Ahoy! Draft 5: UBA

So here it is--for now at least. I simply must go to CVS and get something for these sniffles. I'll replace this post later if I come up with anything significant changes for this draft. Otherwise, onward to draft 6!

I. The Urge
This strange, animal energy,
—This deep, hard need to fuck—
This enthousiasmos so
Possessive & primal,
Heaves me, heedless & heady,
Overwhelms & seizes me.
I cannot hold, cannot see,
And cannot—would not—stop it.

My eyes, my lips, my body,
Hands and dick and legs and ass,
These things that crave
Lust and long and hunger for
The sureness of another
In my arms and ‘gainst my chest.
Sinew flexed and ready now--
To seize and seize and seize.

Too long stalled in hesitance,
I now come crashing headlong
Into you between bedsheets,
No longer my own in the night:
Seized as much as seizing you.
Body alongside body,
Point-to-point and parallel
Mouth-to-mouth and bone-to-bone.

I may not know whence it comes,
Nor whither it may soon go,
But you are here now before me
And its object, its treasure;
I want you now
—And I will have you.


II. The Burden
But it’s hard to say for sure, sometimes,
When we get so damn horny,
When/and everything gets all mixed up.
Why must we think?
It’s not what I want.
Who is this person in my arms?
What am I even doing here?
Why do I always do this?
This ought to be so wonderful,
So easy.
Why must we fight to make sex something beautiful?
Why must fun take/be so much effort?

Is it the fault of this modern age,
Or just my own misgivings?
That even basest passions
Are questioned, named, and judged,
--one night stands and love making
Strings attached & otherwise.
Why can’t things be just as they are
--Why can’t sex just be sex
(Or even less, now & then)?
Why must something so simple
Become so complicated.
But why am I worrying?
Why must we think?
Why must we think?

But how much hotter our passions burn
When fueled with thoughts of love.
How much more eager and willful we become
When we call it love--or think we can--
When we feel wanted, when we feel grateful,
When we want to believe, in Love and Truth,
In goods and bads and etiquette.

But no less am I a man or mammal
Nor any more can I keep that urge in check,
Than can I always claim such altruisms as love,
Such verities of the soul;
And it worries me.
For I do not know if I love you
—Or just want you—
Nor do I know if I always will.


III. The Aftermath
But, here now, let's savor this much, this time,
This little we can surely give eachother;
This fleeting, ecstatic moment for now.
Nevermind the wherefores & whereafters,
O, let them come later!
                           We are here now;
Let's be immediate and beautiful
With one another while we still can—try,
Ere those shudders and exhalation come
And take with them this magical thinking,
This sweet moment, the memory of it;
And leave with us in its passing
Those cold and lonely facts & futures
As we lie entangled and sweaty and
Sticky—and possibly second guessing.


(And poison actions with thought?)

5th Time's the Charm

So draft 5 of "The Urge, The Burden, & The Aftermath" is coming around the bend, and it's kinda a amaaazin feeling. I think I've finally (!?) gotten a handle on that irreverent middle section; the dialectic shall stand!! XD

I'm sure I've mentioned it at least one other time, but the middle section of this poem was horribly disobedient & infuriating. It just didn't fit, it didn't flow, it didn't work.

Somewhere between the 3rd and 5th drafts, I've finally sucked it up and starting slashing whole chunks. See, I'd begun to realize and even accept that there were sections that really belonged in another poem I've yet to write. Until realizing this, I'd clung so hard to these bits--they were & are pretty even if they don't belong in this particular poem.

Whether or not I ever use these bits afterall is less important than getting this particular poem to work. And frankly I kinda like the way it's looking. I still need to type it but it seems to read more smoothly & sensibly. Of course, having written that I've probably jynxed it, yeah? Oh well.

But not to worry, I've got about an hour and a half to work on that. Just sitting here, in the window of an NYC starbucks, oggling eye candy, waiting for my friend, and tapping away at the next draft of an increasingly satisfying poem :)

Drafts: The Urge, The Burden, And The Aftermath.

This the 4th draft. By this point I don't feel I need to keep retyping each draft on the typewriter because the first and third sections are so nearly stabilized--most of their changes will be single words or lines being swapped out. That would make for a lot of unnecessary typing, I think.

As has been the case since just about the beginning, the second section is what's giving me the most trouble. It really pisses me off sometimes, but it's come along--further and further with each draft. Still, be wary as you read it: It's not done yet. Certainly not in the way the first and third sections feel.

At this point, I really want to get things [feeling?] balanced. I know the second section is unsightly and ungainly, but I'm still trying to work it out. Frankly, I think it's seriously important to the rest of the poem or [I hope] I wouldn't have so stubbornly stuck by it at all.

I. The Urge

This strange, animal energy,

—This deep, hard need to fuck—

An enthousiasmos so

Primal & possessive

Heaves me, heedless & heady.

I cannot hold, cannot see,

And cannot—would not—stop it.

Sometimes it just seizes me,

My eyes, my lips, my body,

Hands and dick and legs and ass,

And chest and neck and back,

These things that crave

The sureness of another

In my arms and against me.

Sinew flexed and ready now

To seize and seize and seize.

And I come crashing headlong

Into you between bedsheets,

No longer my own in the night,

Seized as much as seizing you,

Mouth-to-mouth and bone-to-bone

Body alongside body,

Point-to-point and parallel.

I may not know whence it comes,

Nor whither it will soon go,

But you are here now before me

And its object, its treasure;

I want you now

—And I will have you.

II. The Burden

Hard to say for sure((...))

When we get so damn horny.

O, but the doubts we will commit, the demands for justification,

When this ought (to) be so wondrous,

So easy.

Why must we fight to make sex something beautiful/wonderful

Why must fun take so much effort?

Where all (that) it means to be alive,

To be human, to be animal,

Comes together in oblivious union,

There, the terrible truth of knowing waits,

Lurks the burden

Of human ideation and our animal heritage.

And yet it all ends up so much less high flown.

Why must we think

It's too much to bear sometimes,

When even basest passions

Are questioned, named, and judged,

--gangbangs and love making

And one night stands

With strings attached or otherwise--

Why must something so simple

Become so complicated

But how much hotter our passions burn

When fueled with thoughts of love.

How much more eager and willful we become

When we call it love--or think we can--

When we feel wanted, when we feel grateful,

When we want to believe, in Love and Truth,

In goods and bads and etiquette.

But no less am I a man or mammal

Nor any more can I keep that urge in check,

Than can I always claim such altruisms as love,

Such verities of the soul;

For I do not know if I love you

—Or just want you—

Nor do I know if I always will.

III. The Aftermath

But, here now, let's savor this much, this time,

This little we can surely give eachother;

This fleeting, ecstatic moment for now.

Nevermind the wherefores & whereafters,

O, let them come later!

                                         We are here now;

Let's be immediate and beautiful

With one another while we still can—try,

Ere those shudders and exhalation come

And take with them this magical thinking,

This sweet moment, the memory of it;

And leave with us in its passing

Those cold and lonely facts & futures

As we lie entangled and sweaty and

Sticky—and possibly second guessing.

Suck-Struck.

I hit a bit of a sticking point in the 'new' poem last night; I was working on that damned second stanza and BLAMMO! suckitude struck.

I'm not totally surprised, mind you. There originally wasn't a second stanza; I mean originally it was just a hodgepodgery of lines with no stanzas to speak of, but that's beside the point. Somewhere between draft 0.5 and 1.0, I decided to fiddle with a three stanza setup; somewhere after draft 1.0, I figured I'd try a sorta A B A' layout--there'd be A, then the turn which shifted the conceit in B, then a 'resurgent if disillusioned' return of A in A'. (Hoo-rah music theory....)

This puts a lot of pressure on B; it has to be different, revealing, but still fit.


And I think that's the problem. See, When I separated out these "stanzas" originally, there wasn't much at all for the second stanza. It was, like, 4 lines long. So, naturally, I brainstormed up a buncha new lines, knowing most of them'd be crap, of course, but planning to work them in and lovelyify it later.

And, see, it's proving a bit difficult. It doesn't really fit, I fear, and even still I was struggling to pull together what was good, eliminate/rephrase what wasn't, and otherwise revamp that stanza, but just not managing to. Maybe I was stressed or something.

I think I need a solid freewrite and then approach my edits from last night anew. Can't be too hard, can it? 0.o

Well that's new and kinda awesome.

Over the last several days, I've been actively working on a poem and thinking about poetry readings and open mics. And not just to go to'em--but prospectively read at'em too :-D

This is such a big deal for me. One, working on this poem feels so different and so good, I'm pretty stoked. Two, inexplicably I've gone from shyly declining any notion of reading aloud to insanely eager. And, three, somehow this eagerness has formed a sense of how I want to read my poetry--and that sense has shaped how I approach my poetry as I draft and revise.


I can't even remember if there were any reason this poem was different. Like, it started more or less like any other, if perhaps with more confidence about from the outset.

Besides that sense of assuredness regarding the work, the biggest difference has been this highly empowering feeling that, going into this, I have a stronger set of tools.

Let me rephrase that: I feel like there's some order about this, some--if rough--plan helping me move from one draft to the next. I'm to the thirdish draft, dude, and going strong--not yet feeling any kinda overwhelmed or intimidated.

If this sounds like bragging--it's not. This is the sound of amazement and excitement. I feel like a real writer for the very first time I can remember--and it is so, so gratifying.


I also mentioned readings. I've done a couple readings in my lifetime; sometimes my own, sometimes another's (Walt Whitman's "From Pent-Up Aching Rivers" and T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men"), and sometimes just on video for youtube.
Those were enjoyable though idle enough experiences.

This time--this desire to present my work aloud and live-action is much fiercer and much hotter.

I remember how fantastically inspiring and galvanizing the last open mic I went to was; I didn't read but somehow just experience the work and performance of others struck deep and got me resonating. But that was a while ago and although it largely led to some cool stuff--like doing that reading with Parker--it didn't go much of anywhere. And it was a long while back.


So, now, I have not only recovered this burning, aching need to to go on stage with my own poetry but also blow everyone away. And then some.

I want to go up on stage; perhaps I'll seem unremarkable enough at first. That is until I start reading. I want to emote and express every word and line--I want to rage and weep and laugh and whisper and growl. I want to enact my poetry line for line.

But not as mere trimmings and frivolous decoration. It's all well enough and good to be dramatic and thereby, hopefully, grab the listener and move them deeply. Truly, a lovely aspiration. But the poetry itself must, I demand of myself, also be beautiful and poignant. The dramatizing must be commensurate--as much and as often as possible--with the poem's significance.

They must justify as much as bolster eachother. If I am crying into the microphone as I read, then my heart ought to be breaking in those lines. If I am shouting angrily, I should prolly be nearing some breaking point of frustration at you (and myself).


All this--this sense of my personal style in delivery--has affected how I approach the writing & drafting & revising process. It makes it easier to let go of mediocre lines in favor of stronger, more efficient and effective ones. It fosters concision and melody and order. And, most importantly, it reinforces the values I've long held regarding poetry (especially my own poetry) which leaves me feeling so satisfied and emboldened.

Things are things.

So I wrote a massive post about my cat's passing; it included a poem. I haven't put that much time and energy into a post or poem in a long while, I think.

I was really proud of that whole thing. It was an utter bitch to write & revise, naturally; I cried through most of it. But I might actually consider putting some more work into it and submitting it somewhere.

One of the things I feel I left out was the proximity of death and how that affected me. As it is, the post is mostly a memorial for her life & chronicling of her death. Frankly I'm okay with that as far as my own personal needs went/go, but I do think it might have some additional usefulness worth considering.

(It's kind of a special case; with the death of a person there's all the two-way-ness of your relationship, the similarity to your own mortality, and missing/wondering what they'd say or do. With a pet, though, it really comes down to you, your decisions (sometimes), and the absence the animal leaves behind.... So, it's death, but a little simplified.)


Anyway, I've also started doing The Artist's Way with Parker; I'm still kind of leery/scared, but I'm growing more excited.

I think it could, at the very least, give me that sense of satisfaction and fulfillment as a writer I've always longed for.


I've also been fiddling about with some other things, mostly poetic fragments and other loosely assorted ideas. Something may be brewing; I'm hopeful, at least :)

Good news, everyone.

I actually did some writing yesterday. Shocking, I know. It was poetry, too. How original!

This is actually perhaps the second most interesting/best of the various scribblings from yesterday, but I want to look over & think on the other, longer, more awesome one before I post it.

So for now, here's a very rough draft of a poem about my compatriot queers. There was this hot guy in line at the Starbucks I was haunting (of many, many others who passed through while I idled there, but this one was particularly attractive/provoked some thoughts). So here's a bit of frustration for your enjoyment:

Those goddamn queers with their goddamn looks
—Never for me, never for me...
Their style & flirts, their easy comfort, their easy ways,
How they move & meet & spend their time,
The lines on them, the shapes,
The form & feel to them hidden underneath.
How they catch my eye! How I yearn! How I envy!
To think, some day I'll be to old to merit their notice,
While for now I'm too shy, too plain, to earn it.
But why—goddamnit, why—do I care!?

They have a surreal ability
To make me feel shitty.
I give them this power, of course,
But why don't they notice me
As I notice them?
Why doesn't their breath or heart skip,
Why don't they pause and wonder a moment?

I'd like to ascribe it to bad taste,
To tell myself they're missing out,
But it's hard sometimes to stay convinced.
I guess it's hard, too, to notice a guy like me
When there's already so many of them to be noticed first
—They, who're so good at being noticed,
Know the language of noticing
And play the game so well, so much better.
But it's also hard to understand, to justify,
Why my torrefied heart still
Wants them to notice
—And cares when they don't.

Do not bedevil me, Revision!

But, alas, it does. I tried to vlog about this the other day but couldn't upload it to youtube so I've mostly given up. At this rate I might as well write a bit about these troubles here if I haven't already.

While I don't mind editing other people's work--I rather enjoy it, in fact--my own efforts at revision overwhelm me.

I don't know how to edit myself, I guess. It scares me. I sit down and look at the draft and get sucked right back into the details and self-recriminating judgments. "This is all crap!", and such.

With other people, I don't have such trouble finding "the big picture" and helping shape the piece to suit it, but I can't seem to with my own efforts. Perhaps it's too personal, perhaps I'm too inexperienced, perhaps I suck at turning the same objective but curious eye on myself that I grant others.

Probably, too, I expect too much of the (rough) draft I'm working on. That is, I demand certain things--order, organization to name two--that simply aren't there yet, but since I'm "requiring" them in order to be able to edit, I struggle badly to edit.

Another problem is "fancying" things. I get distracted from sorting out that whole big picture/organization thing as I come upon lines or phrases or bits I like. I also seem to have a hard time "risking" getting rid of them even if it means sorting out the piece and making sense of it as a whole. Sentimental? Mebbe. >.<

I'm gonna try something different today. I've heard one method of organizing is to write a draft and then make an outline of it and then see how you'd like that outline to be different and make changes accordingly. (Sometimes I've heard that you make an outline first, too, and then compare them. Kinda same thing...)

The trouble with distilling an outline from this draft is that because of its disorder there aren't exactly points that could be extracted and formed into an outline.... So maybe I should, having done what I can to look over what I have perhaps, draw up an outline of what I'd like, and then use what I have to fill in those gaps? That kinda makes sense, right?

Oh well. Either way, whichever way, it's worth trying. It's at least something...versus putting it off again as I have all week. Yeah. This sounds better.

Tarnations?

I was about to work on the essay for that literary journal, when I got called in to work. By called in I mean they called, offered, and I accepted. (It was either this or risk working tonight, when I might miss the Doctor Who season premiere, but still....)

Maybe it's a good thing; I've been dancing around this all week. The whole revision process. Scares the crap outta me. Still, though, I was all set to make some progress...at least, that was the plan. Hrm.

Kind of ridonculous.

I've taken on a lot of writing responsibilities this last week or two. I've also been somewhat crappy about managing them, I guess. We'll see.


I've had some great new ideas for the essay for Madz's literary journal. It's moved from simply an apology to the editor to an indirect method piece on how to fail as a writer. Because somehow "failing as a writer" seems somehow impossible and paradoxical to my mind. You can struggle as a writer, you can give up as a writer (I guess), you can even "betray" your own principles with what you end up writing for, but "fail"?

As far as I can tell, writing is less a lifestyle--something to choose to do or fail at doing--as it is some inborn part of one's mind and personality. I want to be a writer because I can't help it. I want to string words together, either verbally or literally (literally), constantly.

As such, I suppose the article will go all double-indirect-method-y and actually explore what it means to be a writer....? by failing at it....? Hm. I'll needa think on that.


As you can tell that article may not be entirely ready for the journal. As such, I offered my editor, by way of something concrete, some old(er) poetry of mine. I went through and found what was good and typed up what I hadn't; I emailed her links to anything I'd blogged with notes on what changes, if any, I felt were necessary; and otherwise got myself all warm-feeling and hopeful regarding my prospects as a poet.

I mean, I'd basically given up on myself. I never seemed to write any poetry anymore, and what I remembered writing all seemed so mediocre and unfinished and pointless. Turns out it's not as hard as I'd thought to churn out something decent--that is, something that needs only a little reworking or continuing here and there to get going on its way to useability and maybe even goodness.

It's weird, too: In looking over the various drafts and fragments of things I've poeticized, I think I've found some weird kind of self esteem or respect or something. It occurred to me that I may actually have some gift-ness at stringing together compelling, interesting, pretty words and phrases. Can you tell I'm not good at breaking modesty?

Well, even the crappier fragments had occasional bits of worth, and that was also heartening. Like, "Hey, I might actually have something to offer, some kinda usefulness, some kinda recognizable style-ness. Imagine that.".


I've been pretty shit about the short story at the moment. I'm sure y'all can understand why. I've never gotten this far with pretty much any of my writing ever, so it isn't easy. I don't really know how it's supposed to be done--revising and shit. Like, I imagine it's not good to pack on as many writing obligations at once as I have. If only for clarity of mind. Oh well.

It's a learning experience.

Why the hell not?

I feel today's gonna be pretty good for writing. Maybe the week, if nothing else.

I feel it--that want. I should cultivate it as best I can, temper it, learn to find & rely on it. It will oneday be my livelihood, afterall.

I'm thinking a mix of the article for Madeleine and some poetry is in order. Maybe even a review or two or several for the other blog.

There's also another fun project I might take up (yay, more projects...). Parker and I have joked about doing a comic together, about us of course. The joking has gotten more serious. I think it could actually have some potential. Obviously, I'd write it, he'd draw it. Honestly, our conversations are weird-funny enough even without being turned into a comic.

More on that later. Or on whatever I end up doing. Unfortunately I've got some more serious business to attend to and then work later on. We'll see how all that goes, eh?

Draft: "April Alone"

I started scribbling this on my blackberry last night on my way home from the bus. I really hate April but really love TS Eliot. The parentheticals are new bits I added as I transcribed. It's the curse of all transcription.

Meanwhile, I explained more of the background as a "warning" over on my main blog. 

Those fucking Lilacs
Why can't they leave
Deadlands lay
(and stay dead)?
Why can't the broken feelings
Of yesteryear just stay broken?
Why must they be reawoken
And mend themselves
Naively in hibernation,
While dormant from the pricklings
Of last spring's pain.
No, they must rebuild "hope",
Falteringly on shaky grounds
Of romanticism and lust.
(A desperate act of loneliness (lonesomeness)
A need to be with someone,
Out with someone as the weather warms
And flowers start to bloom.
It seems everyone succumbs.
But then there are those
Who can't seem to keep it together
To find someone and couple;
We must sit by, and watch, and envy
(At?) the world's rejoice,
Its people's giddy frolic.
The lilacs stand to mock us,
The dull roots stirring in us as any,
But as memory and desire mix,
The reminder's too strong
Of rejection and longing;
While others cavort
We grow that much more bitter.)


Needs work, of course, especially the long parenthetical bit, but I still like it overall. I should still go back and write (or include here? hm.) that poem about the dying of Winter, how I miss it. Mm.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed working in the Eliot references, however heavy handed they are at the moment. I wanted to include a bit "Our headpiece filled with straw soaked in kerosene". That'd be nice. I'll hafta keep it in mind :)

Some opportunities and thoughts, too.

Just met up with Madeleine, my cousin and soon to be literary editor. I'm still blown away she'd ask me to contribute to her literary magazine. Naturally, not too flattered to take the opportunity seriously.

Having looked over my (other, main) blog, she suggested I write something fun & snarky about how hard it can be trying to write. I can do that. I sell myself shore, I'm sure,--I know I can do that. As I'll prolly mention, I've been known to write thousand word emails explaining to professors explaining why I couldn't write 600 words for the following day.

The irony was rarely lost on them, as you can imagine.


Part of what terrified me, however justifiably or not, then and also about Madeleine's invitation to contribute is just that: the unearthly anxiety and block I can summon at the slightest sign of deadlines or accountability.

Surely, as I've known now for quite a while, I've grown up immeasurably from that panic-stricken man-child I was back then--back in school, where I'd psych myself out so efficiently that I'd stop going to class for months to avoid that terrible albeit sometimes subtle look of disappointment in my professors' eyes when I'd have to explain why my essay still wasn't done.

But even in spite of my progress, I still feel some of that automatic fear, however foolish, unnecessary, and unfounded.

All the same--I think a quick "hoorah!" is in order for recursivity: writing about how hard it is to write what I'm writing as I write it? Potentially delicious.

Hm hm hm, though. I think that as far as this writing project/piece/thing goes, I haven't much more to say--and shan't, likely, until I've had some time to brainstorm (hey, what else is a 30min train ride good for, anyway?).


I will say, though, that some of this nervousness is different. See, I've spent much of my lifetime idolizing and looking up to Madeleine. She's my older cousin and fabulous; how could I not try to impress her? Which was why this was all so shocking and exciting--'you mean I'm actually good enough to "make it" with the cool kids and get invited!?'.

Reading too much into it? Quite probably.

But that's the same pattern of thinking and interpretation in which anxiety germinates so well. Because some of this worry is whether I'm actually good enough for this literary magazine.

Which is silly. She probably wouldn't have asked if there weren't *any* hope. And even so? What's the use in worrying?

Still, it just seems so...grownup and highbrow. And I mean that in the best, most Woolfian way (and for you slackers who refuse to read that brilliant essay in its entirety). Fancy & impressive are some other words I might use to describe it. It's really quite fantastic.

So of course I worry that I won't be up to snuff.


As usual, it seems, I need to turn my attention from worrying and focus instead on writing. Because, as I'm sure will be of some importance to this piece, the trouble is almost always just that: worrying instead of working.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Once again, but doing better.

After about a week of real (?) writing, I've been slacking off the last week. I feel a little guilty, naturally.

All the same, I'm actually actively thinking about my writing. I'm even all but settling down and doing it. That's a pretty tasty bit of progress, frankly.

I used to be so bad about even remembering I'm supposed to be a writer, and feel shamed and exposed when I did. Now I've actually got a plan, prospects, a project not only worth working on, but *workable*. I just need to work on it, and I'm pretty sure I can if I gave myself a moment to.

It's a nice feeling, and a nice change of pace. I hope I can learn to feel that way about other projects in my life--at the least, learn to move past the abject terror, dread, and certainty of failure that's so often hung me up before.

Anyway, I'm pretty upbeat about the story. That is to say--only worrying a *little*. This Friday, I'm meeting with my cousin to discuss a literary opportunity. Also, hopefully, have us a lovely chat. Either way, should be plenty exciting.

Meanwhile, tonight I'm stuck at the store doing inventory till some unGodly hour. I should probably get my ass some kind of woke up before that starts, or this could be mighty unpleasant.

Ah well, c'est la vie or some shit.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I should really try to be productive sometime soon....

I haven't written in acouple days. Shame on me really.

I've heard from a bunch of different writers that the real trick to writing/being successful as a writer is regularity & consistency.

That is write some everyday, usually during a certain time slot.

I think it works two ways. One, it gets you used to writing and getting yourself writerly. So a combination of habit and practice. Two, I think it makes it harder to skip your *writing time*. "Don't bother, it's *writing time*!"

One person even put it as "make writing like your job", meaning that you hold yourself as accountable and punctual as if it were part of any other workday.

In my case, I seem to like mornings. My ADD meds peak around mid/late morning, plus my head isn't yet cluttered with the day. I can focus and my energy is high, the day fresh.

It seems that consistency with one's writing time is more important than quantity of output. It could your 20 minute bus ride to work or a two hour brunchathon, just as long as you do it regularly.

For me, I like to spend at least 10 - 15 minutes reflecting/journaling. Like warming up.& stretching out my muscles before exercise. Gets me more writerly, I like to think.

Prollem is that recently I've really sucked about. With the habit broken or non-existent, it's soooo easy to skip it for a day(s) or forget about it. Right now my hours have felt pretty erratic, and my sleep schedule has been variable.

But is it really so hard to, on days without any work to fight around, settle in for an hour of writing before checking the news and email and twitter and so on?

Maybe somewhere in there a healthy meal, a solid workout, and a shower. Now I'm just talkin crazy.....

But I've done it before, the writing time. And I think I could do it again. Maybe I just need to give myself a chance, or/and maybe I just need to hold myself to it for a bit.

This sounds like a time to try another 30 day challenge.....those can be fun/weird, but effective. Hm. I'll have to think on that'un.

For now, imma head home and nap a bit. It's been a long, somewhat weird day.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Hoorah!

So yesterday, after blogging-on-the-go and doing a bit of thinking and reflective writing, I did some more drafting and it was a lot more effective/easier. I'd hardly call it "easy", but relative to the other day? Lord, I might actually keep some of the stuff I wrote this time.

The reflective writing touch on some of what the blog post had. Not wanting to be redundant, and wanting to maximize the writing's usefulness (?), I focused more on what I hoped I'd be able to do with that bit of writing and what I liked about what had come out of the previous one.

So I figured, as I wrote that reflective/focusing bit, that one thing I should probably do is set the scene/story a bit more. Frankly, I don't care too much about setting the/this scene. Kind of like Oliver, but hopefully more gracefully/effectively, I want to move on from the accident thing quickly. In his case it's because he's shit at dealing with normal things, nevermind trauma. Me, it's all for plot reasons.

Another note I made to myself, something I actually liked about the rough drafting the other day, was the way I ended up opening it.

"He'd never finished his fries."

In Oliver's mixed up/fucked up brain, he just can't let go of that. That he never got to eat his french fries before the accident struck, and that they're probably cold by now (nevermind covered in broken glass, etc). Yeah, the man survives an interstate pile-up and he's primarily fixated on french fries.

(You know how McDonald's fries are delicious but briefly, then they start to go cold and turn nasty the longer they go uneaten.)

What I really liked about it, though, was I'd already been considering ending it along those same lines. I'd had him worry about his fries near the outset in other early draftiness, but more recently I could tie it together by, despite so much of the story taking place in a fast food restaurant, he yet again doesn't get to eat his fries, and they've probably gone cold.

Hoorah for potential bookending!

Also, as I've just remembered, one strongly considered and highly likely way I may initiate Oliver's freakout/breakdown in the restaurant/restroom is with his trying to get some ketchup and the dispenser not working. This gets him thinking, obliquely, about codependence and what he's doing here at the restaurant at all.

You know, somehow it makes perfect sense to me to hang up a story about codependence and loss and trauma and coping on a scaffold of french fries. Hey, Arthur Miller opens Death of a Salesman with cheese as a blunt alleghory for the American Dream/Willie Loman's hang up(s).

Grrr!

I major fail at this. I tried writing the rough draft of this Oliver story, but I kept getting so self-conscious.

It just sounded stupid. Like, no flow in the sentences or harmony of the words.

I tweeted about my frustration this morning. Though I can't say I'm surprised, I'm a little bummed nobody replied with words of encouragement.

I don't mean I expected some cushy coddling. I just wanted to hear from someone that it's okay for rough drafts to sound a little stupid, to feel unfinished. Everything can be fixed later. It doesn't have to be like magic right away, and that's okay.

All plainly obvious enough, it may seem, but all this is new to me. Actually writing fiction; it turns out it's harder than you might think. And, again, I feel so, so self-concious.

I'm prolly overthinking all this. Like, way overthinking. As I mentioned yesterday, I need to give myself a chance. Put one word after another.

That reminds me of some advice someone once gave me: make the goal as simple as filling up the page, a word at a time even.

I'm gonna have a long wait before I get where I'm headed. Maybe that'll be a good time to try out that advice.
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Introducing: Oliver

I'd had various ideas about this character for years. I'd more or less always thought of using him in several stories. At one point he was going to survive some massive car accident. At another point he was going to have been born with a human tail, and it'd be like a young adult novel about coming to terms with being different. At another point, he was going to be both.

At some point last spring or summer ideas started half-forming around Oliver. I had coffee with a writer friend, and told him about these and other thoughts about this character. Paul commented, "Wow, sounds like he's got a lot going on...". So I slashed the tail part, and focused on the whole car thing. It was a lot more interesting and better formed; the tail part, I realized, was comparatively tacked on.

As for the aftermath of the highway accident, there were a few possibilities. Early, early on I'd wanted to explore something of dysfunctional small town life--they'd be stuck, for whatever reasons, in some town out in the middle of nowhere. From there various possibly melodramatic or existential things were considered. Sink holes. Conspiring townsfolk. Self revelations. All that kinda stuff. My mind eventually wandered, and I somewhat forgot about the whole thing.

When I returned to it, I all but dismissed most of those possibilities. The reason? I'd revamped huge parts of Oliver's character. In the years since I'd last thought about him, I'd gone sober and been working an AA program. In the few months of going to meetings and examining myself, I'd noticed what fascinating and fucked up people alcoholics can be--drunk and, especially, sobering up. All the same old fucked up shit but no longer the emotional crutches of alcohol or other substances, leaving all sorts of maladjustments to run rampant.

So I decided he'd be a recovering alcoholic, specifically what's called a "dry drunk"--a sober alcoholic who isn't working any kind of program or doing anything different, really, except not drinking.

It's been surprisingly easy fleshing him out from there. Insecure, self-conscious, irrational, codependent, sarcastic, bitter, resentful, angry, weak, and so on. Obviously, actually developing the character will likely be tougher, but I've got a pretty good idea to work from.

At this point, that first story with him is coming along really nicely. I had a big-ass breakthrough the other day and outlined the plot in minutes. An actual plot, people. This is a new feeling for me, guys: I've never finished any of my writing projects before.

I'm kinda scared. I don't know if I know how to do this, guys. Developing a plot? creating characters? setting scenes? writing dialogue? laying out and revisiting themes? Jesus!

I think I'll keep doing what I've been doing--just, simply, writing. Saving the worrying and higher-level functions like thematic matrices for later parts. If things emerge sooner, awesome, but I needn't worry. At this point, it's about putting words on the page. Start at the beginning and going on till I come to the end, then stop.

And all the other worries--how to develop and what to develop about the accompanying character, Megan; how to lay out themes without being obnoxiously blunt about it; pacing things....--will have to be put aside for now. That's going to be tough. Really really tough. Or really easy. Who knows.

I'll just have to find out, I guess.

Holy Fantastic!

Yup, first post on this blog. I'm hoping to separate the literary/writing stuff from my main blog mainly to keep from boring people who don't want to be bored. Most of them, I imagine, go to my blog looking for amusing, (hopefully) witty stories about my life or commentary on funny/dumb shit I find on the internet. On, and those reviews I tend to do now and then.

So this blog will focus on my writing itself. Excerpts and drafts of writing projects; notes and thoughts and ideas for writing projects; and eventually, if I may be so fortunate, finished writing projects.

See, I like to do a lot of thinking and writing and note-making about my writing, so I figure it'd prolly bore the faces off anyone not actually interested in that kinda stuff.

Anyway, I'm too distracted by other people to double check this post for usefulness and pointfulness, and also I'd rather get to actually writing up some notes & thoughts on the current project that finally gave me cause to start this blog. Whee!