Writing Essentials, or "How the F**k Do You Write All That?!?"

Greetings, blurkers, bloggers, readers and whomever else comes this way...earlier this week, I was issued an interesting challenge by my fellow writer, Christie Stratos.

Christie is my proofer, and has done excellent work for me on "Parasite Girls" and what MIGHT be my follow-up, "Drifters: Tales of the Southern Cross." More on that later.

So anyway, Christie challenged me to show/tell/explain to you how I write, and what in particular do I have around me when I do so?

Well...first let's see how Christie gets it done:

Okay! There are certainly no hard and fast rules as to how to write, but every writer does have their own little methods, ways, and so forth.

I pretty much write when I want, but when I'm on a writing/editing project, you can find me in certain places. There is no one place for me.

Now, since I don't own a video camera and I'm damned if I know how to use the one on my laptop, I'm going the old-fashioned way. I've taken lots and lots of pictures.

Work tends to make my hours different, so there is no set time you're going to find me at one of these places. I do not particularly like to write at home unless it's at night, and there's reasons for that. Several reasons for that...

First...I was challenged before Neil Young went off on a certain coffee franchise, and now everyone is in a, "WHICH MOTHERFUCKIN' SIDE YOU ON, BITCH?" mode. So you're gonna see pictures of a familiar place. 

As a former girlfriend likes to say: DEAL.

During the day, I'm at one of the places like this one:

This is my standard setup. Generally I will sit at one of the tall chairs, because the tables give me more space to spread my work out.

Note the necessities:

The laptop w/Zombie Snow White gets a lot of compliments and questions. Eye-catching but for that, and not usually what else I need.

My first book, "Parasite Girls" is out for all to see (shameless plug!), along with a flier, and I have business cards...always have business cards, people!

Other items: the ubiquitous jump drive, of which I have several. My entire literary career is on these things; one is stores in a fireproof safe, and I have Dropbox, and who knows how many other backups. Also good to kill off old drives and replace them.

To the right in the 2nd picture is my new external hard drive, a Seagate. Neat little thing, and a gadget I like a lot.

SCREENSAVER.

Pertinent to your work! People must see the SCREENSAVER. This is YOU that you are promoting.

Now, there are a few more things one needs; I generally work in public spots in order to have human contact. A necessity; people-watching is quite good, because character details, ideas, sketches, and especially fashions are useful future tools. It is not unusual for me to make mental snapshots of outfits that fit my characters.

COFFEE. LOTS OF COFFEE.

Since I don't drink anymore, this is my last drug of choice. Iced is how I usually drink it, but dark roast pourover is also good. Lots of cream, and cinnamon. Caffeine fuels the brain...remember that.

MUSIC. AN ABSOLUTE MUST.

I well remember the days of records (do you?), and typewriters (betcha don't). That album side had to get me through a few pages, and often I'd keep going and not get up to change it.

iTunes is good for something. My tastes run the gamut, and often I'll play the music that is working in tandem with my writing. Or it's whatever's on my computer. My desktop has all my rock, blues, Americana, etc., while the laptop has everything else, plus some duplicate stuff.

I have no set music to work to, whatever I feel like usually.

Now...that's away from the house. At home, I have two spots:

This is the Vibe Room. My office, studio, writer's room. The desk is a cluttered mess, from where I occasionally write, DJ, and do other things. You'll note two of my assistants at the left...more on them later.

Other side of the Vibe Room. Music, plus my altar.

Now since I'm weird about the keyboard that came with my desktop, and since Windows 8 has got a bunch of things that leave a lot to be desired, I don't write much with it. I use the laptop for almost all actual typing, writing and so on.

But...in the winter, it's damned cold in this house. So at night I opt for Plan B:

The bed is old but comfortable...you shall also note my assistants. Baldrick is in the foreground of this one, and he usually is close at hand to offer editorial advice. 

Namid also makes herself available to review my notes. Or sleep on them. Her brother Qi is in the background...when he is not offering advice he's usually either sleeping or doing something that causes the bed to feel like it's breaking 10 on the Richter Scale.

Then we have Sofia. This is usually where you will find her, between me and the keyboard.

So I'm certainly not left alone while I work.

Christie had noted she keeps a thesaurus at hand, which is a good idea. 

I keep a severely condensed bookshelf. There were more that I lost some years ago, and I gave away about 250 on Bookcrossing. These are reference materials, inspirations, entertainments, resources and other things.

I also have on my computer a ton of tabs for notes, and also the reference stuff, and Grammarly.com -- well worth the cost, let me tell you.

Well, that's a little look into my essentials for writing. But the main thing is, WRITE.

An old painter friend aptly said: the only way to accomplish anything is to DO IT.

Now...I hope in the very near future to have some big news about the next step in my career. I shall know more soon...but in any case, enjoy your writing. This is not a job, this is what you do.

Enjoy, Peace, Out.

Your DJ in Cyberspace...and Other Thoughts

Hey...it's time for a blog...still feeling very happy about my first time as a DJ in the ether.  After a bit of business about getting the proper software, and configuring everything, I made my debut this afternoon for Radio-Airwaves UK. 

You can find them here at www.radio-airwaves.co.uk -- just click on "Listen" and you're in!

DJ Groove Rider is my boss, and he helped me a great deal; the vision is music for the people.  We all love music, and it is one of the greatest driving forces in this world.

A little bit after noon did I get on, and ended up going till 5 pm due to equipment issues with one of the other folks.

Here's the set list (via iTunes):


Little Belle 3:14 Gene Dante and The Future Starlets

I'm Alive  4:01 Garland Jeffreys

Radio 4:01 Fono

It's You 4:24 Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets Feat. Sam Myers
Statesboro Blues 3:00 Taj Mahal
Here Comes The Sun 3:02 Sue Foley
Hurricane Party 5:56 James McMurtry
Johnny Come Lately [1987/Live in Raleigh, NC] 3:55 Steve Earle Copperhead Road (Deluxe Edition) [Disc 2]
Jimmy Reed Highway 4:05 Omar Kent Dykes & Jimmy Vaughn

Money for Nothing 6:19 Eric Clapton w/M. Knopfler

Make Out  3:27 Frenchy and the Punk
I Am The Big Easy 4:37 Ray Bonneville
I'm Gonna Catch Me A Rat 2:11 Fabienne Delsol
Ring Around The Moon 3:39 James Blundell
A Brighter Day  3:55 The Doobie Brothers

Down Home Blues 5:16 Z.Z. Hill

Hot Night In A Small Town (LP Version) 4:26 Billy & The American Suns
Green Mountains and Me 3:45 Slaid Cleaves
Be My Number Two 4:22 Joe Jackson
Over The Waterfall 4:33 Robert Earl Keen
Silver City 4:35 Joe Ely
Gimme Shelter 6:12 Joanna Dean
One Drop  4:52 Public Image Ltd.
Revolution 1 4:15 The Beatles
Big Green And Yeller 4:16 Seasick Steve
Easy Come, Easy Go! 4:40 B'z B'z 
Pick Me Up 6:56 Flying Colors
Ain't Doing Nobody No Good 4:47 Tony Joe White
Forefathers 4:57 Dan Fogelberg
This Time 4:18 Dan Colehour
Hey Darlin 3:20 Racing Rain
The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead 5:02 XTC
Time Is Passing (demo) 3:26 Pete Townshend
Redemption Song 3:28 Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
The Point Of It All 5:35 Amanda Palmer
This Is Hip 3:27 John Lee Hooker
Underground 5:09 The Kentucky Headhunters
Iced Honey 4:38 Lou Reed & Metallica
Money 6:16 Roger Waters w/Paul Carrack
London Rain (Nothing Heals Me Like You Do) 3:51 Heather Nova
Little Wing 6:51 Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
Easy Rider 4:51 Chris Rea
Help Us, Somebody 5:39 Chris Thomas (King)
Man Of The World 3:31 Alejandro Escovedo
Knowingly 4:43 Appalachian Translator
Seattle 3:55 The BPA Feat. Emmy The Great
Let Me Inside 3:31 Santana

Soul Machine 3:03 Manu Dibango

Run Conejo Run 4:52 Dave Alvin
Smokestack Lightning 4:10 Big Jack Johnson; Kim Wilson; Pinetop Perkins
Celestial Horses 7:48 Bruce Cockburn
Give Me The Wonder 3:37 Johnny Clegg
Cut You 3:39 Penelope Houston
Capricornia 3:18 Midnight Oil
A Horse Named Janis Joplin 5:20 Sarah Jane Morris
East Of Woodstock, West Of Viet Nam 4:25 Tom Russell
Say Africa 5:01 Vusi Mahlasela
Beautiful Swimmers 5:21 Jimmy Buffett
Cool On Your Island (LP Version) 4:59 Y Kant Tori Read
Imperfection 3:40 Rachel Fuller Cigarettes & Housework

I'm not saying I'm gonna do this for every shift, mind.  This was just to give you a look at the breadth of what I offered up.  My music collection got pretty sizable over the years, and I was happy as ever to finally get to play what I wanted again.

It's like college radio to some extent, or if you managed to have an owner who was cool about you doing stuff in the off-hours.  

Still some tweaking with the headset mic, jump drives, and monitor issues, all while running all this from my poor aging desktop.

But it was fun...and that's the point.  I for once got to (again) play music that while not at all mainstream, was music that had meaning to me, and I hope for others.

My thanks to Groove Rider, and my Radio Airwaves colleagues for their help and support; I feel good at being wanted in somewhere.

So...unless I get called to be a substitute, my regular gig will be Mondays, Noon to 2 pm Eastern time.  This was fun, and I'll have more next time 'round.

Thank you all for listening and helping me out!

###

That said...Open Wound Update:  my leg is doing just fine; the incision has not become in any way dangerous.  I do my best to keep it clean as well as wrapped up.  Tomorrow morning I see the surgeon again for follow up and we shall see what she thinks we should do from here.

I don't know how they will close this; the big problem with cysts like this one is that they can come back.  The area of the skin where it made its presence felt has to be completely free of it.  Either way, we'll see.

Biggest problem is getting the wraps tight enough, and then hoping normal activity doesn't pull or slide it away from the site.  I can usually tell when it does.  Still walking around like an old man, but at least it doesn't look really bad.

Really gonna need to see the chiropractor after this heals up.

###

Cleanup:  more junk outta here, and another giant green bin of rubbish and another of recycling is awaiting pickup.  Have not been in season to do much more of late, but eventually I will be able to handle it.

###

Brain waves...since I finished "Time the Healer," I've considered another edit, and also a new idea.  The latter is going to take a long time to "cook," so there will be no "new" writing for a while.  Enough going on in my life right now!

Anyway, that's life in the breakdown lane...up and outta here.

5 Weeks Tomorrow

Well, tomorrow is five full weeks w/o the you know whats...and I'm cycling down from another rush of anxiety, depression and agitation.  It is a destructive thing, but once you come out of it, you find you're still hear.


iTunes stuff...after bashing through "Girl Anachronism" by the Dresden Dolls (see previous post for the video), I couldn't bear to hear stuff from my old band, Ahltyrra.  "Doctor Brown" by the Original Fleetwood Mac came up...knockoff of Sweet Home Chicago, pretty much.


Okay...we're hitting on five weeks.  The past several days my lack of focus has led to me causing myself more issues than I had at the beginning, isn't that funny?


I'm generally clumsy when cleaning...I'll make more of a mess than when I started, and have to do that, too.  Mindfulness training does not always work when your mind cycles, and you are trying to get things done, and you just plow into everything.


I'm glad for spellchecker...my fingers don't type well, even with years of training.  I took typing before it was fashionable and necessary, and there were few boys in my typing classes, believe me.


Anyway, my fingers don't always adjust to my laptop here, and then they don't go back to the keyboard on my PC, either here or at work.


Crank these normal things up by about 100 times, and you know what I'm dealing with.


"Warboys," Queen/Paul Rodgers...this has been considered a horrid album, and Queen purists hate it.  I do agree that while Freddie could sing some of those songs, some are not fitting with him.  But Freddie's dead...the other guys have a right to do music, damn it.  I think some of the songs are very good.


I managed to kill my PC; well, it was having its own issues, and I compounded the error by inserting the wrong reclamation disk.  Guess what happened.


I got it back last night, not from the Geek Squad (losers) who left numerous things unplugged from the last time (NO WONDER MY HEADSET MIC DIDN'T WORK, AND I COULD NOT HEAR A FUCKING THING...THANKS, LOSERS!); there's a local chain that for very little money worked it up.


Of course, I tried to plow ahead and re-fix things that I wanted on there, to which nothing occurred right.


Alice is coming tomorrow to fix it up, and get it to run the way it should, so I can do my writing, my on-line stuff, and my new endeavor eventually.


Also have to hope we can save the iTunes.  I'm running off my laptop account, which is not the same, thanks to the Cloud issues.


"Suspicion," by Asia.  Arena rock time, folks!


My iPod has all the music uploaded that had once been on the PC...now, can we transfer it from the unit to the computer w/o losing it all and starting all over again?


The worst can happen...it often does.  But that is a habit I must quit on.


The writing thing is also troubling me...I feel it very hard to trust certain people, where it is concerned.  


To explain:  the first book of the Sweet Dreams Series is being worked by my agent.  There has been some interest, but no deals.  Two publishers are looking at it, but I'm not sure what they think.


Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere came a request for the manga portion.  Two point five years after approaching, they're back...well, I have had to again push my collaborators to provide me something.


I can't go into all that.  Suffice to say, Jen has provided some pencil sketches that look quite interesting.  There'll be more, plus my six-page proposal outlining the grand scheme.


Well, that is almost ready; a little more to add.


They want to see it, now.


A bit of "Karn Evil 9," from a live ELP recording of some 20 years ago.  So we're getting this together...and here comes the paranoia.


This was sent to me by Alice:  http://indiereader.com/2012/06/how-amazon-saved-my-life/


Very tempting, to just cut loose, but then I have the contract with my agent, the issues surrounding it, and the possibilities of all that could go wrong.


The mainspring inside me gets tight...real tight.


"Dirty Little Thing," Velvet Revolver.  Yes!  Feels just like that!


I see it all going to shit, even though I know this will not happen.  I've not signed any rights away; no one has taken anything yet.  AND THEY WILL NOT.


Here's the thing that pisses me off about traditional publishers.  They, like record labels and TV execs, look for what fits a market.  But they don't always know.


The author of the above, Jessica Park is right:  WRITERS WRITE FOR THE READERS, NOT FOR A PUBLISHER.


You want another fucking knockoff of Twilight, do you?  Just look at your slushpile; there must be a hundred of them there!  Who cares if one of them sucks balls, the stupid people will buy them.


And they do.


Record labels sign their version of the NEXT BIG THING.  Prepare for the onslaught of Justin Bieber/Carly Rae Jeppsen brats who can't fucking sing, but look cute.


I am not part of that.  My stuff on the surface is not terribly difficult to digest, but if it is marketed toward Young Adult or YA, I am afraid of the Big C.


CENSORSHIP.


"In the Air Tonight," hmmm...despite all claims of the YA world being open minded and shit, they are not.  Swearing, sex, drugs and especially homosexuality is right the fuck out at a lot of 'em.


Well, Book 1 isn't so bad.  Book 2, well...


...I dare not sign an agreement for more than the first book because I know what will happen...or I think will happen.


They will tell me that I have to change characters, change the relationships, the sexual whatever they find or it's not marketable.


SORRY, NO DICE.


My stories are NOT offensive; at least I don't think they are.  I did my best to create the world I wanted to see, with some feet on the earth kind of thing.  The characters are not perfect, because we're not.  They make mistakes, they do and say dumb things, they err.  We all do.


Believe me, these are good stories or I would not be typing like this right now.  I have never felt so confident in my entire life about any fucking thing I have done.  This includes 27 years in radio, many years in theatre, and what I've done musically.  This is fucking it.


I am probably wrong in a lot of my assumptions.  When you feel like this, it takes you down.


Now...all of this having been said...I am finding again a way to as we'd say in Moonsong, 'ground and center.'


"A Change is Gonna Come," Shannon McNally.  Kind of a deep, resonant singer; Bonnie Raitt, and Lou Ann Barton are two voices I think of.  It's good stuff.


Weird how those titles pop up.  Alice's email tonight explained what she saw, and as usual she's brutally honest.  I did face the issue, and I worked through it today, as I have.  I know I have, and I have to keep doing it.


Most of what I fear is not going to occur, probably.  I have to hope that the publisher that wants to see the manga will put that forward.  That would be great; it would be excellent to give the book version of SDS-1 a push.  It would grant credits to Riz for all her help, and get Jen a platform to show the world how talented she is.  All down the road.


Bookwise, I've considered self-publishing.  Vanity Press, they call it; that label has changed, though.


If you pay a company to print copies of your book, that's a VP.  No editing, no promotion, no help but for your writing, and you're saddled with a thousand copies you have to hawk if you want your money back.  


"Angel Eyes," Kenny Burrell...a guitarist I've always admired.  Great stuff.


Vanity publishing is a dangerous thing.  I've seen too many people sitting in bookstores with a table full of badly-produced books, smiling in the vain hope that someone comes to buy their stuff.


They usually leave with the same amount of books they came in with.  Sad, but true.  


What struck me (and I learned this) was that these folks didn't give talks about their works; they didn't read from them, they didn't take questions from a small audience.  How else do you get the point across, and sell what you've got to sell?  You may have a wonderful story; but if you don't present it, what have you got?  Not much.


My friend Don Chase is on Amazon.com with a Kindle deal, of the kind that's talked about above.  He does not get as many sales as Ms. Park, but he has done pretty well for an unknown author with just one title (I think) out.  Don was also very kind with his advice and his time; he helped sound it all out for me.


I could do this, with other books I've written.  I will think about it; not yet.  The time is not yet right.


I need to be patient.


"Hold On Baby," old track from JJ Cale.  Another real good one.


I must see how the manga publisher takes it.  I feel good about it.


The others that are interested in book form; I will hold on, and see.


My contract with the agent runs into early 2013.  I don't regret working with her; she's worked hard and I've had her back when others have questioned her skills, experience, even her competence and motives.


She has my back, I have hers.  Fair is fair.


We'll see...more time is needed to think, and get the ideas in shape.


Tomorrow it could all be different.


Sometimes I feel like this:

This is the last segment of "Stephen Fry:  the Secret Life of a Manic Depressive."  It is an award-winning documentary on Bipolar Disorder; I am not bipolar, but I urge you to go to the beginning of this on Youtube and watch it.


It will explain so much.


The young woman in the image arrives at about the six-minute mark.  Some of what she deals with I feel deeply.  In fact, Stephen's own battle is well-chronicled here; and that of other public figures, and some not well known.


This video has helped me a lot; it has given a face to the terrible bouts of depression and what seems like madness.


I've written about this in my story Parasite Girls, and it pops up here and there throughout my writings.  The clip catches Stephen in one of his up moods, and you see what others deal with.  The girl above has it bad; not as bad as some, but I know the feelings all too well.


It is painful to watch at times, but one must.  


Nearly lost this blog a while back.  "We the People" by Guitar Shorty is on...


So yeah...here is where we are now.  I again must pull back and not let these things tear me apart.  Without the Zoloft, I am at times wracked by the stress and the insane feelings that should not matter but do.  This is war.


I am optimistic that the manga publisher will like what will be proposed.  I aim to have all the parts tomorrow night to send away to the agent and the publisher.


We shall see.  Meanwhile, for now I must wait on the other.  But I can lay groundwork for the other things I'm doing.


And trying to stop and look back, and forward too w/o expecting myself to perform miracles.  


###


Other things...job hunting in the radio biz is never fun, especially of late.  It's a dying industry it seems, but we are survivors.  I have a bit of work Friday, a bit next week, and after that, who knows?


I have no specific prospects at this point; again, wait and see.


And try not to go too crazy with worry, or with sudden boundless optimism that takes away my better judgement.


This is how it is.


###


I end on sad notes...my friend Aimee Johnston is hospitalized after being hit by a car outside her home.  She has suffered terrible injuries, and faces a long road of recovery.


Then even worse:  my old high school class and bandmate, Brian St. Cyr was found dead on Sunday.  We don't know for sure yet what happened; I suspect health issues, but I do not know.


I wish only good for them, and their spirits.

Heading into Week 4...and Other Observations

Someone needs to tell me what colors work best on here...I've been warned that RED is not a good color.  Bad on the eyes.  Is this one okay?


Well, it is now almost four weeks since I stopped the meds, give or take a day or two.  I have to tell you, and I don't think I've made this plain enough...withdrawal from this is KIND OF LIKE THIS:

This is the Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer's old band.  "Girl Anachronism" pretty much sums up what it feels like.


It's that fucked up.


Anyway, the last day or two I'm finally starting to feel a better sense of control.  I'm not freaking out as much, not ready to erupt (my favorite word), and not feeling like I want to destroy things.


iTunes just went from something by Kronos Quartet to "Perpetual Motion," by Anthrax.  Interesting segue.  But my life has been that the last 20-some days.


Finally starting to clear up a little.  I spent much of yesterday afternoon-evening dragging my cheap Office Max desk/table combo out from the wall, and re-arranging it.  I did this for a nook-like space in the Vibe Room, but also to compromise with the cats.  They can still leap madly into the air, land on my table and bounce up to my old desk at the windows so they can watch Bird TV...without destroying too many things.


Still too soon to know if this is going to work...I was very close to quitting and just going back on the meds.  I resisted because I had to get rid of what's in me.  And I came out the other side; like most of us do.


Psych!


I have before me notes on my writings, on my regular tasks, my workout schedule, and my work.  You know, the one that makes money...whatever that once was.


I also managed to fuck up my desktop.  Alice is coming down tomorrow to see if it can be saved; if not, she has a refurbished laptop for me.  Bless the Woman.


Had a lovely Sunday evening...oh God!


"A Love Song (from a Different Point of View)" by Jimmy Buffett.  You get to figure that one out.


But yes, we had a nice evening meal, out by her new fire circle.  Really well done, and a good time.  We both have been helping each other out, though our relationship is done.


The other aspects of it are good, quite good.  Same old; we're better as friends, but I am okay with that.  She is finding what she needs to, as I do.  Together we'd never do it; apart, we can and we are able to compare our notes.  All good.


I have other things I need to deal with...still trying to clean up around here, making space, creating better space.  Very slow process, this will be, as my limited ability gives to me.


She found for me a very unique book called "The Bit Ching."  It's written by Russell Slocum and a second PA author, and is a take on the I Ching.  It is helpful in so many ways, and incredibly useful.  Take it in bits, really; they even have a chart to use.


"It's My Own Fault," Johnny Winter...something from "The Progressive Blues Experiment."  Nice...


Oh, I can go off on fucking iTunes, and Apple in general!  I think I will.


Heard of "The Cloud?"  Well, understand that Apple thinks you know as much as they do about everything; and we don't.


Cloud supposedly stored some 18,000 of my songs from my now comatose PC.  The iMatch thingie was supposed to match up these songs, plus the however many I had on my MacBook.


It did, and it didn't...half the songs didn't match, and had to be uploaded by manual pushing of the button.  Many didn't load after that, because the files were corrupted.


I finally had enough when it started wiping away tracks and play counts, and fuck knows what else!  


Apple does not really want to talk to you, you know.  After a lot of flips and twists, I managed to find someone to talk to; nice young lady, and very cool.  She could feel the heat coming down the line, but I was polite.  She asked a very interesting question...wait for it...


"What is your Mac OS X whateveritis?"  You know, 10.5, 10.6, Lion, Snow Leopard, Crouching Tiger, Honking Blue Wildebeest, etc.?


I tell her 10.5.8, or something like that.  I think that's what it is...I get this...ahhhhhhh...down the line.


WTF is that? I wonder.


"Your Mac cannot handle iMatch.  It needs to be at least Lion or whatever..."


NOW THEY FUCKING TELL ME.


OK...well, I cancelled out of the fucking thing, and to Apple's credit, I've gotten my refund.  Very nice.


Oh...Fuck!  All that stress for fucking nothing.


And to top it all off, I did something to kill my PC, or kill what was on it.


Thank Heavens for backups...jump drives, external hard drives and all those other lovely things.


If not, my life's work would have been lost and I'd have shot myself.


My writings are safe, thankfully.  


I am skipping "Hair of Spun Gold" by Janis Ian.  I just do not want to hear it.


"Ugly Beauty," by Thelonius Monk is next.  Better.


But well, I did lose a few things, but nothing that I don't have someplace else or can't get back.  It could have been worse; much worse.


Phooooo...now let's see.


I've taken advantage of some time by getting my debts paid off.  I had resisted the urge to dip into my savings, but things now dictate I must do this.  It is a load off my back; used to be I could just pay as I went, and this was a game to see if I could handle the pressure and stress of the debt destroyer again.


Not yet, I guess.  Whatever.


I have to admit, when it comes to my writings, it's very hard to return to them.  I must also confess a little envy when I hear of friends who have published or friends of friends who have.  


Is my stuff not that good?


Is it incomprehensible but to those few who've read it?


Or are they all just bullshitting me, in order to not upset me?


No...I know what I've got is good, and I have more to do.  Must also be patient, and yet not too lazy, either.


I don't know if you've ever seen this, but if not:

This is the trailer for "Deep Water," a film about the first nonstop round the world solo yachting race.  It mostly deals with the mad story of Donald Crowhurst, who looked ready to win one of the two prizes, when suddenly...he disappeared.


This is a great film.  The people who raced, those who were involved, all of it.  The yachtsman and legendary sailor Bernard Moitessier was one of those involved, and he quit the race to sail again round the world, making it 1.5 times before landing in Tahiti.


Crowhurst's story is more compelling...amazing, fascinating, and scary.  


You should be able to buy this cheap, or rent it.  Well worth it.


I took away a lot, and especially the quotes by Moitessier.  These were chronicled in his book, "The Long Way."


I feel compelled to watch it again tonight or tomorrow.  Maybe I need to.


"Your Wildest Dreams," Moody Blues Live at Red Rocks...isn't that a sign?


It ain't over yet...to quote Bernard, "I know where I am going, I feel it deeply..."


If there was more to tell you, I can't remember it.  Not important, I guess.