Happy New Year, Really
I'm amazed at how when I blog frequently I get what's for me a chunk of traffic, people who apparently come here and spend a few minutes reading, but when I let it slide for a bit, the number tails off to practically zero. It's probably some trick of the statistical tracking software but it's almost as if the readers know whether there's anything new here before they even come. Yet another of life's mystery.
So my bud from Denver came to spend Christmas with us. It was great having him and we did a decent job of running each other into the ground. The bad news is, my back is so fried, Melissa and I have slid back to staying up way too late after the kids go to bed, that our routine is completely shot to hell. Which means I STILL haven't gotten to that place I need to get to in order to feel good about writing the next book.
That hasn't stopped me from getting three thousand words down so far. Sadly, this is not what I want to do. I don't need or want or think it desirable to know everything, or even most things, about a book before I begin it. But I do believe there are a minimum of things I need to know in order to be able to stay out of painted corners, to have a story to tell that I can actually finish without getting bogged down with structural infirmities I should have seen coming.
And yet this hasn't stopped me. Perhaps the sad truth is that I still have a number of false starts and dead ends in me that have to get out. The idea makes me cry.
When I was a kid going through the shopping mall, there was (and is) a novelty store called Spencer's that we'd always go to. There wasn't anything I ever wanted to buy (fake vomit, dog poop, and whoopie cushions always seemed like better ideas for someone else to buy) but they had this cool area in back bathed in purplish black light. We'd go in there and see all the white areas of our clothing glow brightly in the dark. Apparently this was cool.
Anyway, they had racks of t-shirts back there and there was one I saw that cracked me up then and that I haven't forgotten since. It's a desert scene from a point of view just beyond two vultures settled on a cactus branch. Across from them is a scorching sun and below on the hot sand is a lone man, struggling to get somewhere. One of the vultures is turned to face the other one and he says, according to my memory: "Patience, my ass. I'm going to kill something."
And here I am, at the Vulture School of Desert Writing. Rather than answer the questions I know I need to answer, rather than figure out how to actually do that on demand, I have no patience: I'm going to write something.
This doesn't please me but I'm helpless. I don't think vultures are known for their self-control. And as writer Jim Starlin once wrote in graphic novel, "Some mistakes are too tempting not to repeat."
At least I can make sure I have plenty of water.
So my bud from Denver came to spend Christmas with us. It was great having him and we did a decent job of running each other into the ground. The bad news is, my back is so fried, Melissa and I have slid back to staying up way too late after the kids go to bed, that our routine is completely shot to hell. Which means I STILL haven't gotten to that place I need to get to in order to feel good about writing the next book.
That hasn't stopped me from getting three thousand words down so far. Sadly, this is not what I want to do. I don't need or want or think it desirable to know everything, or even most things, about a book before I begin it. But I do believe there are a minimum of things I need to know in order to be able to stay out of painted corners, to have a story to tell that I can actually finish without getting bogged down with structural infirmities I should have seen coming.
And yet this hasn't stopped me. Perhaps the sad truth is that I still have a number of false starts and dead ends in me that have to get out. The idea makes me cry.
When I was a kid going through the shopping mall, there was (and is) a novelty store called Spencer's that we'd always go to. There wasn't anything I ever wanted to buy (fake vomit, dog poop, and whoopie cushions always seemed like better ideas for someone else to buy) but they had this cool area in back bathed in purplish black light. We'd go in there and see all the white areas of our clothing glow brightly in the dark. Apparently this was cool.
Anyway, they had racks of t-shirts back there and there was one I saw that cracked me up then and that I haven't forgotten since. It's a desert scene from a point of view just beyond two vultures settled on a cactus branch. Across from them is a scorching sun and below on the hot sand is a lone man, struggling to get somewhere. One of the vultures is turned to face the other one and he says, according to my memory: "Patience, my ass. I'm going to kill something."
And here I am, at the Vulture School of Desert Writing. Rather than answer the questions I know I need to answer, rather than figure out how to actually do that on demand, I have no patience: I'm going to write something.
This doesn't please me but I'm helpless. I don't think vultures are known for their self-control. And as writer Jim Starlin once wrote in graphic novel, "Some mistakes are too tempting not to repeat."
At least I can make sure I have plenty of water.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 5:22 PM
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