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Novel Matters Being normal is highly overrated. Being a writer is nothing but cool. Embrace it. It looks good on you. My favorite compliments/ reviews About Last Great Race "I like to watch and tell readers what I see; Tim puts readers on the runners"— Frank Gerjevic "It's that lovely sort of non-fiction which reads like a great novel" — Marty Galster From a facebook post 5/5/24: Smacked in the face and I choked up seeing this today: Joe May, who died last September, commenting on a Steinbeck quote I posted 7 years ago: "Joe May: My favorite writer (after Tim). I want to be buried with a copy each of "Cannery Row" and "The Last Great Race". (I know the quotation marks go outside the period, but Joe always wrote it this way so in his memory I'm leaving it the way he wrote it.) A pleasant surprise on a dull morning, thank you Mark Fuerstenau December 13, 2924 For those who may be interested in dog mushing and/or the Iditarod Sled Dog Race the History Channel recently aired a segment following musher Lauro Eklund on his quest to run the Iditarod. It gives a brief snapshot of some of the joys and challenges it takes to mush a team of 16 dogs over a thousand miles right through the rugged Alaska wilderness. If you're hankerin' for more information, check out the iconic book on the subject, "The Last Great Race" by Tim Jones (Madrona, 1982). Tim, who has personal experience mushing, followed the race twice. Traveling by snowmachine and aircraft, talking to mushers, vets, race officials, volunteers, the original serum mushers, trail hosts, and others along the race trail his book is an accurate account of what it takes to hold an event of colossal logistical proportions and to participate in this amazing feat of toughness and endurance. |
Garden Reader
8/9/23
NOTE: To be honest, I didn't know what to do with this. It's too much of an ego rush to go public with it, so it's here. I guess it is a part of my writing life. A young woman named Emily Sakis wrote it. She organizes these reading-in-the-garden events at the senior-living-center where I live. This was from an interview published to introduce me to the potential audience. Following this post is a report on the event itself. (I didn't edit it, left it just as she wrote it and it was posted on facebook.)
Meet this weeks Story Time In The Garden reader!
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words are in a melody? These are the thoughts, among many, that have been swirling in my head since chatting with this weeks Story Time in the Garden reader, Tim Jones. I’ve been wracking my brain, sifting through all of the creative words I know in the English language, trying to find any that adequately describe the man that I just met. I have been left unimpressed with the selection of choices currently taking up space in my brain. Yet a melody keeps coming to mind. It’s a bit cheeky. Slow, yet full of energy. Slightly melancholic. If you’ve seen the romantic comedy, “The Holiday”, it’s reminiscent of Arthurs theme song. Yet Tim’s melody has a hint of soulful blues to it, unexpected, yet beautiful if left untamed.
Walking into his apartment I was immediately struck with the orderliness of the space. Everything had a place, and every place had a thing. The walls were covered with photos, all taken by the man himself, showcasing the life he has led. Each picture carries with it a memory. And a story. Like the picture of the Orca whale lounging, belly up, photographed feet from Tim’s boat. Disregard the fact that it’s illegal for a boat to be within 100 meters of a whale. Not that Tim has no respect for nature. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Tim’s love of nature is so ingrained in his DNA that animals can sense it and trust him. Why else would a gigantic orca whale, upon seeing Tim’s boat over 100 meters away, decide to change course and head straight for his unmoving boat? And then, upon arriving at his boat, turn belly up and just float next to him for a while? These types of “once in a lifetime” experiences seem to be a theme to Tim’s life…
Pay no mind to the fact that Tim was born in New York to an engineer dad and housekeeping mom. The man was born to be a writer and the universe was bound and determined to make it a reality for him. How else do you explain his acceptance into college? One night, while under the influence of a young lady and alcohol, Tim decided to write himself an application to the University of Kansas. Please don’t confuse this with him having submitting an application. No no. He simply wrote them a letter telling them why they should accept him. They responded almost immediately asking him to submit an official application, which he did. He started working at the student newspaper and pretty soon he was “editor of the whole shooting match.”
On Tim's resume you will find prestigious names like the Chicago Tribune and Wall Street
Journal, but it was his job with the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) that forged the beginning of his life in Alaska. Shortly upon his arrival in our great state, on what was supposed to be a two week vacation, Tim was invited to a house party. But, because it’s Tim, and the universe had a plan for him, it turned out the house party was in fact a retirement party. For the news editor at ADN. The chief asked Tim to come chat with him the next day. Which he did. That chat resulted in Tim being offered the news editor job. Boom. Thank you universe.
Being a news editor is all well and good. But our man Tim is a creative writer. Not a journalist. He had the itch to write and he knew there was a story just waiting to be told. What story? Why, none other than The Last Great Race, the Iditarod. When the opportunity to undertake the project was provided to him he undertook it with gusto. It was his first chance to really be creative and write the story that was buried inside him. Yet, after spending a year researching the race, including flying the trail, funding for the project dried up. But Tim had had a taste and he couldn’t go back! So what is he to do? Well, drink about it for starters… While sitting and commiserating with a friend about his bad luck, a fellow to Tim’s right said, “You’re wanting to write a book about the Iditarod and need more money? How much do you need?” How many times have you been out with a friend, happen to sit within ear shot of someone who just happened to have recently won the lottery and have them offer to pay to fund your passion project? Well in this epic true story that’s exactly what happened. A check was cut, a cabin and sled dogs were offered, and Tim spent three months locked away finishing his first book.
He did it! He’s a published author! So what does he do to celebrate? He explores his other passion - living life. As Tim describes it, “I’ve accomplished wonders, many of them just getting myself home.” And that just about tells you all you need to know about how he lives life. After all, inspiration for creative writing doesn’t come from living a boring life. So where does this story take us next? Ah yes, we find ourselves on a sailboat, during the darkest part of night, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean in all directions. Tim is just taking over the watch when the binnacle light goes out. (If you are like me and don’t know what a binnacle is, it’s the stand in which the compass on a ship is mounted).
How do you navigate at night when you can’t see the compass and you don’t have an iPhone to light the way, because we’re talking the early ‘80’s here? No fear, Tim and his off the charts genius mechanic friend found a simple solution. They mounted a flashlight to the glass dome covering the compass and then taped the flashlight in place. The rest of the watch went just fine… yet, there’s something about the sun coming over the horizon, lighting up the world after a long night, that allowed Tim and his mate to see the world in a whole new light that morning. They looked at the flashlight, they looked at the binnacle, they looked into each others eyes, and a sliver of chilling realization crept into their bodies. Did they just mount a metal flashlight to a metal structure in order to see and navigate by a device that utilizes magnets to work? Yes, yes they did. Does it impact navigation? Yes, yes it does. In fact, after conducting an experiment, they learned they were off course by five degrees. Five measly degrees, no big deal right? Well, as Tim explained to me, if you leave the coast of Washington, destined for Hawaii, and are off by ONE degree you will miss the islands by EIGHTY miles. Did they notify anyone of their blunder? Ha! They knew they still had several days before they were supposed to arrive in Hawaii. They figured if they simply over corrected by ten degrees for each of their four hour watches over the next few days, they’d get back on track. The fact that the port of Honolulu appeared on the horizon, directly in front of their sailboat as planned, is almost maddening at this point. But again, just another day in the life of Tim Jones.
At this moment in my writing I am wondering, where do I go next with this story? Suddenly Tim’s melody starts playing in my mind. A bit cheeky. Slow, yet full of energy. Slightly melancholic. An undercurrent of blues. So far the melody in this story has played to his cheekiness. His playful energy. Yet Tim isn’t Tim without the melancholy. The air of soulful blues. After all, life is all about the yin and the yang.
What does it mean to live a successful life? This is something that I have spent significant time pondering, especially since having kids. The only definition I have come up with is there is no definition. It’s unique to each individual. It can change from year to year, day to day, second to second. If all goes well for me, I am about halfway through my life. Most days I am proud of the life I have lived, but there are days that I am more wistful than others. On those days I find myself looking back and pondering, “what would have happened if…”. I suppose it’s natural to feel melancholic when I know that I may have fewer years left on this planet than I have lived so far. Natural to inquire as to what I am doing with my life. Natural to question whether anyone will remember me when I’m gone. In moments of sonder I ruminate about my conversation with Tim, is this how he feels too? I think so.
Tim shared with me a memory that has stuck with him since the 70’s. It happened during an innocuous car ride to Homer with his parents. Road trip conversations, as hopefully you all have experienced, have a way of flowing without any rhyme or reason and somehow the topic of strength was brought up. Tim’s dad stated, “I’ve never been a man of might”, to which is mom replied, “Alfred, you’ve always been a man of might. You might do this. You might do that.” His dad laughed but Tim went cold. He thought, “that’s me. You know, I’m doing the same damn thing. I’m in my mid 30’s. So I started a plan to break loose. I wanted to build a cabin in the bush and I wanted to write a book.”
What happens when all your life goals come to fruition, and yet you are left feeling… unsatisfied? It reminds me of the Garth Brooks song, Unanswered Prayers, except reversed.
“Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you’re talkin to the man upstairs
And just because he doesn’t answer, doesn’t mean He don’t care
‘Cause some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers”
The country music legend croons about running into an old high school flame, while with his wife, and being so thankful that his prayers to marry his first love went unanswered years earlier.
So why does this song come to mind when I think about Tim? He built his cabin in the bush. Paycheck by paycheck, through a system he terms “creative poverty” he made his goal a reality. He wrote down a list of every single item he would need in order to build his cabin. Over the next three years, for every paycheck he earned, he bought one item from the list. His spare bedroom was pushing its limits by the end! For the purposes of this metaphor, you could say his prayer was answered.
And Tim wrote a book. In fact, he has published multiple throughout his life. He also has a blog, alaskaatitude.blogspot.com (http://alaskaatitude.blogspot.com/) (yes, the typo is correct, don’t question Tim’s editorial skills in this regard folks), which has reached over 700,000 views. What with all the opportunities that fell in Tim’s lap, it seems he was ordained to be a creative writer. Again, metaphorically, his prayer was answered.
So why the melancholy? Why the blues? “I thought we were just gonna chat you know, and he offered me the job. And this is another one of those things, if I don’t take it now, I’m never going to get it.” This is Tim discussing his meeting with the chief of ADN right after arriving in Alaska. In his eyes I see a bit of self flagellation. Recognizing the seemingly great opportunities accepted at inopportune times. The disappointment of having to push back the publication of a long awaited novel, that then had to be modified, due to the unfortunate release of a popular Disney movie with a “too similar” plot line. His creativity being derailed during a time in his life when he was feeling unstoppable in his writing.
We’re in his apartment. Our conversation teetering on the two-plus hour mark. I ask him how long he’s been living in his current abode. He states he “came out of the woods” two years ago. He shared that he had been thinking he needed to be making long term plans and had heard good things about the Chugiak Eagle-River Senior Center. With the understanding that it was a two year waiting list, he figured he’d better fill out the application sooner rather than later. His plan was to then spend two more glorious, isolated, Alaskan dream years at his cabin near Talkeetna. But in true Tim fashion, instead of waiting for two years, he got a call the next day notifying him that a room was available immediately. He figured, “maybe it’s a smart thing to do you know… anyways, that’s how I ended up here.” “So how are you feeling about the decision?” “I’m not real happy. I kinda wish I had said no and gone back out into the woods another year.” Another great opportunity accepted at an in opportune time.
Has Tim lived a successful life? Only he can say. And after all, his story is still being written. But THIS story is coming to an end and I am left wondering. What words are left for me, a mere mortal, to adequately conclude a story about a man who spent his lifetime man-handling the English language? None. So I will tactlessly transition back to the idea of Tim as a melody. Cheeky. Slow, yet energetic. A hint of melancholy. And an undercurrent of blues to bring it all together.
A NOTE: Once I got past my embarrassment after reading this a couple of times (I had never read so much written about me by another writer) I came to a realization that floored me. I am pretty sure she is the first person I ever met whom I didn't feel like I had to explain myself to.
And, the event itself
Another fun time at Story Time in
the Garden last night! I had such a great time listening to Tim Jones
read his books. Hearing all the added details from the author was a special
treat. After the reading, guests were treated to fresh veggies harvested from
the All Thumbs Community
Garden, followed by an Alaskan animal play dough craft that
they decorated with nature.
And then there's this: Lost between the moon and New York City?
Adventures in writing
July 25, 2025
This came to mind today, I have no clue why. I've often spoken about the zone I get into sometimes when I am writing so deeply I'm unaware of my surroundings. I was living in a small house and my writing place was in my bedroom. Also in that bedroom tucked away in the closet was the building's water heater. That went bad and a plumber came over to put in a new one. It was full-sized and took two of us to wrestle it into the house. Then I went to my writing, my back to the water heater and closet and soon was fully immersed. I have no idea how long I kept at it. Finally I stood up, looked around, no plumber. Then I noticed the water heater fully installed. In the front room I found the plumber putting away his tools. I asked how he did that. All he said was, "well, you were writing." He had removed the old one and fully installed a large water heater within about 10 feet of me and i never noticed. And, now, many years later, I can't even remember what I was writing at the time.
About G2G
August 28. 2018
Missing a friend
Waiting in the usual place
I waited for you in the usual place.
In time a small bird landed on a branch, a whistle sounded in the woods but there was no way of knowing if it was this bird.
Was that you?
Doubtful, I never heard you sing.
I waited for you in the usual place.
A moose calf meandered past, in no hurry so his mother must have been close.
Doubtful, there is nothing at least apparently maternal about you.
But I still waited for you in the usual place.
Clouds drifted by, occasionally blocking the sun for a moment.
Was that you?
Doubtful, though you have occasionally obscured the light.
I waited for you in the usual place.
Snow covered the higher peaks, allowing them the appearance of renewing their virginity for the resumption of winter and hiding scars carved by their summer invaders.
Was that you?
Doubtful, there is nothing virginal about you, though I know you bear the scars.
I waited for you in the usual place.
A fish jumped and splashed in the river.
Was that you?
Doubtful, you have never been one to express much joy.
I waited for you in the usual place.
Across the way children laughed in their play.
Was that you?
Doubtful, though I have never heard your laugh.
I waited for you in the usual place.
A woman's voice called for the children.
Was that you?
Doubtful, though I have never heard your voice, unless that was you hanging up after a hesitant "hello" the other day.
Indoors, in the usual place, words appeared on a screen.
Was that you?
No, not your words. And words were all we had; as I must have been to you, you were to me only words on a screen.
I remain in the usual place, but no longer waiting.
No, bb, I may be in the usual place but I'm not waiting around for you any more.
––––––
And then on that screen, was an answer posted? And though you will not wait for me I will wait for you.
Everybody has a story
September 11 is the birthday of one of my son's best friends. In 2001 he spent the night before at his friend's house, so in the morning I was spared the joy of getting him a breakfast and off to school. As was my habit in those days I was downstairs in my home office early in the morning writing when an Instant Message from my niece in Buffalo fairly jumped off the screen telling me to turn on the television. The set warmed up and showed a picture just in time for me to witness the second airliner hitting the second tower of the World Trade Center. I had no idea whether what I was watching was real or something left over from an all-night terror movie marathon, but an announcer cleared that up as soon as he quit saying oh my god about a hundred times.
I knew pretty quickly writing was over for the morning and I sat, my full attention glued to the TV as I watched the horrors slowly unfold, sorting out the rumors every announcer seemed to report and trying to figure out exactly what happened, and what was truth and what was an overanxious talking head's imagination.
What I thought was I wanted to be with my son. At that time in life I taught a writing session once a week in his class for two hours. I thought about the kids and when it seemed a good time, I called his teacher to ask if I could help in some way, if only to be in the classroom with the kids and try to answer any questions they had and maybe just be a solid presence.
She said all right, so I did that. Knowing little more than they did, but helping them sort out what was fact and what was rumor and reassuring them that I was fairly sure nothing in Alaska was worth a terrorist's firepower. Of course we were three miles away from the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal at the time.
When regular classes started I left hoping I had helped in some way.
Later in the week I think I might have. I was always looking for writing projects for the kids. I thought they would learn more writing than listening to me spout off so they spent most of their time in that class writing. But finding ideas for them was sometimes taxing.
No problem this week. I found a timeline of events on a web site and copied it, changed the times to Alaska time and then printed it out, later making enough copies at school. In class that morning I started by telling them that just about every generation has some kind of defining moment, something that happened where you never forget where you were when you heard it. I said my parents' was probably Pearl Harbor Day, My own was probably the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And, then I told them that 9/11 just might be theirs. So, I assigned them to write down everything they could remember from that morning. From how they learned about what happened, to what they had for breakfast; what did they wear to school, were they afraid; what did their friends think, any detail no matter how small, so that they could remember the day accurately. I gave them each a copy of the timeline to help out, so maybe they could compare events in their lives with those in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania.
This was a two hour class of fifth or sixth graders, but they were quiet for a long time, most of the first hour. I always started the class with an in-their-seats yoga exercise and when they got antsy later on, we would all stand up and do a sun salute. We did that, they sat and worked a little longer and when most had finished we talked more about the events until the end of the hour.
At some time they went to the computer lab and typed their stories into the machine and we printed them all out. Then I bought a bunch of nice folders and the teacher and I made a folder for each kid with their story and the timeline in it. I can't remember now but I think we might have put all the kid' stories in each folder but I am not sure. Anyway we gave those to the kids to save.
Today on the tenth anniversary, they are all in their early 20s and I would like to think at least some of them still have their folders and maybe can pull them out and read a little of what they thought about it 10 years ago. It is a strange coincidence that just this morning I came across a blog written by one of them and it is written beautifully. Another one of those kids is today a Marine in Afghanistan.
A comment from facebook: Betty Sederquist Powerful piece. I think we will all remember that day as long as we live. On that 9/11 day I had a photo job in nearby Folsom, just downriver from one of California's largest dams. A lot of money was at stake in my job. I had to get it done that day because a $10,000 project was at stake, with a strict print timeline. Do it or the money was lost. I was up early, watching the devastation on TV and packing gear for the big photo shoot. My husband implored me not to go, because terrorists could have bombed the dam or whatever. I went anyway. Everyone was in tears, just getting the job done. That night I had to teach my photography class at our local college. I figured no one would come, but EVERYONE came. Of course, they were zombies, but so was I. I am guessing everyone wanted the distraction of the class. Somehow we got through it. And I do remember when I heard about JFK, more intense remembrances.
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Just a thought to put out for all the editors and writers out there. Belief is something you do for something for which there is no hard evidence, like with god. If someone doesn't believe in global warming to be a fact, it doesn't matter. It is still a fact. Why not try the words accept and acceptance instead. As in "accept the fact the world is warming." I am sure there are others.
________________________________________________
It's all open to interpretation, or is it?
Comments from facebook: Betty Sederquist Tim, when you were mentoring me as a writer, you didn't put up with any flowery BS from me in my writing. Lessons well learned, and now I know the origin of all that, those miserable literature classes. I would have majored in English, but found all those flowery metaphors in the classes a bit too daunting. I'm with Hemingway on this one. Interestingly, I think you and I have published WAY more than any of those English professors.
Jan Williams Simone Aw, I like a good metaphor once in awhile, not that I can come up with an example. But you two are my writing mentors. Even though I was not on the editorial side at ANWP, I picked up a lot from both of you. Every time I use an exclamation point here on FB I still can hear Tim's voice in my head saying (exclaiming?) to avoid them. If I were writing a blog or something more formal, they would be edited out. I wish I could go back and work there again, now that I have enough life experience to have something to say..
Nine Things For Writers to Let Go Of
I don't write much about my woo-woo practice here. I write a little in my other blog from time to time (and there may be more coming), but it tends to be something I am circumspect about around most folks. Usually my reaction when I talk about anything like being genderqueer, pansexual, non-monogamous or pagan—when folks demand to know "what does THIS have to do with writing,"—is probably the opposite of what they intended. It makes me want to write about that stuff MORE. But my practice is mostly personal and I don't like to proselytize.
However, last night was the "long moon." (Also sometimes "cold moon" or "oak moon.") It's the last full moon before the solstice. That's an astronomic term, not just for us new age folks who like to wank off with our moon water. And whether you consider lunar cycles to have any particular spiritual significance or would just prefer to consider a social psychological practice, the long moon is a time where a lot of people ritualistically let go of the fetters and thoughts that no longer serve them.
For me, it's a tricky practice. I don't just let go of every terrible event or relationship or moment that's ever happened to me. Some of those experiences have galvanized me, and sometimes the worst things I go through end up leaving this indelible goodness in places and ways I could never have expected. And as I tried to carefully edit my list, I started to realize how well some of the ideas I wanted to let go of mapped onto my own career and creative life.
So I came up with a list for writers.
[Before we go ANY further, I want to take a moment to talk about the gaslighting effect of toxic positivity. Letting go of that which no longer serves us is NOT THE SAME THING!
We're not going to
always look on the bright side. There's no benefit to feeling guilt over
negative emotions. Just because "it could be worse" does not mean it
isn't bad, or a person should never feel bad feelings. Not everything
will work out, and the universe is cold and uncaring—not your secret
conspiratorial pal. (The tendency for everything to work out is more
accurately described as privilege.) Not everyone gets a happy ending.
And on top of the ways in which negative emotions are ignored and
shamed, toxic positivity can fountainhead a whole movement that tries to
whitewash systemic and systematic injustice with "love and light" and
call any attempt to accurately recognize such injustice as
"negativity."
For some folks, some of the items on this list cannot be simply willed out of existence no matter how intense one's spiritual practice. Some will require years of therapy. Some need meds. Some of the items on this list (in some cases all) will be made worse by mental illnesses, and just wishing them gone on a particular full moon night won't fix the problem. Some may be chronic in the lives of a number of writers, and they will spend a lifetime working around them. I make no value or moral judgements about anyone's ABILITY to let these go. But if they can be released, a writer will be better for it.]
1- Perfectionism
Spoiler alert. It'll never be perfect. You have to find the sweet spot of "as good as you can get it for what you're trying to do" and then let it go. If you're trying to write a literary masterpiece, maybe you put in a few more drafts than if you are punching out the 15th popcorn novel in a series so that your fans will buy it up and keep your rent paid for the next six months. But whatever you're trying to accomplish, at some point, it's reached its glass ceiling of limited returns. And that's when it's time for you to do what all artists should do, and move on.
Perfectionism just leads to anxiety, procrastination, and a fear of failure that will stymie ANY progress.
Make it as good as you can (for what it is). Done is better than perfect.
2- Comparative Benchmarks of Success
There will always be someone with a more widely read blog or better selling novel or who is just a little further along in their career. To say nothing of the Stephen Kings and Neil Gaimans and Colleen Hoovers who eclipse us all with their phenomenal success. This has never been clearer to me than having entire MFA cohorts gawking at my relative success while I try to justify the expense of eating at Panera for the second time in a week. I bet Stephen King gets Panera as often as he….okay, maybe best to let this go.
We are absolutely SOAKING in a commercial culture that wants us to compare ourselves to each other. (Often so we'll buy a product that'll make us feel better about that comparison—see below.) But these comparisons lead to feelings of envy, depression, and are inextricable from a certain virulent sense of entitlement about what we are due. Better to focus on the work and how to continue forth with the best possible effort day after day.
3- Rampant Materialism
Look, there's a whole movement that tries to shame poor people for going to the emergency room or for eating anything but beans and rice. Fuck that. FUCK IT. We all require safety, which includes food security, shelter, medical care, and not worrying about the clicking noise that the only car available we have to get to the job two towns over has started making. There are an awful lot of people who have nothing to cut out of a budget and who have to do what they can to make ends meet. Believe me. I walk a neighbor's dog for a few bucks anytime I want Panera.
But there is a level of materialism that a writer could do without. This is not a well-paying career until/unless one is well established with a LOT of work in the rearview. Everything from being secure on a tighter budget to not having to work long hours at some job that takes you away from writing will be served by not letting a never-sated lifestyle obsession dictate the unending quest for more and better stuff.
4- Limiting Beliefs/Negative Self-Talk
You can't do ANYTHING you set your mind to, no matter what the cishet white male motivational speaker with the six-figure salary says you can. And acknowledging systemic and systematic injustices and inequalities in a world rampant with both is not somehow what's holding folks back. No matter how clear the thought, or how many candles are lit, no one can manifest themselves out of real-world limitations.
But there is a needle to thread, especially for a writer. If you give oxygen to your catastrophic intrusive thoughts, you create a reality in which these objectives are just as impossible as you believe them to be. If you keep thinking that you can't write that book or no one will ever want to read you, you are very likely to talk yourself out of even trying. Then you definitely won't get it done.
Sometimes there's a fine line between blithely spewing rainbows up people's butts and a simple belief that you can accomplish something worthwhile if you keep trying. (Maybe not exactly what you wanted, but something.) Not every positive thought has the ability to alter your reality…but ironically, most negative ones actually do.
5- Concern for the Opinions of Others
Please understand that I'm not telling you to go publish your unedited NaNoWriMo novel because other people's opinions are useless. I'm not telling you that you don't need an editor or peer feedback or to listen to anyone. You have to be willing to listen to some people.
But it's up to you who.
If you sit around and worry about the opinions of everyone, you'll never get it done. It's just too damned scary. MOST people won't like what you do. People won't like your style. They won't like your content. They won't like your politics. They won't like your philosophy. They won't like your adherence to a style guide that puts in the comma when they wouldn't have. They won't like your adherence to a style guide that leaves out the comma that they would have put in. They won't like that you said "fuck." They won't like your joke about cishet white dudes. They won't like that you eat at Panera. There are eight billion people in the world, and even if you somehow manage to reproduce the outrageous, phenomenal, unthinkable success of She Who Shall Not be Named and sell 500 million copies (which is far from being LIKED by everyone who buys a copy, BTW), you still will have 15/16ths of the world basically unimpressed by you. MOST people aren't going to like you. And if you sit around caring about all of them, not only will your simple act of expressing YOURSELF suffer, but you'll never find the people who will think you're great.
6- Your Past Failed Goals
You either hit them or you didn't.
Kudos if you did—or got close.
If not, don't dwell on it. Get up. Dust yourself off. Set new goals—perhaps slightly easier ones. This is a new day/week/month/year.
I wanted to be published by 30…then 40…now I'm thinking 50 might be a stretch.
But if I let my failure at 30 define me, I'd never have a writing career. Hell, if I let my failure to write two articles a week during my cancer recovery define me, I'd be sunk.
If you aren't failing at goals from time to time, your goals are too easy. Set new ones.
7- Saying Yes to Everything
Protect your writing time.
Protect your writing time.
Protect your writing time.
I can't tell you what your priorities in life are. Family? MMORPGs? Sex parties? Dating? Eating at Panera? Off-road mountain biking? But if you say yes to EVERYTHING, there's nothing left for writing. It's really that simple.
8- The Excuses
We've all got them, and most of them suck.
You'd
be harder pressed to find someone who DOESN'T think they have a book in
them…along with a list of excuses as long ass their arm for why they
haven't written it.
If you don't want to write, don't write. That's okay. No really, that's really, really, REALLY okay.
If you do want to write, you have to let go of the excuses.
[Insert a Panera joke here.]
9- Hubris
Negative self talk is one thing. Thinking you don't need an editor or that your first draft is ready after a quick edit is another. Get rid of both.
If you want to be a writer, you have to let go of the idea that you are a gift to the written word. You need an editor (maybe two). You need to revise. You need to trust the process and rewrite rather than just polish your first draft. You need to get messy.
If you just want to self-publish, admire your own book on your own bookshelf, and never even sell enough to buy lunch at Panera, don't let me get in your way. But if you want more than your pressured-into-it friends buying your novel, you need to release your ego.
Labels: fiction, Writing, writing class
OK, I lied
"Anyway, over a dinner at some roadhouse, Stanley started talking about the "write what you know" idea. He said it was exactly right, because you would provide really perfect details that way. Like, he said, when he wrote about Chicago, where he was born, he could describe in detail the Guatamalan-Chinese restaruants. He then went on to expatiate on the perfect of this recipe and that recipe. And all the time I was thinking, "Guatamalan-Chinese?" I finally asked him if he was putting me on. He grinned. "That was fun. I was just making that all up," he said. It was weirdly believable stuff, except--Guatamalan Chinese?"
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away
March 20, 2010
Hello are we on the same wavelength?
February 21, 2016
___________________________________________
A writer's Merry Christmas
December 25, 2016
So, this present came as a total surprise. Christmas Eve I was listening to my favorite music of the season, which though I am not religious is the traditional religious carols. They move me in ways almost every other genre does not. My concert always ends with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "O Holy Night." Mostly the choir backs a soprano who sings that song like no one since Bonnie in our schoolboy church Christmas pageants. The ones where I was always a shepherd.
Anyway the gift began during the choir's rendition of another classic, "Silent Night."
For years I have been collecting misinterpreted lyrics in Christmas carols with the idea with enough of them there could be a really clever story in it. An example would be: " … with angelic host …" becomes the Jelly Coast.
So last night listening to the Mormons sing "Silent Night," I heard a new one and this one involved names. Names mean characters and characters mean stories. It happens that fast.
It's been years since I have written much that is truly creative, except maybe an occasional post on this blog.
I have gone so far as advertising for a muse on Craigslist. I was invited to do some interesting things, none of which involved writing.
So imagine those urges being stimulated by an idea. I was so happy with it, I just had to tell someone.
During the day I had exchanged messages with a friend online and she has an interest in writing also. So I sent her a message explaining the project and telling her the inspiration I had just received from the Mormons. Mind you, at this point the gift had not yet started giving.
I realized it was late where she lived and I would not hear from her quickly. And then just as I was falling asleep, I had the awful feeling I don't know her very well and I might have offended her with what could seem like making fun of traditional beliefs.
Christmas morning I opened her message with some trepidation but I should have given her more credit. She loved the idea, she loved the new additions and even offered some suggestions of phrases she had heard. Now the gift was giving. As I went about the chores of the day, the idea was festering and growing in my mind.
By late afternoon too much was going on for me to ignore it any longer and I actually sat down to write: total creation for the first time in years. Talk about Christmas joy. I once told a woman friend that total immersion in creative writing is better than sex. She didn't believe me. Silly girl.
Anyway I wrote for two solid hours, one idea following another and coming so fast I had to stop the narrative only long enough to write the ideas for the future so I wouldn't lose them. The gift that keeps on giving.
After about two hours I came up for air. I had to restart the fire (the one in the wood stove) and take care of other chores, like food for one.
Now, breathing regularly again and coming down I recall the time this friend and I exchanged ideas about muses and what I was looking for. She correctly saw right through me, telling me what I was really looking for was a friend I could talk about things like this with. I don't think, though, that she was volunteering. But she has done it, probably without realizing it, and in the process given me the greatest gift someone could give a writer, in this case unmitigated encouragement.
I would love to share what I have written but that is a great way to lose interest in something quickly. I don't anticipate it being completed soon, either. I still need several more phrases and they will come and perhaps lead to more days like today. But I don't think it will hurt to give a little hint. My new characters are named Alice Calm and Alice Bright.
"Silent Night" New York Philharmonic and Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Temperature hovers near zero as white stuff falls on a ship three football fields long
February 12, 2015
Farewell me hearties
February 25, 2011
A story about writing came up the other day. I had told this story to an online friend some time ago and we had been out of touch for about a year and then she came back a couple of weeks ago. I started to tell the story and she said she had heard it and that she had told it to friends of hers. I asked what their reaction was. “They laughed,” she said. And that, I told her, is why we don’t share much of the process, but here is the story anyway.
That book in the left column “Keep the Round Side Down,” took almost twenty years to write.
It started in the mid 70s as a short story tall tale. I used to write those for fun, practice, if you will, with no intention of ever publishing any of them. It is like the pianist doesn’t go to Carnegie Hall and play scales and these were scales to me. One followed another over the years and I found people enjoyed hearing me read them, as my daughter attests in that nice review she put on Amazon.
In the early 80s I began driving boats and because of the adventures I had with killer whales came to be called Orca by people for a while.
One night I began to fantasize how someone named Orca would get that name and another tall tale developed, only this went on for a while. I wrote several more with the same character. It eventually developed into a novel in which the boy Orca saved a pod of orcas from a catcher crew that was collecting them for a marine zoo, somewhat akin to Sea World. (My interaction with Sea World is another story) I worked on it for several years intermittently, in between other writing projects, boat adventures, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Somewhere in that time a friend told a friend of his about the stories, someone who ran a small Alaska publishing house. I eventually gave her the short stories but not the novel.
That was because in the interim Disney had come out with the “Free Willie” movies and my story looked so much like that, it would have been ridiculed, so I figured that was a lost cause, more practice, more scales.
The publisher eventually came back to me liking the stories but wanting what she called a framing tale to connect them all. I showed her the Orca stories but told her of my apprehension about accusations of copying. I suggested maybe I could rework it with a different ending, She liked it and the book is the result of that.
Now, here is the real part of the story within the story: One day I marched to the Post Office (this was before Internet and such)with the last submission, the book had been written, edited, corrected, revised and this was the last mailing.
I remember handing it reluctantly across the counter to the fellow in the Post Office and once it was out of my hands I walked over to our favorite watering hole thinking I would celebrate. I sat down, ordered a beer began to take a sip, when an almost tangible overwhelming sadness came over me. A realization. It hit me that I had just said goodbye to a whole group of friends. For the past 20 years of my life all those characters had been with me every day in one form or another, friends I could play with at my whim, kindred spirits, mates, foes, lovers, fellow adventurers. And now they were gone, they wouldn’t be there the next day, I had passed them into the care of another person. It had left me feeling empty and alone.
The bartender who knew I had mailed the manuscript for the last time came over and asked me what was wrong, she had sensed my mood. I looked at her and said I just lost a whole bunch of friends today. She smiled at me and she said she thought she understood. I think she did. It goes to that poem somewhere in this blog that John Updike wrote about marching through a novel:
“I love them though I march them to finish them off” but in my own case with the hope they always sail with the round side down.
I put that picture up there just because I like it. It is of me and my son taken by our friend Annie Daly on the voyage of the Kaisei last summer.
If you were me, you'd love this one
April 19, 2011I am putting up this picture just because I love it. I met this charming young woman on the sail last summer. We were on the same watch and enjoyed several talks about creativity and art. She is a very talented artist. If you wish, you can see some of her work here Beasts and Biophiles.
In search of the evasive muse
August 14, 2015
Some time ago on a night when I was having a glass of wine or two and surfing the net and feeling a bit lonely, I put an ad up on a meeting site saying I was seeking a muse. I thought I might meet someone interesting. I received a few responses but not very many. After all how many people on one of those sites want to talk with a 72-year-old man? The thing of it was, not one of them even mentioned "muse." I traded a few emails with a couple of them but it never went any further than that.
More recently I was chatting with a friend and mentioned the search that night. She asked me which of the nine of them I was looking for and suggested next time (like there is ever going to be a next time) I say which of the nine muses I am seeking. First of all, there are nine of them? I really need to look things up more often. I had the idea of muse correct, but not the specifics. It turns out there are nine of them. They are listed in the piece below that I lifted from infoplease.
The Nine Muses
 Copied from Infoplease. |
And so we plod on alone callously accepting no excuse for the inertia perhaps now understanding there are nine of them out there avoiding contact, but in a way providing an ethereal connection with a previous inspiration.
Another conversation with Patricia
Snippets
We write them and don't quite know what to do with them. They come to mind and leave just as fast and we are left with a slice of time and circumstance without backstory. Here is one that came up today. This one is different though, I have a place for it.
The power of words
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| Meme from the Occupy Democrats Facebook page. |
Everybody has a story
Back in 1970 the thing was no comma at the end of a series
Where do these come from? Many of them are drilled into us as students. Others we pick up on the way. A new one I would edit out every time I see it is lately writers and newscasters cannot help saying "back in" as in "back in 1998." You see and hear it everywhere and it is totally unnecessary. "In 1998" is fine and if print media are trying to save space they can save two words every time a date comes up. Think of the miles of newsprint and gallons of ink saved if editors everywhere removed those two words every time they see them.
What's kind of silly about an editor's foibles is most of these tiny ones don't matter at all. Does the substance change if there are two spaces after a sentence instead of one? Does it make any difference to the story whether a guy does it Wednesday or on Wednesday? Does the time frame change if something happened in 1998 rather than back in 1998? Nope. These things seem to go in cycles anyway. Take the oxford comma. I was taught you leave that last comma out of a series because the commas only indicate the missing "and" between other items in that series. You leave it out when the series ends with "and something." And I can remember the horror on the face of the teacher when I told a class of fourth grade writing students you didn't put that comma in. But whether the comma is there or not doesn't matter to the meaning either. Maybe age has mellowed me but I just let that stuff go any more. There is enough to do without splitting hairs over a comma or a space.
So what brought this on? I am editing a story and part of the story is about editing, so it is double indemnity. I had written this: "I have this fancy new weather thing …." I had a high school English teacher who insisted "thing" should never be used. There is always a more detailed substitute. Never write "thing." So when I saw it the alarm went off. The context and other constraints didn't allow a detailed description of the instrument which has an outdoor sensor that broadcasts the reading to a bedside monitor. So I changed "thing" to "device." Then what hit me was what more does that tell a reader? If you think about it, "device" really means "thing." It is no more specific. And, for that matter so does "instrument," though both seem to sound and look better but neither tells the reader any more except perhaps by inference. Unable to come up with anything better, I stuck with device.
That teacher also instilled another trigger in me. She said every time you see a version of the verb "to be" change it. That is simply a state of being, says only something is standing there doing nothing. Her advice was every time you write "is" or "was" look for an active verb. That advice has served me well over the years and a couple of reviewers have pointed out my use of verbs as something positive in my writing. Often finding an active verb takes very little time.
Writers aren't that difficult to deal with, are they?
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| From The Writers Group facebook page. |
Twice in past week or so posts have shown up on facebook listing questions or statements not to make to writers. Both lists ring true. I've heard several of them myself and I'm pretty sure the others are valid; at least if I heard them I know I wouldn't like it.
There are two I would add, at least that's all I thought of right now. The statements came from a publisher who ought to know better. The first should be fairly obvious and came from that publisher more than once.
He would tell me how well another author's book was doing. Now, I am all for any writer succeeding, but when a publisher is supposed to be selling my book but tells me how well another writer's is doing, honestly, I just don't want to hear it.
The second was more subtle and I am sure he thought it was a compliment of sorts. It involves categorization. My first two books were about the Iditarod Trail sled dog race.
About ten years later on two occasions, about two other ideas, he contacted me with books he wanted that were "right up my alley." Both were about dogs. What I heard him saying in not so many words was "you are a dog writer." At the time I had just finished a novel and was deep into a second one, neither of which involved dogs. Thinking back I hadn't even wanted to do the second Iditarod book but my ego got in the way. At the time I had reached what I felt was a breakthrough in fiction where I finally understood how it worked and was determined to write what I wanted to, rather than what would sell or what someone else wanted me to do. Stopping that effort to do another project set me back years. To be categorized as a dog writer years later was too much. I never talked with that publisher again. (The most recent Iditarod project is an exception to this tirade.)
This one would have been the worst if I hadn't known the speaker was teasing. Harlequin Romances published a book titled Leader of the Pack. The book plagiarized The Last Great Race to the point of ridiculousness. Whole sentences, even a couple of complete paragraphs, quotes, descriptions slightly rewritten filled the tale of an alpha sled dog and an alpha male musher and their tawdry romances along the Iditaord Trail. Both books made the circuit through the cabins near the East Pole. Then one night a friend put down the romance, looked at me and said, "It was a lot better than yours – more action." Fortunately the laughter tempered my quick initial reaction.
Of the lists, I would emphasize one item and change another. No. 5 on the list in the graphic is: "Leave a writer alone when the writer is actually writing. You have no idea how difficult it is to enter the zone." Interruptions during periods in the zone I am sure contributed to a divorce in my life, and may provide some basis among reasons why I live alone today.
The second is much easier. No. 10 on that list is dealing with a writer who has received a rejection letter. It suggests leaving him alone but offering a cup of coffee. I suggest whiskey.
Ten things not to say to a writer
Reactions:Here's one of the pitfalls in the writing process
Picture a small town along the Alaska coast where everyone recognizes everyone else, and most are at least passing acquaintances. Among these citizens a writer toils in the days before Internet and with access only to a limited library. He often has to find a local expert in something or other to confirm the accuracy of a tidbit he is writing.
A favorite source is the nurse practitioner in the town's clinic. his go-to reference for medical information. So, while involved with the intricacies of a plot involving the denizens of a harbor, he discovered one of his characters needed a venereal disease, wait, an STD in modern terminology. He chose Chlamydia as one that is barely noticeable and definitely not life-threatening. He only needed it so the character would have to face an embarrassing situation with a nurse he had met in a bar the same night the woman who gave him the disease told him about it.
Having written the sequence of discovery, anxiety. well, how about anger, bargaining, denial. depression, acceptance, and sending the poor protagonist off to be cured by the nurse who had become the object of his affections, the author approached his friend for a medical opinion of his prose.
Within a day she came back to him, changing only one little detail and handing back his manuscript with pinched fingers as if it were somehow soiled, an affectation he barely noticed.
A week later, having progressed further into his plot he came upon a question. Instead of a phone call, that evening he approached the nurse practitioner in the bleachers of a Little League baseball game where she sat with a group of several players' mothers. Giving it little thought, he sat next to her and asked over the sound of a cheer, "If Chlamydia has no symptoms how do you know if you are cured or not?"
The cheering stopped in the same instant he realized his mistake. That instant of deadening silence was broken by his friend's almost fiendish laughter. Face flushed, his mouth hanging open and panic in his eyes begging for understanding, he mumbled something about the scoreboard and raced away from that crowd knowing full well by morning the story of his disease would have spread all over that small town.
This may be one reason people hear of cloistered writers, at least that is what happened with me. Oops, did I say "me?" Damn. I avoided society for weeks after that incident, hoping that my friend had been able to tell the truth and perhaps at least dampen the gossip, but I never did know for sure and I would panic every time I suspected disapproval in the faces of some of the people I encountered.
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Coincidentally two of the negative ones happened at a newspaper where I have worked several times over the years. It is a publication that has always held editing in low regard, and as a result discourages good editors. But that's another story.
A grueling look at the perfect storm of wordgate
The first ten great races – Iditarod
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| Take a look at some preview pages |
There is quite a variety of articles including personal accounts by racers themselves, adventures and profiles told by others, recollections of people and places woven into the very fabric of the trail.
When that first race took off in 1973, many of the folks didn't really know what they were getting into. One musher, Dick Mackey, told of wives and sweethearts in tears kissing their mushers goodbye not knowing for sure if they would ever see them again.
It was a huge logistical undertaking by a whole bunch of people who had never tried anything that huge before. In those first years mushers often found there was no trail, supplies had not reached some checkpoints when they arrived with hungry dogs. And that difficulty seldom brings mention of the frantic volunteers trying desperately to get supplies to those drivers and teams. There are tales of competitors stopping to hunt for food along the trail, of temperatures with wind chills going lower than minus 100. Many looked at it more as a long camping trip than a race. But year after year the support logistics matured and evolved, better equipment also came available, lessons learned in dog care and nutrition all grew to make the race more and more competitive.
And, you will hear survivors of those first years today talk with pride about how tough it was in the old days, but no one ever complains about the improvements, either.
It is a different race today. Tougher? Maybe, maybe not. When you figure the race usually took more than two weeks in those early years, now it's done in eight days. Racers may be better equipped, but they are going faster on less sleep too. Perhaps it's just a different kind of tough.
It's like the time my son complained about how hard sports practice was. He thought by the time he was a senior it should be easier because he was better at it and knew more. I used the example of a sprinter. His big goal is a 10-second hundred-yard dash. After he does it, do things get easier? No, they get harder, because now he wants to run a 9:98 and that is going to be even more difficult.
Safe to say, anybody who competes and finishes that race has accomplished something major in respect to the outside world and can take pride in it but that racer also can still tell next year's rookie how tough he had it last year.
Iditarod: The First Ten Years website
A most fortunate encounter
200,000 miles on a dog sled
What do Truman Capote and the Iditarod have in common?
Not just another Iditarod book
Two children of war
I saw a group of kids in a Hollywood white-washed version of a war environment having the time of their lives, living in that rubble, scrounging for food and clothing, totally independent and indifferent to what was going on around them. And, that's all I remember though I am guessing everything turned out all right or I wouldn't have such a fond recollection.
Similarly Jerzy Kosinski's "The Painted Bird" follows a young boy, abandoned by his parents, as he tries to escape Nazi horrors and persecution by his own people during World War II. Considered at times a gypsy and at others a Jew he, suffered immeasurable hardship as he searched from village to village for a place of refuge. He faced incredible cruelties and observed others. What I recall from reading it several years ago was that at times he seemed to find that refuge but inevitably something new intervened and he was plunged again into the hopelessness of his situation. It's a dark tale about a side of war seldom exposed. Kosinski himself was separated from his family in Poland during the war. Some controversy surrounds the book, but in the end, its message overshadows the criticism. It is another story of the loss of innocence and childhood in the midst of a brutal war.Recent books by and about refugees
A more recent refugee situation looking for a writer
Look at the picture and ask yourself WWJD
Syrian refugee wins Olympic heat after swimming for her life
What do Truman Capote and the Iditarod Sled Dog Race have in common?
The result, anyway, was good enough for the publisher and I was on my way to being a published author with no small influence from Truman Capote of all people.
Sharkmagedden
Pounding your head against the whiskey bar
Ardent spirits
I might have been right
So you say you want to be a writer
And if that wasn't discouraging enough, look what happened to the writer who invented the detective story.
Posted by Tim Jones at 11:34 PM No comments:
Another conversation with Patricia
To everything there is a season ...
Creative exercise for the paranoid
Some days it's great to be a writer, even an old one
P.S. She knew one of your poems by heart! The duck one, of all things.
Cancer takes a dear friend
As an editor at Alaska Magazine in the late 1970s, part of my job was to talk to people who brought stories in for our consideration. It's the kind of job that in time you almost dread seeing someone come through the doorway looking anxiously, their precious manuscripts gripped tightly in their hands. But it had its joys also. Among the stories about "me and the old lady drove the Alaska highway and thought you would like a story about it;" "I saw the northern lights last night and just had to write a poem about it;" and the literature proposed by young collegiate writers, once in awhile a gem showed up: a real sourdough's tale of life in the wild, often written in longhand on unlined paper; and even less frequently a beautifully written piece by a competent writer about a subject that Alaska magazine actually wanted.
Solstice and poetry
The woman reading the poetry spoke almost in a monotone and flubbed words fairly often. Then one of her poems sounded less flowerly, more in tune with the spirituality and the history of the solstice. I listened more closely but I couldn't repeat a line if I had to; except for one. She had been reading the names of authors at the end of each poem. The name at the end of this one stopped me in mid sweep – Patricia Monaghan. My friend, my muse, my co-conspirator, who died of cancer a couple of years ago. It hit me as if she had been reading the poem herself and a flood of her words rushed to my mind. What stood out though is that her words are living on, she has a legacy and I am a witness to her success.
I only wish i could message her and tell her how I heard her poem way out here in the deep Alaska woods. She would have loved that.
A conversation
Monaghan on the solstice
Earthmaker judges the world
I like her poetry because it is often based in the spirituality found in nature. She has allowed me here to post one of the last poems in the book which will be titled "Sanctuary" from Irish publisher Salmon.
EARTHMAKER JUDGES THE WORLD
By Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © 2012, Patricia Monaghan
Near the top of a Wisconsin hill, a spring erupts
heights know these stories. And without such knowledge,
Patricia Monaghan's website.
Posted by Tim Jones at 4:13 PM No comments:
Not just another Iditarod book
About a year ago I was approached to join a group of people who wanted to put together a book celebrating the first 10 years of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Those were the days when the goal was as much to get to Nome as it was to win.
When I received that photo today, it made me wonder, how many of us when we pick up a book even think about what went into it from conception to those pages we are reading. That photo shows where it is today, less than two weeks before it has to go to the publisher. Of course most of it is in the computer, the way publishers want to receive it these days. Even that has changed in the last 40 years.
Those piles on the table include stories written by mushers themselves, family members, volunteers, villagers along the way and a few by writers who have covered and written about the race over the years. My small part of it was to write profiles of three of the winners of the first 10 races. There were only seven of them because one fellow won it three times in those 10 years.
In addition to the mushers, there are profiles of some of the famous lead dogs, profiles of some favorites who did not win the race (see the blog post here about 200,000 miles by dog sled), a history of the trail and of the race, a scholarly account tracing the lineage of the Alaska husky all the way back into the ancestral roots in Siberia, original art work along with period photographs, and probably many other subjects I don't know about.
Through it all a woman named Raine Hall had to beg, cajole, pressure, massage egos, suffer disappointments and persevere in her chore making sure everything was written and organized for the production Those piles of paper on that dining room table are hers, the result of more than a year's work with the disparate souls who are writing this book, some of them even now pushing the deadline. July 1 it is supposed to go to the University of Alaska Press. How long after that it will appear it is anyone's guess; I have not even heard a title yet, but that's all right. The book will for sure get its fair share of publicity on this blog, so, as they say, watch this space closely.
I just thought considering if you come to this blog you probably read, it would be interesting to open an insight into what goes into that tome you read before it gets to the store or Amazon or wherever you find your reading material these days.
Saga of the fuzzy lemon
It goes back to Anchorage journalism in the mid 70s when there were still competing newspapers. One year the Anchorage Times subscribed to UPI in order to get them to send a reporter to cover the Alaska Legislature.
I don't remember the fellow's name now, but he was obviously an old timer with UPI. In the world of news wire services UPI was always known as the creative one with writers producing marvelous featurish leads for everything, while the conservative AP seldom went outside the simple declarative sentence.
The fellow who covered the Legislature for UPI that year dragged out every hack creative lead UPI had ever used on a political story maybe dating back to the 1920s. They were fun to read in the opposition paper and not in ours. But soon he had his influence and competing reporters began picking up the challenge. Gradually our reporter and the AP reporter began writing more creative leads. This went on for a while until one night this lead came over from the AP on a story about legislation to change Alaska time zones and daylight saving time:
"The sun was just a fuzzy lemon over Rep. MIllie Banfield's shoulder as she addresd the legislation …"
That brought a series of groans in our newsroom and every funky lead after that especially if it involved weather became a fuzzy lemon lead. We had contests to write bad ones.
Over time, the UPI reporter left and the fuzzy lemon gradually faded until one night a new AP reporter in Alaska wrote this lead on a story about hours of daylight and darkness in Barrow, North America's northernmost city: "The sun was just a sulfur smear …"
The fuzzy lemon was back. There was a journalism awards banquet coming up and in keeping with rewarding outstanding work, I built a fuzzy lemon trophy. It was just two blocks of 2x4, one horizontal for the base and one attached to it vertically. I finished the wood nicely and then put a springy wire in the top. To that I attached one of those RealLemon plastic lemons. I glued some of the under coat from my dog to that and voila, a fuzzy lemon trophy which I planned to give to the new AP reporter at the banquet.
Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed and we did not embarrass the poor woman.
I did give the trophy to the AP and the last time I saw it, it was in their office near the end of the 70s. That was almost the end of the story.
But there was one more chapter. One night a feature photo came across the desk showing the sun shining behind some haze over a body of water in Anchorage. I could not resist and wrote, "The sun looks like a fuzzy lemon as it shines through haze over Westchester Lagoon Tuesday." I didn't think that was so bad and it did get fuzzy lemon into print for the first and only time that I know of, but even better, it led to the best memo I have ever received in my life. It was from the chief editor of the paper and it read like this:
"Tim
Absolutely no more fuzzy lemons in the paper.
Stan"
I still have that note, the typewriter ink fading on the low-grade newsprint copy paper we used at the time, but still legible.
Break on through to the other side
You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side -- Doors
Soft cumulus clouds drift along the mountains parting occasionally to allow almost a full moon to shine between them, sending light among the trees which cast moonshadows across eight inches of new fallen snow. Two lines of tracks mark the passage of spruce grouse that have been hanging around the feeders pecking in the snow for the seeds spilled by chickadees and grosbeaks. The almost deadly silence of deep cold fills the air virtually palpable until the muted hoot of an owl threads through the trees from deep in that forest. A raven passes overhead, his wings beating the air with an audible whoosh.
Early March in Alaska when winter clings desperately for survival against the increasing daylight and warmth.
And just like the song, a beautiful day follows a beautiful night. Clear, sunny, the undisturbed snow flashing back sparkles, temperature rising into the 20s, all point to why this is the best month to be in Alaska.
After three solid hours of writing, one of those days of tearing hair out, nowhere near Hemingway's one good paragraph, but progress nonetheless, enough so that in mid afternoon no guilt involved in following the lure of the outdoors. Dug out the snowmachine, but almost didn't go, it was frozen to the ground. A bit of prying under the skis with a solid steel shovel freed it. Started on the third pull and off to the river. No one around, peaceful except for the noise of the engine while the mountains and glaciers all reflect the sunlight. An hour of that and then home to a milkshake and now relaxing into the evening.
March.
Props
Maybe it's that the race is coming up in a few weeks or that I am helping out with another book about it, but I have heard from a couple people about my 30-year-old Iditarod book recently. Both come from Alaska writers I have the greatest respect for and whose own writing often leaves me in awe.
One wrote on Facebook, just out of the blue. something like "I just re-read your Iditarod book. It holds up after all these years. It's still the best book about the Iditarod. It's a classic." That knocked me over. But, hey, a classic? I thought you had to be dead. Anyway, thanks, and what I have done pales in the face of what he has done in both quality and quantity.
Then yesterday I was talking with another friend who covered the race for the newspaper and is the best of all the people who have done that. We were discussing ways to write our current project. He mentioned years ago telling a teacher he thought he would like to be writer as he grew up. The teacher told him just one thing: "Don't just be an observer." Then in our own conversation we figured we both had accomplished that in that we flew along with the race (he even rode a snowmachine over large sections of the trail), slept on the ground at 20 below, ate, traveled and slept with mushers along the whole trail. We were immersed if not actually running the race. In that context he brought up something he had told a dog musher in conversation once: He said of himself, in writing about the race, "I like to put the reader standing next to the trail seeing what I see. But, Tim puts the reader on the runners." Again a bit overwhelming.
Our conversation came to a close with our usual gentle kidding about one aspect of writing about the race we share but in different ways. It is about the romance that surrounds the race, the heritage. I have always teased him about all the sunsets and sunrises that show up in his stories and in return he gets on me about all the historic cabins that show up in mine. One night years ago we were both working at the paper and the newest Iditarod writer called in with his story. He complained he was having difficulty finding things to write about in slow times. I suggested he do what Frank does and describe a sunset. Not too far away Frank shouted loud enough to be heard through the phone, "do what Tim does, find a historic cabin." The writer hung up on us.
Time we have wasted on the way...
Why.....
... can't the bad guys hit anything with a machine gun while the good guys take them down with one shot?
... does every law enforcement officer have to put up with a threatening boss?
... is almost every new police department supervisor black and usually a woman?
... are all husbands doofuses in sitcoms and commercials?
... does a camera shutter sound like a cannon going off and how many pictures of one thing do they need anyway?
... is almost every police officer in trouble with internal affairs?
... do so many police guys and their families eventually become crime victims? Does this happen often in real life?
... does every new sitcom have to deal with young people sorting out love interests?
... how do women crime scene investigators and police detectives manage to walk over soggy ground in high-heeled shoes or even run after perps in them
... is every suspect called a "perp" and every victim called a "vic?" I get the idea one writer heard those words used and decided every cop in every city in the country uses the very same words. And then every writer on every cop show picked them up and now that's all they are called. "Castle" had a great episode addressing this. He used the word perp and two cops asked why do you writers all call them perps. Then every time they encountered each other for the rest of the episode, the cops offered up synonyms. It was a great running gag.
And speaking of "Castle," it is one show that has been good on the originality side. Particularly cool are the poker games with real crime writers. But, as the 2011 season approached i was a little worried. The detective precinct captain was killed in the last episode of the previous season. The first hint of things going south was when Detective Beckett was shot in that same episode. That was supposed to be a cliffhanger, but who would ever have believed they would kill off Beckett? The whole situation meant some changes in the paradigm. A few days before the first episode was scheduled to broadcast this fall, I told a friend of my fears and offered to bet on the new situation. I said I hoped the show didn't fall into cliche but I was afraid the new supervisor would try to get rid of Castle and be tough on Beckett. I said if they really went the whole way into cliche the new captain would be a woman and most likely black. I also suggested that the new black woman precinct captain would get a call from Castle's friend the mayor telling her to let him stay and that she would resent it. Honestly this was a bet I wanted to lose. Besides the show remaining strongly original, I would get to have dinner with a wonderful friend. But guess what. First of all she wouldn't take the bet, but worse, has anyone seen the first episode of "Castle" this year? Every damn one of those things happened. It was pleasant to see in the second episode the captain was already softening toward Castle. Though probably unrealistic at least it allows the writers to get out of that cliche quickly. When i used to write editorials I realized I was only criticizing and maybe I should look for alternatives at least and solutions at best. How about this? Precinct captain is older than Beckett. Suppose she took a shine to Castle and competed with Beckett for his attention, or maybe even more, she sees a writer who has a connection to the mayor as a person who can publicize her actions as a way to gain favor, publicity and and help promote her career aspirations. Either of those situations would give the writers some new avenues to explore as plot twists rather than repeat old ones of conflict between cop and supervisor. (HInt, hint: I am here and keeping an eye out for interesting work. Call me. And i didn't make a hand motion of a phone to my ear and mouth those words.)
Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve?
Lyric quotes from Crosby Stills and Nash
The first 10 years of Iditarod races memorialized in a new book
How comprehensive is it? With more than 400 pages, it weighs 7 pounds for crying out loud. As we might have said in the 60s, "that's heavy."
After all that volunteer work it was a joy today to see the smiles on the faces of some of the folks who made this happen, packing up books to send to all the people who contributed to the Kickstarter effort that made it possible and to all the folks who ordered it ahead of time. Pretty sure I had as big a smile as I sat and leafed through it with them before taking my boxes of books for my friends and family.
I only hope people reading it have the same feelings and enjoy it as much as those of us who contributed to it are enjoying the finished product now.
"Iditarod, "The First 10 Years" web page: Previews, history ordering information.
The first 10 great races
Not just another Iditarod book
A most fortunate encounter
200,000 miles on a dog sled
What do Truman Capote and the Iditarod have in common?
This blogger goes on the radio
What people are saying about "Iditarod The First Ten years"
My work with the book was from a distance … I had little contact with other contributors during its long gestation. When the first copy arrived here. I opened it to the index and was trapped for a day reconnecting with old friends through the names and memories. In essence, I'n reading a 400 page book back to front and still a day away from the introduction … I can't wait to see how it begins. – Joe May
It's simple: Report what they do, not what they say
Last week there was a news story about Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell outlining all the ways he planned to block any program advocated by President Obama and the democrats in general. It took me back to something I was attempting to make some sense of during the craziness before the government shutdown last fall.
The long way home
Ardent spirits
I did a rod? Really?
'The Seventymile Kid'
There's nothing funny about it, or is there?
'Perfect storm' is a way overused term, but ...
Creative exercise for the paranoid
_________________________
An eve of Christmas past
Oh yeah? How cold was it?
One thing that happens to Alaskans is sooner or later you are going to have to explain to someone Outside how cold it is.
Which led to the next thought which was how do you explain cold. I learned about this from a Norman Mailer novel called “Tough Guys Don’t Dance.” His lesson was make adjectives specific and relative. His example was the word “strong” and he pointed out how the word means different things to different people.
Mine is cold. Years ago I wrote one of those “as-told-to” sports books with a woman sled dog racer. She was very good at recall and most of her descriptions were at least adequate if not literature. But her favorite adjective was “really,” as in it was really cold or that was really hard and my response always had to be “how cold was it.” In one part she went out into a really bad storm and of course it was really cold. I finally got this out of her. Wrapped tightly in her sleeping bag, her breath froze to the zipper and when she tried to get out of it she found she couldn’t move the zipper. You will have to read the book to find out how she did it. But that’s cold.
Still my favorite “that’s cold” statement came from a girl in the Delta Junction elementary school. Now, Delta is one of the colder spots in Alaska, deep in the Interior. During a writing class I was explaining to the kids that if they write in Delta only that it’s cold and someone in Miami reads it, that person is probably going to think something like 40 degrees. And then I asked the kids how cold is it when it is cold in Delta? Their response was 50 below zero. So I asked them if you are trying to explain that kind of cold to someone in Miami what do you tell them? They were quiet. And then I asked, OK what has ever happened to you when it was that cold. One girl raised her hand and I called on her. At just barely more than a whisper she said, “One time my boots froze to the floor of the school bus.”
That’s really cold.
Now, for outsiders who would like to understand, and for Alaskans who need something to show Outsiders what happens in the cold, I am going to give you a link. There is a fellow who works for the University of Alaska Fairbanks and it seems forever he has written a weekly column about science that is distributed to newspapers across the state. To give you an idea how good he is, most of them print it including the one I work for. His name is Ned Rozell and in this column, he went through a typical morning in a Fairbanks household as everyone heads off for their day with the temperature at minus 40 degrees. But, he adds easy to understand science that explains what is going on with the physics of it. Don’t be afraid, it is a pleasant read and not very long. It’s either that or put up with more posts on here explaining what "really, really cold" means.
Cold? Really? Really cold
January 27, 2011
At least partially inspired by the post the other day about defining terms for cold, a friend sent an email to her friends giving her cold story and asking if anyone else had a story about extreme cold. Hmmm extreme cold, now what does that mean? In Brazil. In Alaska. In Antarctica.
She received many entertaining responses. One of them really stood out.
It was written by a woman named Amy Modig who grew up in Interior Alaska where one often encountered temperatures of 50 below zero or more. This was just part of her story:
“60 below was not something anyone would hop around in unless you absolutely had to. I remember having to run up the long, long driveway with my two brothers to catch the bus to school at -58, trying to time it so we wouldn't have to wait too long for the bus or make the bus wait for us. Of course, the buses wouldn't come at 60 below. What a thrill that was. We could stay home with our intermittent nosebleeds and hair that stuck straight out from electric charges - the air pressure was so high during a deep cold snap it was really really dry. But we could make electric arcs between our fingers two inches long!
“Cold was so exhilarating, but only because there was a warm place to get to. Yikes. But then I discovered that people didn't have to live that way really and I moved… to Anchorage.”
I thought the picture above was pretty funny and demonstrates according to the caption what happens to whiskey at minus 51 degrees. To be honest I copied it from a gallery on a facebook page called I’m from Alaska. 30 degrees is not cold. It is a fun page with at this point 79 pictures of cold people have experienced. On the second to last gallery page is a picture of a rear view mirror thermometer showing minus 40. That’s mine.
Just for balance
Don't you know. Realized it got a little heavy around here with a lot less Alaska and a lot more, well, other stuff. But, in my defense, there are interesting things outside Alaska. But, these two pictures are to bring us all back on task, subject and focus. Plus the real Iditarod starts today so there is that return to the subject.
And for the record, here is an Iditarod story. One time in the late 80s during an Iditarod race, I returned to the East Pole after some time away. I had heard a public radio station started in the area and while I was getting things in order, I found it on the radio and tuned it up. Then I went about the business of moving in again, keeping the fire going, hooking up the propane, unpacking, sweeping out the place. Radio was having some kind of a radio reader program and I didn't pay that much attention. It was barely in my consciousness as i was lost in thought putzing around my home. Still, every once in while something said on the radio sounded vaguely familiar and it stopped me for a minute, but nothing ever registered.
Finally a particular phrase caught my ear and I stopped to listen to the last half of what was a long paragraph and realized this sounded awfully familiar. I listened more intently and recognized every word and that was when the realization came over me. The first thing I heard on KTNA radio was someone reading MY book. WOW. Talk about a rush.
So anyway welcome back to Alaska with Attitude. The pictures are simply gratuitous.
It's quiet out there. Yeah, too quiet.
“...spirits are using me, larger voices calling ...”
I had to think about that for a moment and about my own adventures and then I wrote back that she had to think forward not backward and that the first part of a new adventure is almost always a little intimidating.
Upon further reflection, more crossed my mind, about handling the early part of an adventure and about what had landed me in that situation in the first place.
I remember setting out on an ocean voyage once and one of the fellows on board apologized ahead of time for the depression he expected to experience after a day or so when he realized he had gotten himself into this once again.
I have had the same feeling at times when I felt the creative rush that gets me about a chapter and a half into a book until the inspiration wears off and it hits me that aw gees, this is the start of a year in my life. There are several well-intended, misguided attempts around here somewhere that were cut short by that realization. The same thing happened in the early days of building the three houses I built too. Fortunately I worked through it and persevered in those endeavors.
But then there are those thoughts that get you started in the first place, like the first time I went skiing. My friend and I stood at the top of the expert slope at a Western New York ski area (not exactly Vail). It looked pretty frightful to tell the truth. My friend said, “What’s the fun of doing something if you know how?” With that he took off down that hill and after an “oh crap,” I followed.
I still remember sitting across the desk from the banker who was about to give me the loan to build my first real house. All I had ever built to that point was the very simple cabin at the East Pole and a dog house. She asked, “Can you build this house?” Exactly $100,000 of her bank’s money was at stake. I remember taking a measured but deep breath and looking at the ceiling, then the wall, then out the window and then turning to look her straight in the eye and saying, “Yes.” Inside I felt nothing close to the confidence I was hoping I was showing her.
And, like, you always think those trapeze artists who work without a net are fearless, but I don’t think so. I think it just makes them better and more careful because they know they are going to get hurt if they fall, as opposed to those who work with a net and know a fall is just that much more fun.
Was it Ben Franklin who said “nothing ventured, nothing gained?”
And I know Jimmy Buffett sang “we did it for the stories we could tell.”
And Crosby, Stills and Nash sang about, “...time we have wasted on the way.”
Or was it Gary Bacon screaming down that ski slope at Kissing Bridge, New York, his panicked “OOOOhhhhhhh, damn” fading into the distance?
Have you envied “all the dancers who have all the nerve?”
The urge is getting stronger every day to get it on again.
At great personal peril
I have known several other people who judge that usage harshly but I can see its value if you are texting or IMing informally, at least as long as it’s understood you do know the proper way to say things. Of course, between two editors it can only be used for a humorous application. What is disheartening is when that usage creeps into more formal writing, something I have been noticing more and more. Working as an editor I see “bio” and “info” so often I get tired of changing them and sometimes in frustration let one go. It’s “biography” and “information.” And, “veggies” used once a century ago probably was cute. Every day every time it comes up isn’t cute, it is damned illiterate. VEGETABLES! Lately I’ve noticed the “al” is being left off “almost” just about “most” every time it comes up in copy. When did that start? I often wonder about a teacher trying to instill proper usage in her students and having to use anything written in the last 10 years to do it. How do you convince a kid the word is spelled “light” when every time he sees it, it is spelled “lite?” Or to take it to an extreme, is a biohazard a danger in one’s life story?
And get this: In spell-checking, the program didn’t even stop on bio, info or veggies! It didn’t like lite, though.
Still, I learned the hard way years ago not to be correcting everyone’s grammar all the time, even teasing in a friendly way. You can lose friends that way.
So, what brought on this tirade so early in my weekend? At the risk of alienating a very good friend, but hoping in not identifying anyone here it will not be taken personally, and shouldn’t be because “most” everyone says it these days, this is what I read when I first woke up. It was in response to the “3,000” post I made last night. “Congrats.” That isn't really to pick on one person, I know several people who say it that way and some who even say it to me, but it grates.
Of course, it is the thought that counts, so, “TY.”
Sometimes you just have to laugh at aging
Waking up
So, what brought that on? Catching up with my peeps after waking up this morning I came across this video, It seems Newsweek magazine called Grand Rapids, Michigan, a dying town. That didn’t go over well in Grand Rapids. In response they produced a dirge for themselves defying Newsweek’s assessment. It now has more hits on YouTube than Newsweek has subscribers and the magazine is for sale. It doesn’t look like Grand Rapids is. That could lead into what is happening to print media in general but who is calling whom dying, anyway, I have never liked that arrogant bunch of supposed journalists ever since they plagiarized my book without credit, lifting whole quotes from it and when I called them on it they said they could take their information from wherever they wanted and I as a minor regional author could just suffer their superiority.
So now they went and told a town it was dying. Maybe it is only sleepy. Have to wonder if a sleepy little Newsweek writer could tell the difference.
Desperately seeking Kitty
She never would tell me exactly where she lived though and that raised some suspicion. I am not stupid. I know people will con you and lie to you on line but I also know it is very difficult to maintain a lie for six or seven years, so I am fairly confident she has been honest with me. Even one time when I felt so sorry for her and wanted to send her a warm winter coat, she had too much pride to let me do it.
Mind you this was a very troubled young woman. Among other things I learned was that she was a runaway from her family in Texas, sometime before her 18th birthday. By what path I don’t know, but she ended up in Cleveland. Along the way and there, she did turns as a prostitute and suffered from an addiction to methamphetamine, though she would hardly call it suffering. Part of the suffering comes from the hepatitis C she contracted from a dirty needle.
She seemed to get by moving in with a series of men, leaving when one tired of her and then finding another. Most of them were abusive and at least one of them turned her out to work on the street.
I could tell by her typing when she was high and occasionally lost patience with her.
There were times of clarity when she displayed an amazing intellect and creativity. She read books, her choices in music were eclectic and she showed an affinity for Irish folk music, not the hard rock one might expect from a meth user. She seemed to like plaintive ballads as well and was always suggesting I listen to this or that singer. She could be very insightful as well catching me at times in inconsistencies and calling me on them.
There was a time in Cleveland one night we were chatting and her typing gradually degenerated and she became more and more incoherent and then said she felt sick and wanted to know what to do. I was pretty sure she was having some kind of a drug-related reaction. Turns out the man she was living with at the time had injected her with a mix of drugs and she had no idea what was in it. She asked what to do and I said contact a neighbor. Fortunately she did this and the neighbor came on asking me what was going on and I suggested drug overdose, gave her an idea of first aid and to call paramedics. My friend ended up in the hospital for a time and then ended up living with the woman who saved her.
But she destroyed that one night when the woman was away, she got high and invited friends over who trashed the woman’s apartment.
This is getting longer than it needs to be. Over time there were highs and lows but in between there were some wonderful conversations and gentle chiding to clean up and make something of herself. She even audited some college courses and for one semester took a writing course. What she wrote could be beautiful.
More recently she moved to St. Louis. During that period she did well for a while but had a relapse and at one point told me she knew how the world worked and I was wrong. At that point I figuratively threw up my hands in frustration and didn’t talk to her for almost a year. But I kept track of her. She is the most avid reader of this blog. If you combine the hits from Cleveland and St. Louis there are almost 200, by far more than from any other single ISP. In following the hits I at least knew she was alive and that was reassuring.
Then after almost a year, last fall I answered one of her IMs and we renewed our relationship. Still like before she was very guarded about personal information. She told me she had a job and I could sort of confirm that by the regularity and schedule of when she came on line. She had her own place and told me she had cleaned up and had been off drugs for a while after reaching the lowest point ever and seeking help. We talked almost daily until a few weeks ago.
She was going to try camping though she had never done it before. Among other things I told her to set up the borrowed tent in her apartment so she would know how before she had to set it up in a hurry at some campsite. It turned out she had so much trouble with it she put off her trip for a week. Though she never told me she was going the following week, when she didn’t show up online over the weekend, I figured she was camping.
But then I didn’t hear from her for almost two weeks. I worried she had been mugged as she was going to a fairly public park in the St. Louis area. When she came back on two weeks later I discovered it was worse than that. I noticed from the blog counter she was using a different computer (Mac now instead of PC) and signing on through a different ISP. I asked her why. That is when she told me she had given away all her stuff including her computer because she tried to kill herself. I always knew this was in the undercurrent but the reality of it was chilling.
That of course upset the life she had with her own place and job and I learned she was now in a room with some sort of social agency that was helping her. Again we started talking almost every day but only for about two weeks.
In one of her conversations she told me that I was the only one in the world who stood by her that she had no one else. That was after I asked her where she could find some support. In that conversation she asked me who she should live for. Who she should live for? I tried to support her because I knew it was a serious question but my answer was in the long run, you live for yourself. I could tell by her hesitation and then her very noncommittal response, my answer wasn't good enough, not convincing. That response gave me a sinking feeling that this was deadly serious and for once I felt incredibly helpless to somehow intercede and change her direction, to somehow say the magic words that would make it all right.
I have not heard a thing from her since then. The last time she looked at this blog was June 27. Not a hit or a word since then. Given what was going on in her mind I am very worried. The only thing that gives me any hope for her is that knowing she is from Texas, even knowing she never wanted to go back to her abusive parents, maybe she did go back to her family. There have been hits the past couple of days from two ISPs around Dallas with several page views. That’s a very thin thread. So, I guess the length of this speaks to how worried I am. Which just goes to show that guarded intimacy can lead to some very deep connections and, I hope, explains why I am “desperately seeking Kitty.”
Best hug ever
August 5, 2011
Time we have wasted on the way...
Why.....
... can't the bad guys hit anything with a machine gun while the good guys take them down with one shot?
... does every law enforcement officer have to put up with a threatening boss?
... is almost every new police department supervisor black and usually a woman?
... are all husbands doofuses in sitcoms and commercials?
... does a camera shutter sound like a cannon going off and how many pictures of one thing do they need anyway?
... is almost every police officer in trouble with internal affairs?
... do so many police guys and their families eventually become crime victims? Does this happen often in real life?
... does every new sitcom have to deal with young people sorting out love interests?
... how do women crime scene investigators and police detectives manage to walk over soggy ground in high-heeled shoes or even run after perps in them
... is every suspect called a "perp" and every victim called a "vic?" I get the idea one writer heard those words used and decided every cop in every city in the country uses the very same words. And then every writer on every cop show picked them up and now that's all they are called. "Castle" had a great episode addressing this. He used the word perp and two cops asked why do you writers all call them perps. Then every time they encountered each other for the rest of the episode, the cops offered up synonyms. It was a great running gag.
And speaking of "Castle," it is one show that has been good on the originality side. Particularly cool are the poker games with real crime writers. But, as the 2011 season approached i was a little worried. The detective precinct captain was killed in the last episode of the previous season. The first hint of things going south was when Detective Beckett was shot in that same episode. That was supposed to be a cliffhanger, but who would ever have believed they would kill off Beckett? The whole situation meant some changes in the paradigm. A few days before the first episode was scheduled to broadcast this fall, I told a friend of my fears and offered to bet on the new situation. I said I hoped the show didn't fall into cliche but I was afraid the new supervisor would try to get rid of Castle and be tough on Beckett. I said if they really went the whole way into cliche the new captain would be a woman and most likely black. I also suggested that the new black woman precinct captain would get a call from Castle's friend the mayor telling her to let him stay and that she would resent it. Honestly this was a bet I wanted to lose. Besides the show remaining strongly original, I would get to have dinner with a wonderful friend. But guess what. First of all she wouldn't take the bet, but worse, has anyone seen the first episode of "Castle" this year? Every damn one of those things happened. It was pleasant to see in the second episode the captain was already softening toward Castle. Though probably unrealistic at least it allows the writers to get out of that cliche quickly. When i used to write editorials I realized I was only criticizing and maybe I should look for alternatives at least and solutions at best. How about this? Precinct captain is older than Beckett. Suppose she took a shine to Castle and competed with Beckett for his attention, or maybe even more, she sees a writer who has a connection to the mayor as a person who can publicize her actions as a way to gain favor, publicity and and help promote her career aspirations. Either of those situations would give the writers some new avenues to explore as plot twists rather than repeat old ones of conflict between cop and supervisor. (HInt, hint: I am here and keeping an eye out for interesting work. Call me. And i didn't make a hand motion of a phone to my ear and mouth those words.)
Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve?
Lyric quotes from Crosby Stills and Nash
It's not a numbers game, honest, it really isn't
I have my freedom, but I don’t have much time…
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away
All right, THEN I will shut up…
… about John Irving. Among other things, his characters make him so interesting. Note the ether-addicted abortionist below. So in Last Night in Twisted River he introduces a woman vital to the plot and an eventual love interest for the main protagonist, How many times has this happened in literature and movies? Picture the ones you remember. For the most part they are almost cliches. The beautiful woman in the cocktail lounge. The surprise meeting in a phsyical situation. Most of it is almost standard. So how does John Irving do it. She is a muscular, big woman, even a former wrestler (a common theme) who parachutes nude into an artists’ party and lands in a pig sty. Among the first words the guy hears from her are something like “I’m covered in pig shit. I will kill those guys.” Nothing common or stereotyped there. Hmm now maybe I am giving writing lessons -- but, honest, only to myself.
About John Irving
See more on writing life 2