Red Tide

Went to the beach yesterday morning to take our usual early morning walk. It was still dark when we arrived, although it couldn't have been much earlier than six. So, the days are getting shorter, something that we observe with as much eagerness as we used to scan the gray Atlanta skies for signs of spring.

Yes, our world has been turned on its head; instead of parsing the wind for hints of warmth we do exactly the opposite. We cheer for weather from the north. We praise the low chain-mail clouds that begin to appear in the fall. We pull out our long pants and long sleeved-shirts and put them at the top of our drawers, just in case they might be required. One never knows!

We have a Nor'easter, but we don't have the cold yet. When we stepped out the the car that's the first thing I thought. The second was that someone had mentioned a Red Tide about 50 miles north of our location. But surely that wasn't to blame for the sudden catch in my throat, the stinging eyes, and the itchy skin?

We persevered. We pushed the baby's stroller across the undulating beach which in the darkness always makes me think of the surface of the moon. Luminescent breakers were racing past us to the south, carving out tasteful slices of the sand with each glancing blow they struck. It was pretty, but my god, it felt as if we were being gassed. My eyes were tearing and I was coughing every five seconds. My wife was no better. Only our son, the little hearty robust son, seemed unaffected. He lolled in his stroller, staring vacantly out at the lightening ocean, his little chest rising and falling with the same steady rhythm as the waves.

Eventually we cut back up to the sidewalk and made our way back to the car over the surface streets, but this did not make things much better. We still coughed and sneezed all the way along. When I complained about the Red Tide ruining our beach walk, my wife replied that this is what happens when you fuck with Mother Nature.

Fri 9/28 - 1,474 Words

Knocked 'em out today... felt pretty good... got on a roll.

Getting very close to finishing the first draft... a couple of chapters away. Starting to roll toward a fun ending, so it's fun writing, for once... not so much of an extraction/blood letting. Still need to go back and fill in some major holes... but that will be just the first phase of revision. The basic story is here, the basic story is almost finished, and that's enough to give me a pretty good woodie.

Hope things go well for you today. All things. All bullshit, etc.

I'm glad we're here for each other.

Hey... we're getting close to a hundred posts. Damn... that's pretty cool. We should have a little party, eat some orange jello and some cream of wheat... you know, really live it up a little.

Switching Gears

"I prefer to think that it's like opening a tap in the brain and letting out the pressure which would otherwise drive me crazy in some way."

I feel very much the same way. I was just telling my wife the other day that it's like opening a vein and letting the story out. And just like giving blood, I know I can only give a little at a time. When my thousand words are up, I feel like I'm short on blood... not quite exhausted, but that the well is close to dry and I'd better not push it.

Which makes me think about how much trouble I have switching gears. I've been in a little quandary lately... lots of writing assignments coming in, which is great cuz we need the money. So I say yes a lot. Just said yes to another newspaper story five minutes ago. That's all fine and good, but I feel like when I hit those deadlines (and yes, I blow them the fuck off until the last possible minute) I have to make a choice... I have to tap the vein for a bullshit nonfiction assignment and get it done, or I can tap the vein to work on my novel, which is what I really want to be doing. I've said no to a few assignments recently, in the interest of allowing myself time to crank on the novel, but lately we need the money.

I wish I could just stop complaining and find the strength to write six hours a day. I have those six hours when the kids are at school, and I'm usually working in some way during most of them, but writing... the actual drafting, pulling the words outta the air and my ass, that's when the needle goes in and the valve opens full-throttle.

I usually dedicate first-thing-in-the-morning time to real writing, drafting, cutting open the vein. Then I'll do some editing and revision later in the day, and marketing and phone calls and other associated bullshit in the afternoon when it's okay that most of my creative juices have dried up and I'm just doing grunt work, crossing things off the bullshit to do list.

So do real writers really write for six, eight, ten hours a day? Well if those real writers do that, fuck 'em. They got a lot more blood than I do, I guess.

But then there's that amazing energy we've both talked about... that electric jolt that jumpstarts your day after you've knocked out your thousand words... I get that when I've done my thousand on the novel, and I have to admit I even get it when I finish a bullshit newspaper story or educational publisher assignment... It's quite a thrill when I can hit "Send" and know that the fucker is done, off to where it's supposed to go, on time, and about to come back in the form of a paycheck... That's good shit, just not as good as finishing a good chunk in the novel.

I'm not feeling like a failure with any of this... it's just yet another example of recognizing and acknowledging that this is all part of the writing process... my writing process... and accepting it and working with it, sliding the canoe in the water and paddling along to get from point A to point B rather than standing in the middle with a raised fist, the water cutting a V as it rushes past my body... desperately trying to tweak my process to work with in the constraints of my fucked-up needy alcoholic mind... I know how it works... I've fought this writing thinking game time and time again... I know it's better to accept the bullshit, the pain, the struggle, as part of the process.. my writing process... cuz when I paddle that canoe I get shit done.

1102

Not good, but they're done.

Now to focus on work. Yes, I let my work suffer for the sake of getting the words out. Work matters but not as much as writing, when I have a choice. I don't know if that will change as I grow in the craft but after doing this pretty much every day for the last four years I still see no end in sight.

I prefer to think that it's like opening a tap in the brain and letting out the pressure which would otherwise drive me crazy in some way. I know how romantic that sounds. I know that it's not a very sober or businesslike way of looking at life. But what can I say...

Beantown Breakdown

We went to a restaurant last night in the North End; Italian joint with tables set up in the big wine cellar. It was cool and dark and quite the tony experience. I hung out, soaked up the free food, and then made my way out to the street where I met this friend of mine from Atlanta who moved to Boston five years ago.

He and I walked around the waterfront; these huge majestic cruising yachts were gliding past us in the darkness, their lines tastefully accented by the silvery moonlight. As one boat swished by we could see these shadowy figures on the deck as they finished their dinner. You could hear the soft clink of silverware and see wine glasses glint and cigar ends glow. My friend said that there was no reason why we shouldn't be on that boat having dinner instead of down on the pier watching.

My friend was telling me about a company he wants to start. He's the incurable optimist.

"It's all a game," he was saying. "We just have to get it started and then it's all a game."

I was thinking about my gut. How if this one thing would fix itself then I could take on the world. A cartoon tiger named Tony would bound into the scene, throw his arm around my shoulders, and lead me through a montage of success. Show me writing the perfect code; signing the IPO papers while other entrepreneurs watched from the sidelines with loud exclamations of amazement and dismay.

Earlier in the day I put a sentimental song in my headphones and walked to the edge of this little promontory overlooking Boston Harbor. The sun was hovering over the distant buildings of downtown and the wind was hard on the water; in the place where the sunlight lay in a blazing path across the harbor it looked as if the sea were literally boiling. I watched this effect for some time, idly wondering if I hadn't read that descriptive in Homer. It seemed like a very old idea. Into this boiling stretch of water came a small sailboat piloted by an old man. He and his old wife sat very straight in little well of the sailboat as it seesawed over the waves. That made me think of my wife and I let myself love her and miss her a little bit. I thought that someone with more talent than myself could write a story where a character is mentally unfaithful to their spouse during a long trip but then comes to realize they really love said spouse. By this time the song was over and I turned to go inside.

1051

Made it. What the hell it's a grand of words when there's no time at all for anything. I'll take it. Think I'll walk to the Super Stop and Shop and get me something for breakfast, aw yeah.

And then off to the conference where they call me Captain Gladhands.

Stealing Writing Time in Boston

I don't know, maybe it was the roses. The roses or the ribbons in her long brown hair.

Woke up with that song playing in my mind, no idea why. Yesterday was a 15 hour grind. Conference started at 7 in the morning and wound up on a booze crooze of Boston harbor from which I disembarked at 10 PM. All the time I was upset because I wasn't writing. All the time I kept thinking "A house divided against itself cannot stand." And then I got to thinking about how all these people on the booze crooze (okay maybe two or three) were younger than I and already more successful, probably because they'd followed their dreams while I straddled the fence that divides Dreamland from Responsible Life and in the process squished my nuts flatter than two Lima beans.

Not to mention I was doing a great job with my freaking stomach condition until all of a sudden I wasn't and my gut went into full-fledged revolt. And in the midst of all this on a boat w/the grandeur of a sun-setting (and then moon-rising) Boston harbor scrolling impossibly past, I found myself in a conversation with the hot wife of some CIO and the conversation went on and on, she would not let it die, and something in me shifted from the happy technologist to the Desperate Comedian.

And I became the buffoon. Willingly. Gladly. I began to spout whatever nonsense came into my head and it felt good because people were laughing and it was almost like writing. When we got to shore I spend some time in a brown study trying to figure it out. Why did I do these things? Why was I so willing to sacrifice my tincture of dignity for some laffs?

My life. My stomach. My writing. All whirling in the head like Lotto balls.

But it's really all about powerlessness. That's what it's really all about. The willingness to LEAVE the fucking data points the fuck alone and not try, not endlessly grind, to make those data points into a coherent and happy story of MY LIFE. To not compulsively seek my happy ending.

I'm powerless. I DON'T know what it all means. I really don't. I DON'T know why I'm here, or why it feels like I have an angry gerbil clawing his way out of my esophagus (take that, Richard Gere), or why anything. And I don't need to know why. That is the mind-bending miracle (and the very high hurdle) of recovery.

So thank you for writing about your fight w/the wife and with such vehemence and eloquence. You did that thing that you do so well! You built up one of those composite images that always make me jealous when I read them. And, well, anyway, you know I'm there for you and that fighting w/the wife is the most painful thing you can do. Please let me know when the makeup sex happens.