Writing on the go part 2

In my first post I asked how you capture ideas and thoughts on the go. This post is more about the experience of being out and people watching. I am writing from our local McDonalds and church has let out. So lots of people and lots of children running around after their churchly confignment. Lots of action, noise and plenty of ideas floating around.

One group in particular is worth watching, a mixed group of children and parents running back and forth and around. And it seems I have becomed the “watched” as well. I don’t how many writers see this as a good writing time, but if you soak up that energy and turn it loose in your story. It can have a powerful effect.

So cheers on this cloudy, noisy Sunday, james

Writing on the go

Hidden words by moonlight revealed.

In The Hobbit, it has always intriqued me the elves deciphering the dwarves’ map. Mr. Tolken was a master storyteller and writer, but I wonder what he would have thought of modern writers and our new fangled tech. He would have used a pen and notebook for the those writing times on the go. But would he have embraced our new ways of writing?

I use both old school ink pen and legal pad and I also use my cellphone, my tablet and my laptop if its handy. I wonder if having my writing spread over so many mediums weaks or strengthens my message. Tonight I am fuzzy brained due to weather shifting. So forgive me if my post is more scattered than normal.

When on the go and the writing urge hits, how do you capture it? Or do hold on to mentally trying to get home before the thought/urge is lost? Cheers, james

To Hermit or Not Hermit

On the busy days with work, family and a burning story idea begging to be written, I wonder why I didn’t grow up to be a hermit. That way I would have all day to write and not worry about life’s little worries of home, hearth, and family. Then on the days when the words refuse to come then it would be a horror story waiting to happen if I was hermit The crazy lady that lives in a shack in the woods, with no one to talk to but the trees. Yep, there’s a psycho tale waiting to be told there.

Mr. Steven King wrote in On Writing, “a writer’s desk should not be in the center of the room lest he forget that his writing revolves around the world, and the world doesn’t revolve around his writing. So wisely he suggests a writer should place his desk by the window so that he may observe the world as he writes.” My apologies if I didn’t get the quote exactly, but I got the gist of it. So if one of America’s most popular and well loved authors believes that writing revolves around life who am I  to suggest a life lived hidden and out of sight would be better. Oh but I do dream of it when the world threats to overwhelm and crush me.

Or maybe the monks and nuns had it right, a life lived behind cloistered walls and religious introspection. Only that really isn’t me, the whole looking within is part of my personality and I may not be as unique as I once thought in that aspect. However the Good Lord above meant for us to live life, not hide from it. So I suppose there is my answer, hermit daycations are okay, but not a lifestyle.

Cheers on this Saturday evening, james

Taxes, family history, and writing

I had an interesting experience today. I worked with my mom this weekend and while she worked on stuff I was unneeded I wrote. Mind you I only got two pages done plus a later piece of the story wrote yesterday, but I did write.

Amid distractions of copying, diet coke, paper filling, I was able to stay in the story. Another neat thing is I learned more of my grandparents’ story. My grandmother loves romance novels, but it seems she lived in the middle of one too. I also learned that some of my personality traits come from my grandmother as well as my mother. And that somethings get passed down in cycles.

It is the weekend before April 15th and Uncle Sam’s big payday, a busy weekend, but interesting nonetheless. Now I gotta get ready for my workweek ahead. Cheers on a Sunday evening. james

A beautiful night to …

Tonight is one of those dreamy spring nights when a gentle breeze blows and the brillant blue sky turns pale waiting for dusk. The azaleas are blooming riots of hot pink, and white. The dogwoods are blooming before the leaves make an explosive entrance.

A perfect evening to enjoy sitting on the driveway watching the fire turn cold raw chicken into golden grilled delight. I should be writing, but I fear getting caught up in that fantasy relam and burn the chicken. Hmm I may burn it for blogging and not watching that sneaky little red man (fire).

Currently my chicken is morphing by fire alchemy into golden fire kissed supper. The little red man is content to follow my instructions but only while paying strict attention to his antics. It is in that moment of inattention that he dances into merry mischief and gets me into trouble. It seems tonight is going to be a great night and supper will not burn. Then later I will pick up my pen and lose myself for a while in that relam we, writers call home.

Cheers, james

A Sad, Sad Update

Thoughts and prayers to the family.

Jaws Revisited

This is the cool post about Jaws that inspired my post about Peter Benchely’s Creature. I urge you check out this blog, well written and interesting posts. Cheers, james

Jaws came on television tonight. First I thought, oh wow, was it really that long ago? I decided that indeed it was; the commercials even played seventies music. Then the second thing I did was remember why I don’t swim in oceans. Still, although I did for awhile…even swimming to the second sandbar off South Padre Island. Eeek!…all those unseen critters swimming below that incredible deep spot before you hit the part where you can stand.

I like Jaws because it’s a real movie, of which, there are very few today. I like the plot, and all the multiple conflicts: man against man, man against nature, man against himself. There’s that overwhelming denial when the residents of the town, especially the city council, don’t want to admit that something is terribly wrong beneath that brimming blue sea.

The sad, heavy feeling of helplessness that emerges with each fatal attack. The…

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Creature by Peter Benchely

I read a post L.T Garvin about rewatching Jaws and the author remembering how scary the movie was. I commented back saying that Jaws was a great movie but the shark was only doing what sharks naturally do to survive. And I admit I have never been able to get a copy of Jaws and read it. I found Creature instead. If you like monster movies or books, I whole heartly recommend the book. The sad excuse of a wanna be knock off movie, I Beg You, don’t watch it. It was beyond sad, horrible, terrible and did no credit to cast or book.

If Dr. Frankenstien had access to shark DNA, then Old Frankie would have been something like Creature. A super weapon designed by Nazi German scientists that was lost for fifty or sixty years and turned loose on a modern world. Scary critter that attacks, feeds, kills in the water and on land.

I read this book as a teenager during summer vacation while at the beach with my grandparents. Yeah I hung out on the porch with my Grandma after reading that book. It was a master piece of monster writing and the genre has not died with authors like Steve Alten and Jeremy Robinson writing new and awesome books.

Steve Alten is well known for both The Loch and the Meg series. The Loch gives a possible explantion of what really lurks in the depths of Loch Ness. The Meg series is about megalodons surviving to modern times by living in the Maranas Trench along with other baddies from the long gone dino era. Jeremy Robinson wrote Anatarkos Rising and Kronos. Anatarkos Rising is a cool twist on the global shifting and Anartica becomes viable livable land while the rest of the world has pretty much been destroyed. Kronos is a cool sea monster tale of biblical proportions.
So there you have it new authors to try and new books to love, ponder, digest and read. Cheers on this Easter Sunday night. james

Urgent, Missing Young Man

Hey guys,

If you guys will keep a look out for this young man. I can’t imagine what his mother is going through. Sad situation, praying he will be found safe and sound.

Slip of the knife: Or why my post is late

Being from a rural communty there are certain norms that exist here but not elsewhere. One of those norms reached out and bit me Tuesday. I have carried a pocket knife for many years growing up and in the last couple of weeks, I renewed the habit. My co-worker asked me to cut a plastic tie and in my haste I cut my finger. Which has made work rather agravating and I can’t type with my left index finger at all. Luckly, I can type on my phone with my right thumb. However today it is the best my poor finger has felt since the whole bloody mess.

So the old adage proves true once again. Haste can make a bloody mess. (Slight improv) And familarity breeds contempt. This last statement is the closer to my situation because I forgot how hard the plastic ties are to cut. So moral of the story, keep your pocket knife sharp and your fingers out of  blade’s way.

Cheers on a Thursday night, james
Happy Easter!