summon rejections by a factor of almost one to one.

The good news is that I have learned how to swim even if I haven’t learned to dodge the breaking waves.

Back to the term “almost one to one.”

I haven’t seen it yet, but some day, starting with a single submission, the wave won’t break. The sunshine of publication will replace it, and my eyes will create whatever water is there.

Until then, I have to brace myself after each submission batch and struggle through the churning water.

There is no art or craft for handling rejection to my mind. The only way to truly avoid the disappointment is to not walk down that road or cut oneself off from all feeling. Neither produces good and published writers that I’ve seen. Neither is the way to live life.

This last week, I began the new outline for Catch a Falling Star up to and including working out scene/sequel for the prologue/chapter one/chapter two. My goal of completing draft lucky 13 is more than doable. And I will proceed along those lines during the holiday weekend and through the week. I am also going to play around some more with my MacBook Pro, transferring some old files and drafts.

And, later today, I will go see The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. I’m a sucker for stories of misfits finding their world, and for those who don’t see the story that way, I understand. I just ask you to understand that this is what I take from The Twilight Saga.

Have a Happy Fourth of July, everyone. I’ll let you know next week how I did.

Aloha and A Hui Hou to the Maui Writers Retreat and Conference

2010-06-27T08:59:00.004-04:00

I am proud of my accomplishments last week. I created a single color-coded index card for each of the 88 chapters plus the prologue, interlude, and epilogue, and a four-page written storyboard for Catch a Falling Star. I also completed the prologue and transferred it to my new MacBook Pro.

Now, to Maui.

I’m going to miss the Maui Writers Retreat and Conference and probably won’t realize how much until years down the road.

No. That’s not true. I miss it now. Wish that I could have one more chance to attend with the wisdom of eight conferences behind me. I would do it right this time, the whole thing, instead of doing just a few things right by pure accident. I wouldn’t make the mistake of shoving my novels willy nilly under the indulgent noses of agents and editors before knowing to a moral certainty that they were ready.

Looking back, I know that they were not. They showed talent, but lacked the polish the professionals sought. So I became known to many as perseverant and determined and talented, but not quite ready. One agent even wrote to me, “This is 109.8% there. Unfortunately, I require 110%.” That one drove an iodine coated knife into my solar plexus and twisted. Looking back, I see that it’s best to stay under the radar until ready to make a splash. Looking back ... well, it’s time to stop looking back. And I will after considering the good things about my experiences there.

At the retreat, I had the opportunity of studying with some amazing writers like Gary Braver and Steve Berry, and was selected for Jacquelyn Mitchard’s masters class where six of us in addition to Jackie went over each other’s full novels in great detail. I learned more in those few weeks than in years on my own.

Most importantly, the retreat and conference afforded us all to mix and mingle in a magical setting of palm trees, breaking waves, and trade winds. Someone once said, “The paradox of the writer is how much time s/he spends alone trying to communicate with others.” These annual get-togethers let all of us know that we are not alone, that others know the agony of rejection on top of rejection, and a few the thrill of success.

I met so many wonderful people and made a few lifetime friendships there, including my amazing friend Dawn Ius, who was the first person to hear my true writing voice and made me listen to it. She did that at the retreat and conference in 2006.

I don’t mean to make light of my own writers group we call The Writerie, headed by my friend Kat Goldring, and including Glenna, Shirley, and Jane. In fact, I always look forward to my treks to Cleburne, Texas for our semi-monthly meetings and gain enormously from them. I’ve grown logarithmically under their eyes and hope I have helped some of them along the way.

I also don’t mean to slight the Wayward Writers online class headed by Ariel Gore. It’s so wonderful I can’t give it its due here. Soon. But as much as we comment on each other’s work and have our once-per-session conference call, I’ve never physically met any of them. I know many through their writing and comments, and they know things about me that few (if any) others know, but it’s not quite the same as in person discussions over lunch, drinks, or walking the beach at sunset.

Make no mistake, I need The Writerie and the Wayward Writers. But there is something special about a pack of writers converging on a place and hanging out that is nourishing and healthy. The Writerie and Wayward Writers are the meat and bread of my writer’s life diet. But the retreat and conference were the fruits and veggies. Maui itself, the dessert.

Looking forward, I need to find another conference, one where writers commune, both the highly successful and the not yet or not so successful. One where agents and editors gather to help us with valuable information on the business end that only they will know and look for that next bestseller. I’m not sure exactly how to look for that replacement yet, but I will start with Google, and see where the breadcrumbs lead.

I will find one somewhere, but it won’t have the spirit of aloha, or ohana. At least not in the beginning.

When I logged onto retreat and conference website and saw the cold letter from a law firm announcing that it was helping “... the Hawaii Writers Foundation with winding up its business operations,” my heart broke. I couldn’t believe it could go on and say that, “In light of this termination, there will be no further HWF sponsored Retreats or Conferences in the future.” A tiny little piece of me died that day.

So, mahalo nui loa to John and Shannon Tulius for all of the years of joy. Aloha mai e. And to Sam Horn, the presence of the retreat and conference. And to all the wonderful writers I met, and/or studied with and under, and/or had a drink with, and/or communed with. I hope to see all of you somewhere down the road.

I hope to see Maui one day soon as well. Because Maui no ka òi. And, what is a meal without dessert?

This week, I will begin the new outline for Falling Star and work on scene/sequel structure for the first few chapters. I’m setting myself a goal of two months to complete lucky draft 13.

I’ll let you know how I did next Sunday the Fourth of July.

Murder Your Darlings

2010-06-20T09:16:00.007-04:00

Last week’s assignment: I submitted one of my short stories to Glimmer Train, and seriously rethought, Catch a Falling Star. And I cleaned my apartment. BOY did I clean it. It looks good, but I’m walking like a cowboy who rode one bull too many. More now on writing ...

I promise the blood flowed this past week, but it flowed from the past. How many people do we learn from over the course of a life? I have to say thousands. And each contributes in his or her own way.

Every writer has heard from every other writer, “You have to kill your babies,” or some variation on a theme. I traced the saying to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his book “On the Art of Writing,” published in 1915. There, he states that, as a writer, you must, “murder your darlings.”

THAT was the toughest lesson I’ve had to learn so far (apart from overwriting). I didn’t want to get my characters into serious trouble. Plain and simple. Like a parent wants to protect his or her child, so, too did I want to protect may main characters.

I wrote the first novel manuscript I will admit to in 1994. It was loosely based on my experience working as a driver on a television show and was – take a guess – about a driver on a television show securing a deal to direct a movie by the end of the first season. Besides being a tad long at a tad over 384,000 words, the worst thing that happened to my lead character ... not the worst thing he observed ... the worst thing that happened to him was that the director of a particular episode yelled at him. I was right there with him. I FELT the humiliation my character experienced, too.

I knew in my soul that this novel was worthy of Dickens and, closer to what I was going for, Thackeray. After all, ol’ Bill Thackeray wrote huge books where not a whole bunch happened, just magnificent characters relating to each other in humorous ways. Gotta love Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair. Had to love Cary Clark in Transpo (my tome). That’s right. Hatley and Thackeray in the same breath. Can you dig it?

Well, William Makepeace Thackeray died in 1863, just shy of ninety-four years before I was born, and can anyone name a friend, colleague, or anyone outside of academia who has even heard of Vanity Fair or William Makepeace Thackeray?

I didn’t think so.

I have gotten better about putting my characters in peril, but not good enough yet. So draft thirteen of Catch a Falling Star is where I get good at sadism. Because that’s what Quiller-Couch was saying in a way. The actual quote referred to taking out brilliant writing that doesn’t fit the story. I can do that. That’s not a problem. But I’ve been letting Jerry and Gina and Chris and Shirley off the hook emotionally for twelve drafts. I’m going to put them through absolute hell this next draft, because that will keep the reader turning the pages. Only that will get a publisher. Only that will secure an agent.

So I become the sadist. At least until the climax. And I start at the beginning, when Jerry meets Gina.

Over the next few weeks, I want to take a little bit and acknowledge some people who have opened my eyes to my creative potential. I’m going to start by referring back to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. No, I didn’t study with him. Q, as he was known, died in 1944 at the age of 80. But this person did study with him, albeit briefly. He is best known as an actor from the Old Vic in England who appeared with Olivier, Gielgud, Guinness, Vivien Leigh and so many others. He also appeared in a number of Hammer Films in the 50’s. His name is Richard Wordsworth and yes, he was the great-great grandson of the poet William Wordsworth.

The first class I took from him was “Shakespeare,” and he was the first teacher from whom I got it. Who brought me underneath Shakespeare and let me grab a few handfuls. Even still, he told me, “Rocky, if you really want to truly understand Shakespeare, you have to be part of a production. I’m directing The Merchant of Venice. Come audition for me. I’ll give you a part.”

He did. He cast me as Tubal. The only scene I had in the play was a rather lengthy one with Shylock, played by Richard. Wow! He did that, I’m sure, because this was my first appearance on stage ... ever. I held my own, even covered for him one night when he forgot his lines. After all these years, nearly thirty, I can say that I appeared on stage with an actor who appeared onstage with Olivier and Gielgud, Guinness and Vivien Leigh.

I spent more time with him in the summer of 1981 in Grasmere, England at the Conference on Romantic Poets. There, he told me I was a good actor.

Wow! Me!

And it was through this connection that I met my longtime friends Chris and Bruce.

Richard died in 1993. I’ve attached his picture.

Next week’s assignment: I will begin a detailed outline of Catch a Falling Star paying particular attention to getting my leads into real trouble.

Risking The Blood

2010-06-13T00:29:00.003-04:00

Boy did I stink on this weeks assignments. I barely managed to keep up with my class’s assignments. So, here is what I learned, though.

Coach John Wooden passed away a week ago this past Friday. He coached basketball at the college level for nearly 30 years, lived nearly 100. And just listening to all of the comments and interviews and tributes this past week and two days, I was struck by what a genuinely decent, kind and thoughtful person he was. As a coach, he won ten national championships in twelve years with UCLA, a feat never likely to be equaled, much less surpassed, but most of the comments and interviews and tributes focused on his accomplishments off the court. As a human being.

So what does that have to do with my journey toward publication? Not a lot, I suppose, outwardly. But looking at Coach Wooden’s life through the eyes of others holds a mirror up to my face and shows me the kind of person I would like to be, and the kind of person I’m just not.

He spend 54 years with his wife Nellie, before spending another 25 without her after she died. If I married today, and stayed married fifty-four years, I would be nearly 107. Many of Coach Wooden’s sayings have become platitudes. Like “Be quick, but don’t hurry.” “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” And, from the basketball coach, my favorite, “Love is the most important thing.” As my friends will say, my most oft repeated line is, “I’ll have one more Chardonnay.”

Many of his actions should become platitudes. One of his last requests was for a good shave because he wanted to look his best when he next saw his late wife Nellie. Wow!

On the other hand, though, I wouldn’t be able to tell the stories I want to tell had I experienced that kind of life or any other, for that matter. My stories come out of the life I’ve lived. Then again, no one has shown interest in publishing my stories so far. So there’s the real fear, isn’t it? That no one cares. That I’m that tree in the middle of nowhere that no one has ever seen.

Do I exist?

So I ask, are my stories interesting/compelling/poignant enough to present by the publishing world to the reading public? My answer is I think so … I hope so. But can a writer really know until the public sees his or her stories? Until it chews them up and, either swallows them or spits them out?

I want a chance to find out.

So, Coach Wooden wouldn’t have shied away from submitting manuscripts had he manuscripts to submit. I haven’t submitted in several weeks. Why am I lollygagging around and not jumping in and submitting to at least agents even though I set myself the task?

Actually, Coach did shy away from submitting once. After his wife died, on the 21st of every month (the day of the month she died), he visited her grave the went home and wrote her a love letter. The sports writer Rick Reilly suggested fifteen years after that he and Coach publish those letters as a testament to love. Coach finally told Reilly, in tears, “I can’t. It’s too soon.”

In other words, it hurt. And that was when he had a guarantee to publish.

Wow! Despite my protestations to the contrary, each rejection takes a couple of drops of blood out of me. Weakens me just a little. Makes me wince a lot. So Mutiny on the Bounty last week really was important … even more important that even I was willing to admit to myself at the time. It let the wounds heal from the last round of rejections.

So, plunging in means risking more drops of blood. So be it. I begin a seven day weekend this next Wednesday. I’m risking the blood this time.

I mentioned my favorite Coach Wooden quote earlier, but another of his has haunted me all week. “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.” I have been in the same routine for several years now. Some circumstances have caused some change. But I think I need some all out changes in a number of different areas of my life. More on that later, because, I’m really not sure yet what those changes might be. Rearranging my apartment might be an option. At least a good spring cleaning. And in the next few days, I’ll let my stories call me to them. They always have. They always will. And when they do, I return to them with all I have.

Oh! One more detail … Coach Wooden passed away 100 years and 1 day after William Sydney Porter … better known as the master short story writer O. Henry.

Assignments this week: Keep up with the Wayward Writers assignments. Clean my apartment. Allow my stories to call me, then heed the call. ONE submission to an agent. We’ll start there then see how it goes. But, I’ve got to risk the blood. I've got to!

I’ll let y’all know next week how I did.

Reading is Nourishment

2010-06-06T01:50:00.003-04:00

Assignments: This week was good for everything except writing. I broke down and bought a MacBook Pro which I barely had time to register, much less play around with. Work was a little on the crazy side. Wednesday evening, I began an extended journey down the lazy river with a complete paddle complement. I’m barely going to finish my assignment for Wayward Writers to post this afternoon. So what can I claim to have accomplished this week?

Well, my assignment for Wayward Writers had nothing to do with Catch a Falling Star, and is, in fact, a 2700 word short story. Whew! I didn’t TOTALLY blow the week.

A confession. The paddle used on that extended journey down the lazy river was a novel ... Mutiny on the Bounty to be exact, one third of what, to my mind, is the greatest sea story ever told. Oh, it was amazing to shake mental hands with Roger Byam again, as he unfurled the mainsail of the Fletcher Christian led mutiny against the tyranny of Captain Bligh. Of how he, himself was hauled back to England in irons and condemned to death.

If you only know the story through the films, please read it. I’ll beg if I have to. In fact, read the whole trilogy, which includes Mutiny on the Bounty, Men against the Sea, and Pitcairn’s Island. It’s more than just a sea story, it’s a story of human interactions, of consequences, of relationships. Just as the women of Jane Austen’s novels are far more complex than most people think, so, too are these men Fletcher Christian and Captain William Bligh. The gentleman Master’s Mate and the blue collar Captain locked in a battle of natures.

My point is that I have to recharge my writing batteries from time to time by reading, by diving into the sea of someone else’s world and letting it permeate me and brine me to the core. And working a full time job means that the writing may suffer for brief periods of time to get the reading in. That happened last week when I devoured Mutiny on the Bounty. I’m not completely recharged, but I feel so much stronger and viable.

Here’s a question. Can a writer truly be good if s/he doesn’t read, at least in his or her writing sphere? Somehow I don’t think so, though rumors claim otherwise. Every writer I know craves reading. Whether they devour fiction or non-fiction doesn’t seem to matter. It doesn’t to me. It’s the stimulation, the synthesis of new ideas and perspectives It’s the other writer crossing time and distance to tell me her or his stories. I love that mystical and magical telepathy that happens between one person and another through the printed word.

Reading is more to me than just scanning words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. It takes me by the hand and walks me into different places and times. Writing does the same thing, but I need more than just my own worlds. I am best friends with David Copperfield and Harry Potter and Elisabeth Bennett and more recently Bella Swan (Team Edward), and they are there for me whenever I need them. Never would these people replace my corporeal friends, but I hold those from novels close to my heart as well.

For me, living in the worlds of others for a time helps me create my own like walking into people’s homes gives my ideas for my own. Reading a book about the sea can remind me of breezes blowing through the tree tops, or the undulating Hill Country of Texas, or any number of things. It doesn’t necessarily spur me to send my characters out to sea. Though that would be be fun one day.

Some may call me borderline insane, but my memories of these people’s worlds rivals real world memories in intensity and emotional impact. What keeps me on the sane side of things, I think is that I KNOW the difference between real and imaginary. The dividing line is as thin as cheesecloth sometimes, but it’s always there.

My goal this week is to keep chugging away. Three submissions to agents. More polishing. Keeping up with my assignments.

Take care, and I’ll let y’all know how I did next week.

Reflections

2010-05-30T08:59:00.000-04:00

Last week’s assignments: I completed my work for Wayward Writers, and did what I think is a nice job revising the prologue, chapter one and chapter two of Catch a Falling Star. I still have chapter three to polish, and the three submissions to make, though I did assemble a nice list of possible agents. I’ll complete those today and tomorrow, then move on to the next.

My Reflections

I wrote my first short story over thirty years ago, and it was so bad even my kind girlfriend closed her eyes, grimaced and shook her head when asked how it was. The humiliation just leaked out of whatever gland it comes from and drowned all of my enthusiasm and desire. Both of us had built me up as a writer extraordinaire. We should have added the word “potential,” but honestly, folks, as bad as that story was, and it was wretched, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Which brings me to craft and a quote from author Joyce Carol Oates. “Inspiration and energy and even genius are rarely enough to make ‘art’: for prose fiction is also a craft, and craft must be learned, whether by accident or design.”

From that point, I took twelve years to learn the craft of acting, studying with such amazing talent as Spencer Milligan, Adam Roarke, Loren Bivens, and James Best. What in the name of creativity did I think it took to make a good writer?

The next dozen years found me learning things blind and by sheer, dumb luck, like character development, dialogue, setting a scene, but a number of things kept eluding me. Things like tight writing and story structure, things I’m learning now, but not so blind about anymore.

As I’ve mentioned, a number of wonderful eyes are helping me. Watching for me. Keeping my eyes focused on the work. I am grateful and will, over the next few weeks, be spotlighting them and what I’ve learned from them, craft and otherwise.

I’m still fighting the intense desire to move onto other projects. Two in particular strike me as wonderful beyond belief. One, oddly enough, is a non-fiction work. I’ve always wanted to write fiction because if someone caught me in a lie, then so be it. That’s what fiction is, bald-faced lies where the reader is in on the joke and lets you get away with it. The beauty of fiction is the truth under the lies. And my hope is to achieve that and much more.

But non-fiction scares the bejesus out of me. I have to be truthful and entertaining at the same time because people are watching, waiting for me to cross an imaginary line in the sand that they, themselves have drawn. And what’s the truth, really? I read somewhere once that there are three sides to every story; your’s, mine, and the truth. So, maybe it won’t be so bad.

Hmmm. I just said that it scares me, but that’s not true. It excites me, really. Has me thinking about topics to explore. And I already have about one tenth of the material I would need already written. Of course, the chemical reaction in the body to fear and excitement are identical. Perception is what determines what it is, so ... I’m excited.

We’ll see how that goes.

This next week’s assignment is to complete last weeks and to polish the next three chapters of Catch a Falling Star and three more submissions. And, of course, to keep up with Wayward Writers homework. If I have time, I’ll outline a few chapters of my new novel.

Take care, everyone. I’ll let y’all know how I did. And, in the words of Thoreau, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.”

Taking the Plunge

2010-05-23T08:52:00.002-04:00

Last week’s assignments: I completed and submitted my assignments to Wayward Writer’s Literary Kitchen. Finished a short story called “Days of Ice Cream” coming in at 1,600 words or so. I have not submitted it because it needs another draft. But contests and magazines abound. I will try and find a place for it, just not this week. And I smoothed two chapters from Catch a Falling Star.

For this week I need to learn to take a plunge ...

In March 2008 my amazing friend Dawn and I attended a retreat in Fiji studying with author Steve Berry (and others, students and staff). Paraphrasing an old saying that “all work and no play makes Jack and Jill dull,” what was known then as the Maui Writer’s Conference scheduled a river tour for those who wanted to take it.

Dawn and I did.

It changed my life.

I’ll save the first part of the tale of our journey up a river to a beautiful village and the Kava Ceremony for another time, and say that the second leg took us farther up that same river to a spot secluded in dripping, lush greenery. My heart rate slowed by three or four beats per minute from the peace. The two boats pulled up an inlet to a primative dock. We all disembarked and followed the trail, some of it making for interesting navigation, up a steep hill to a beautiful pool with a waterfall.

We indulged in some swimming and good times and one by one began our trek back down ... to the plunge. True Fijian warriors took the plunge, a jump of about twenty feet from a landing to a calm, gentle pool below. By the time I made it down, my friend Dawn and the author James Rollins had already jumped, had become Fijian warriors if you will.

They tried coaxing me down. I shook my head not convinced that they had actually taken it. The next person to arrive at the landing, literary agent Susan Crawford, took it without a pause. Just stepped right on up, and off the ledge she went. One, two, three ... splashdown.

Okay, I thought. I’ll do it, but there were too many variables to consider. How deep was the water? How far out did I need to jump? Did I have the courage to do this? A large muscular arm wrapped around my shoulder, our Fijian guide. He looked down at me and smiled.

“One. Two. ...”

I jumped on three, and became a warrior upon hitting the water. It was such a rush, I climbed back up and jumped again, this time with no fear or hesitation.

Which is the way I should have done it the first time.

Two weeks ago, I started this blog. That represented me walking up to the edge, looking down to see the conditions of the jump. Too much thought. Way too much thought.

Why?

Because I have to jump without thinking, you see. Just say to myself in the bass voice of the strong Fijian warrior, “One. Two ...” and submit. I made the commitment to you and me to make it onto the New York Times bestseller list.

So jump I will this week. Here’s how I will begin.

One. In addition to keeping up with my Wayward Writers assignments, I will polish the prologue and first three chapters of Catch a Falling Star. Two. Submit to at least three agents. It doesn’t matter that I still have to finish draft thirteen. If I get a nibble or two, I can .... Three. Jump into completing it.

Maybe I need that heart racing deadline on my way down to the water.

See y’all next week and I’ll let ya know how I did.

Those Things in My Favor

2010-05-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

So, let’s take stock of the situation.

I have five completed novel length manuscripts. One, called Catch a Falling Star, is oh-so-close. This current draft is lucky thirteen, and with a little bit of that luck will be the one that takes it into the loving hands of an agent. I completed the first draft in 1999.

Of the four remaining, two have potential, but need a lot of work. We’ll set those off to the side for the time being. I’m actually more enthused about a story idea that keeps haunting me to the point of ignoring everything else, including Falling Star. And there’s the rub, the trap, because I soooo want to start the new one. Am convinced that it’s a wonderful story that will resonate if I do my job.

Focus, Rock. You must remain focused on the prize.

So what else?

I have three short stories making their rounds to magazines and contests. More on that later.

After more than fifteen years at this, I understand the importance of luck in this process. Not the “when preparation and opportunity meet” kind of luck that motivational speakers praddle on about while making a ton of money telling you how to make a ton of money. In fact, that’s not luck at all. It’s fate. True luck is when random chance operates in your favor.

I’ve also learned over the years, that it’s a numbers game. The more people who know your work, the better chance of getting published. And that’s one of a number of areas I’ve failed at over the years despite the number of rejections I’ve received. I haven’t really flooded the market at all.

Three hundred rejections really amounts to thirty rejections a year. In other words, thirty SUBMISSIONS a year. And that won’t get it done, folks. It just won’t.

Of course, in my case, that could be a good thing. My work probably wasn’t ready at the time. I think it is now. I hope it is now. We’ll see. But my intent is to continue revising Falling Star, writing short stories, entering those in contests and submitting to magazines.

Gotta also let you know that I’m not alone, and doggone happy I’m not. I’m a proud member of The Writerie along with Kathy, Glenna, Jane, and Shirley, and a four term member of Ariel Gore’s Wayward Writers all of which offer amazing support. My wonderful friends Dawn, Heather, Jill, Chris, Colleen, Beth, and others I’ll introduce you to along the way keep me from drowning.

So, my goal this week is to keep up with my assignments for the Wayward Writers, compose a short story of up to 3000 words, and revise two chapters of Falling Star. A worthy goal.

See y’all next week and let ya know how I did.

Howdy folks!

2010-05-09T01:31:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my blog.

My intent is to submit at least once a week (Sundays), with occasional excursions into topics other than the main one. That being said, what will be the weekly topic from which the occasional excursions deviate?

I thought hard about that one, folks.

On the one hand, I thought to do a “weight loss” blog, where I, in front of you, get to lose weight (or not) with you as witnesses through my eyes. Sounded good. Kinda like Julie and Julia in that, instead of cooking with butter, I’d be olive oiling my way to a slimmer me. What drove a stake into the heart of that idea was that I would have to do a “before” and “after” picture, and I’m not willing to pose for the “before.” I kinda like the one I’ve posted, taken in Fiji in 2008 by my wonderful friend and fellow writer, Dawn Ius.

Then came an epiphany. I’m an unpublished writer whose has been at it hard and steady for more than fifteen years. One who stopped counting rejections at three hundred when George W. battled John Kerry for the leader of POLITICS.

This blog, then, will be about my journey to publication. My ultimate goal is to publish a novel, but I will submit short stories, and poetry, even songs. And all of those experiences I will chronicle for you and me, the sad and joyous. The laughter and tears. The celebration and loneliness. You will have it all, I promise.

But this blog will only reach its climax when I have a novel on the New York Times best seller list. Then comes the ultimate celebration. Will you join me in the journey?

I’m a story teller. That’s how I define myself to the world. How I represent myself to you. How I see myself.

I’m half-a-man, right now. I can only be complete when people get to read my stories in print.

I’ve given up a lot for this opportunity. Marriage and family. A career. Perhaps my soul.

I will be 53 in September. It’s too late to go back. I’m set upon a road I have to follow to its end. I hope you’ll join me. It may be a bumpy ride for all of us, but I promise an exciting ride.