Wednesday, March 30

Arizona for now

So I came down to Arizona on Tuesday, caught a very sunny spring training ball game (Giants beat the D'backs 9-5 at a very fan friendly Scottsdale Stadium) and have been in some classic corporate training today and tomorrow before flying home on Friday (only to return next week).

I've brought my novel with me to work on at night, a second read with some minor editing as I go, so I've got something productive to do at night. Otherwise, not much to say or report, aside from the weather is beautiful the desert is in full bloom and the mountains here are stark and bare.

Monday, March 28

Bright and shiny

Well, it's a cloudy and kind of overcast day here on the Edge of Nowhere, but it is spring so we'll be optimistic that the sun will come out and the temps will rise.

OK -- that's it. Nothing to say, really. Just proving I still exist.

Friday, March 25

Somewhere

The Edge of Nowhere went to the middle of somewhere at the last minute last night, sitting in a suite at the Pepsi Center surrounded by a record 19,866 Nuggets fans, 11,455 of whom boooed every time Kobe touched the ball as Los Nuggets destroyed Los Lakers 117-90something. And as pleasing as the outcome of the game was, and as amusing as the company in the luxury box (including state legislators and the governor's deputy chief of something) was, the highlight for some of us from the Edge of Nowhere may have been the half-time act, the "Red Panda" -- a woman who sat precariously atop an eight-foot unicycle, balancing "china" bowls on her feet -- first one, then two, then three, then four, up to six (while unicycling with one foot!) -- and then tossing them high into the air and catching then nested atop her head. Weird, wild stuff. The Edge of Nowhere is also pleased to report the Nuggets have now won 20 of 25 games since Karl took over as coach. It has nothing to do with my novel. I just wanted to tell you.

Thursday, March 24

Gray grey gah-rey

So last week's signs of spring -- the mid-summer green of the yucca, the sparkling wind-driven blue skies, the meadowlark's song, the darker lawn green along sidewalks and drives where the extra snow gets piled -- is gone again. March is our snowiest month, and while we haven't had much snow except for the five or six inches two weekends ago, we got a swell blast of rain yesterday afternoon and today's supposed to be gray gray gray foggy gray until later, when more rain and snow is likely. A good day to stay inside and work on your novel, you say. Yes, I say, it is. But instead I'll go sit in my cubicle for the day. And then tonight I'm actually looking forward to seeing the NBC version of The Office, the BBC version of which was quite good. So see you on the otherside.

Wednesday, March 23

Author photos

Reviewing this thread of author photos, it makes a(n egotistical wannabe) writer think: what should my author photo be? Artsy? Fartsy? Dreamy? Competent? Techno? The one of me mugging in front of Mount Rushmore? The one of me wearing that stupid hat? The one of me at the swimming pool? The one of me sitting thoughtfully on a mountain?

(Of course, even thinking about it ridiculous until/unless one has a book contract, no? How sad is it to think of this now? How human?)

And I wonder if published writers find themselves searching out threads like this and, upon finding them and finding themselves not pictured, wondering why they're not listed yet? Is it a sign of "having made it" if people post your photo to a thread like this. Would they create a screen name and submit their own photo, just to make sure they're included?

And do published writers monitor their Amazon ranking? Compete against friends -- Ha, Updike, I'm 43,345th and you're like 44,000th!

Monday, March 21

GreNoFiMo

The Greeley NaNo group met last night -- three of us, at least -- to share progress reports and hear about Jared's visit with an agent. So that was good. And we helped Chris draft some sketchy outline points for a self-help nonfiction book on dating/relationships he's been pondering. So that was good. And even though I had no progress to report, really, the action of getting together is still good, still healthy, and still keeping me focused on the project, the novel.

Friday, March 18

Dylan author of the year? No

Bob Dylan will find out tonight whether the nation's literary critics really, really like him. His "Chronicles, Vol. 1", which I read earlier this year and quite enjoyed, was among the nominees for a National Book Critics Circle award in biography/autobiography. His competition included two acclaimed best sellers: Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton and Stephen Greenblatt's biography of Shakespeare, "Will in the World." Also nominated were John Guy's "Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart" and "De Kooning: An American Master," by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan.

In the fiction category, Philip Roth was among the finalists for "The Plot Against America," (which I also read recently) a story about the United States under a presidency of Charles Lindbergh. I haven't read any of the other fiction finalists: Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead"; Edwidge Danticat's "The Dew Breaker"; and two British releases, Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning "The Line of Beauty" and David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas," a Booker finalist.


One of my favorite poets is in the running, too. Gary Snyder's "Danger on the Peaks is in the running. (Actually, by now Eastern time, they've probably announced the winners. [Back in a second while I go search the web]).

Here you go, actual news from the Edge of Nowhere: Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's poetic, modern-day testament of a dying Iowa preacher, won the National Book Critics Circle prize for fiction Friday night. Bob Dylan, a finalist for the biography/autobiography prize for his memoir Chronicles, Vol. 1, did not attend and did not win. The award was given to De Kooning: An American Master, by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan.

The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is a not-for-profit organization of about 600 book editors and critics. An NBCC award brings plenty of prestige, but no cash. I would be remiss if I didn't selfishly note I sometimes wonder if I'll get to put on some fancy duds and trek to NYC for something like this, someday. The dream of it, of course, keeps me moving, but admitting it makes me feel completely and totally ridiculous. Sigh. I know, I know: shut up and write.

Wiz of Oz

So the Wonderful Wizard of Oz: a discussion starts.

I read the book a few weeks back in under 24 hours, in a facsimile copy of L. Frank Baum's first edition with some sweet artwork by W.W. Denslow. If you only know the 1039 movie, which is a swell movie and one we watched nearly every day for a few months when my children were toddlers, read the book. If you only know the movie in the winning way of viewing it with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album playing as well, it's worth reading the book. If, like us, you just heard Bobby McFerrin do his compressed version, read the book. It's the first in a series of -- what, Paul? --12 or 13 -- 40? other Oz related books? And the movie covers only a small bit of what happens in the book. So that surprised me. (I also recall seeing some sort of business management thought leader type consultant-y seminar on leadership styles in the Wizard, and aligning yourself with the brain, the heart and/or the ____ (whatever organ it is that yields courage -- the spleen?) (And we can talk about Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow in The Wiz, too, or we can choose to move on.)

Moving on: I suppose there are all sort of theories about that the book is about, political or religious or philosophical, but I'll take at face value what Baum himself says (or I remember him saying) it is in the introduction: it's just a happy, positive new sort of fantastical fairy tale (or something like that).


(Later: What he actually says, and I now have fished the book from the shelf where it was propped in front of a half-dozen Neal Stephenson books, is this; "the time has come for a series of newer 'wonder tales' in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated" and "the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident" and therefore, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz is "written solely to pleasure children of today... in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out.")(He wrote about the 'modern child', Nick, in Chicago in April, 1900.)

That said, it's definitely an American story: people on the move, seeking better fortunes of a heart, a brain or some courage while our hero Dorothy just wants to go home again. Is it the original road trip story? (Probably not: Huck Finn came first, right? Right. Plus who knows what other earlier American road-trip tomes I missed by majoring in phys ed in college). (We also won't get into the parallels between the Wizard himself hiding out making all his citizens wear an emerald version of rose-tinted glasses and our current president, at least not for starters... mainly because they don't go too deep. Do they?)

I like the characters, even if they're fairly one dimensional (as I suppose they should be in a fairy tale). I like that the story moves quickly (note to self: plot is good, plot is good, plot is good) and I like the weird Oz environment in which the story takes place. It seems quite positive, too, which is good for our younger readers.

So, fellow readers, what say you? [You can read more about modern reactions to it in coming days/weeks on blogs by Paul
and Nick (my brother the writer and his son the singing English major).] And perhaps here in the comments...

Why speak English?

"In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station."
-from a Japanese ad for English-speaking lessons.

Wednesday, March 16

Update

So, OK, here's an update on the point of this whole site: how the novel is going. I pulled it out from the stack of magazines and books next to my bed where it's been nestled (read: buried) for the past 10 days or so, and scribbled down several ideas for sub-plots or character traits that have been running through my brain over those ten days. And I reread a few pages again, and again I'm surprised by how good it is. Well, how good it seems to me. So I'm inspired of course to work on it, and I think what I'll do is re-read/edit it again, now that the whole of it is refreshed in my brain to work out the couple of kinks I noted the first time through and to put off having to actually put the seat of my pants against the seat of the chair here and really work on it. But: progress will be made! It must be made!

I also have to still: move all my fiction into the blue room office space, where I'm sitting now looking out over the backyard, the traffic on the east-west street running behind our house and watching the dusk settle over the western sky, the mountain shrouded in a thick layer of gray/black clouds. They say the wind is coming back tomorrow, pushing a front through. Today was sunny, and whao nelly, look, I've already drifted away from the point of this post: an update on my writing. So: I need to reread it faster this time, spent an hour or two a night on it for a week or two, look for places to add the things I need to add, split the chapters I need to split, and look for other tangents I can expand and build on. OK. I'm off to perhaps do that. Later.


But first: play my guitar, go out and find a replacement rear view mirror for my van (because mine continues to fall off) and fill out my NCAA bracket (for kicks). Plus, just in from the BBC via Netflix: Seasons 1 and 2 of The Office. (At some point in the future, I'm going to have to commit to this writing thing somehow, eh? What do you do with a writer whose intentions are great and habits are good three months a year? If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know via the comments....)

Bloggies

A plug for the format: if you like the idea of the blog, check out some of the best at the site listing the winners of the 2005 Bloggies.

Canceled?!?

So we drive down to Denver only to find the Barrage show is cancelled! Bummer! So we paid our $6 to park, found a little bakery for some coffee/hot chocolate and dessert, and then drove the hour back to the edge of nowhere. Sigh. Some sort of travel snafu held up the group, said the sign in the window. Oh well.

Tuesday, March 15

Why I read

A few weeks back, Nick asked me (and my brother) why we read. I'm not going to answer that yet, but I have been thinking about it off and on these past few weeks while he's been doing papers and finals and I've been floating around daily life. I do read for very specific reasons, I will say that, and I do read very certain kinds of things (in cycles, of course). Right now, for example, I'm reading very short novels (mostly). I also read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as part of the AnderLiterary Society (current membership: three; current books read: 1; members who've read said book: 2 of 3). I'm also part of MELDAR -- Multiple Erics Long Distance Association of Readers (non Erics need not apply). So maybe someday I'll spell out (in actual letters and words here) why I read.

But not today. Today I must enjoy the sunshine and the upcoming trip to Denver.

A barrage of violins and fiddles

So we'll be off to Denver here in a couple of hours to see Barrage in concert for the third time (we've previously seen them in Denver and Cheyenne). This is a new tour with a new show, and for the uninitiated, Barrage is a group of fiddling, violining, dancing Canadians and others who get some PBS pledge time air time and tour around entertaining folks with a show that's half concert, half spectacle. Reade loves 'em and in Cheyenne we got to get autographs on the CD and sheet music book, some songs of which she plays. So we're off to have some big city fun tonight. You can learn more at the Barrage website.

Monday, March 14

Back from lunch

I sometimes (always?) let things get away from myself. I sometimes imagine the life of a writer as this great fictional unobtainable future, book tours, publicity, Charlie Rose's oak table, checking my Amazon ranking, when in fact the real world that stuff has nothing to do with writing. The real secret (I tell myself, when I remember to talk to myself) to success is to just fake it. And in the faking of it, you become it.

I think back to one of the first months I was promoted to a suit-wearing position (back in the day when we wore suits) at the nation's largest insurer and I had to go to my first all management meeting, to the secret society (as it were, as I imagined, the fake laughter, the free coffee, the glad-handing) and the point of this particular meeting was a guest speaker, who wasn't really a true guest speaker since he was but one of our own fellow employees who'd been elevated to a guest speaker role for the day, and the whole point of his speech was the need for a positive attitude. His bottom line: one way to remain upbeat was, if nothing else was working, to fake it. And then in true corporate American fashion, he had us participate in a show-and-tell to show us when he meant, and so he made us, all 200 of us cramped together in the office cafeteria, recite a short phrase, and then get up on our feet and recite it again, and then to add in an arm thrust over our heads for emphasis and then to shout it with the arm thrust to make sure the people in the next room heard us, and so on, louder and louder, more and more self conscious grew we. And it was incredibly dopey and cringe-worthy and of the school of forced corporate fun. And dang it, it worked.

The phrase he made us jump to our feet and shout: "If you act enthusiastic, you will be enthusiastic."

C'mon, shout it with me! Three times! Four times! C'mon!

As you know, I've never been one to buy in to such hogwash as this. And yet. And yet. The whole construct is false, but the reality, as much as I hate to admit it, is sadly kind of true. And this truth led me begrudingly to the philosophy of "perception = reality" which I fought and fought for a long time but now mostly tend to agree with. It's a theory (P=R) we in the public relations trade rely on to develop messaging and communication strategies: whatever you say frequently enough, whatever you self-define, whatever message you can develop (that of course benefits your client) and repeat and repeat and repeat at every opportunity, that message, repeated enough, becomes reality.

If you act enthusiastic, you will be enthuisastic works the same way. By jumping to your feet and shouting it, you are of course acting hyper-excited. Very enthusiastic. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's what I hate about positive attitudes, I suppose. Is that you can fake it. (What's the old Samuel Goldwyn quote? "If you can fake sincerity, you've got it made"? (Yes, it is))

I bring all this up because the same thing is true of being an artist, or a writer. It's just a matter of faking it. And if you fake -- that is, act like a writer, in my case, or a musician or artist in my friends's cases -- you've got it made. So I just need to pretend to be a writer, to carve our a routine of an hour or two a day while I'm still holding a full-time job in the reality-based world and doing the full-time parenting gig to a couple of (near) teens, then I can be a writer. I still have to pretend to write, to go through the motions of writing, and editing, and proofing, and re-reading, and reading other writer's novels, and staying atop of things, and sending stories out, and queries, and by sheer fact that I'm doing this soley to pretend to be doing it, I will in fact not only be developing good writerly habits, I will in fact be doing the things a writer does (writing, etc.) and hence I will be a writer.

So it's simply a matter of faking it, of letting myself be a writer by acting like one, that I become one. And when I become one, I can deal with/worry about all those other things that go with being a (successful) writer: agents, galleys, publicity, interviews, book-signings, etc. (which, of course, in and of themselves have nothing to do with writing but everything to do with marketing and publishing....)

Free the brain!

Media diet

Currently reading:

+ The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time by Mark Haddon

The last five books I've read:

+ Rockville Pike - Susan Coll
+ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Frank L. Baum
+ Her Name Was Lola - Russell Hoban
+ Milk - Darcy Steinke
+ Eleanor Rigby - Douglas Coupland
On deck: The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara
In the hole: Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage

The last five films I've seen:

+ Robots
+ Finding Nemo
+ 2001: A Space Odyssey
+ Citizen Kane
+ Gigantic: A tale of Two Johns (a They Might Be Giants docu)

The last five TV shows I've seen:

+ The third season of Curb Your Enthusiasm
+ Denver Nuggets basketball
+ American Idol (the whole season so far)
+ Desperate Houseviews (when it's on)
+ The Simpsons (reruns and first runs)

The last five magazines I've read:

+ Entertainment Weekly
+ The New Yorker
+ Premiere
+ UU World
+ Smithsonian

How we work

William Gibson says he's stopped blogging so he can write. On the other hand, Cory Doctorow says he blogs so that he can write. Go figure. Philip Roth has a whole other apartment where he writes standing up. Don DeLillo likes to go for a run after writing, to ease back into the other (non-writing) world. Learn all this and more at this blog.

Sunday, March 13

Fiddle and guitar

So Reade's just walked in with her fiddle and told me I can choose from any of the songs in the front of this book she has out, except for "Neil Gow's Lament For the Death of a Second Wife" and I will now put the keyboard down and pick up my guitar and we're going to make some music together. Catch you later! Ah one, two, a 1-2-3-4....

Out to lunch

So I've been out to lunch the past week or so, thinking this: the world is a big place and sometimes we get trapped in a tiny corner. OK, world is the wrong word -- the universe, space-time, eternity and infinity squared, everything. It's huge, right? Beyond comprehension, right? Right. And yet, so many humans, and I'm definitely counting myself among the many here, and actually, truly, I guess I can't speak for anyone else just assume I'm normal enough that i can expand and assume others feel as I do, at least sometimes: so many humans, us bipedal treeless tailless apes with the large large brains, get stuck in a place, a time, a little world. We get stuck in a reality. And so often that world is self-created. So often? Always? Completely and totally? Every time, in every single instance perhaps? Is there a reality beyond our own brains and perceptions? Of course there is. And then again, there isn't.

What we see is what we create for ourselves. We create our own walls and gates, our own edges of reality, our own limitations, our own success. And it's not always conscious or intentional. That's the bummer, eh? It's often beyond our control, weird fluxions and functions and variations and the crossroads of everything, personal genetics, brain chemistry, the religious teachings absorbed by our gr-grandparents, society today and when we were a child, the influences good and bad, intentional and accidental of environmental chemistry and powerful elites and media flus.

So, OK, maybe I'm back.

Freedom of speech

In the form of money.

Friday, March 11

I agree

I feel agreeable today.


Thursday, March 10

Emergency librarian

The emergency librarian makes his debut. Plus the further adventures 2, 3 & 4.

Sunday, March 6

Progress

So yesterday, Connor had some friends over for a long time as they worked on a video for a science project (don't ask) and I had a couple of hours, so I edited some 35 pages of the novel, in fact, all the way to the end. So that's done; one more milestone. Now I have to sit here and make those edits, tighten up a few things in the middle, straighten out some timing issues, add a couple three chapters about the wife mixed in through the last third and presto chango, I might have something one step closer to being done...

Saturday, March 5

Westley's blog

So it turns out my dog's been publishing a blog behind my back all these months. In fact, he started before me! Sheesh! Check it out: www.spinonedog.blogspot.com

Two ideas

iMe.

&

a consultant to consultants, a thought leader guinea pig who infiltrates clients six months ahead of big consultants, spies, reports back on peer-to-peer hallway talkā€¦

Friday, March 4

Idea

"image consultant to ratty environmentalists"


Thursday, March 3

Update

I'd like to report that I've been methodical, diligent and steady in my fiction writing the past week, but it's been awkward, chaotic and somewhat haphazard. That said, I'm up to page 75 of editing the paper copy and did 10 pages or so last night, and nearly 20 Monday night. So there's been movement. And this is good. I'm really going to try to celebrate/accentuate the positive, at least for today (this is not a stretch goal, although in reality/perception, it is). So I'll be happy with just one day of half-fullness. And today's that day!

Wednesday, March 2

Idea

"middle-class conformism"


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