Not even a Little

Caffeine and I just had another falling out after I discovered my blood pressure was high. It's the latest of several times that I've quit. Each time there has been an immediate loss of energy. This time I've slept for half of the last 48 hours. Though I have to say, the dreams have been kick-ass. I thought I was lucky to have no headache, until it kicked in this morning. Then, I had my body aches.

What's funny is, I wasn't consuming a lot of it. Maybe a cup of coffee a day and up to 20oz's of Mountain Dew. Apparently, my body thought I was. I had headaches, disrupted sleep, urinary difficulties, none of which I associated with caffeine. Then I had my blood pressure sky-rocket. Apparently, I can't handle any of it. 

Even after all the trouble I've had with caffeine in the past, I still try to use it again. No use denying: I like the mild rush it gives me and I like the flavors of the coffee and the sweetness of Mountain Dew. I'm glad it's caffeine and not a harder drug.

I called yesterday a "sick day" but I still got a lot of writing done, I'm proud to say, much more than calculated I would, for once. 

My Blood Pressure's Telling Me Something

Okay, maybe switching between projects as I've been doing isn't that good of an idea. A check of my blood pressure today revealed it is out of control. For now, I'm putting it down to too much caffeine. (I like Mountain Dew a little too much.) Of course, quitting is going to be a headache, literally and figuratively, and then I'm going to be sleepy as hell all the time for about a month. It might be a bit worse than that, too. I also might be using too much salt. It's easy to get careless about those things. I should be getting more exercise, but that's really the first thing that goes if I'm behind schedule that day.

I've had to stop going to the writers' group. Until my productivity problem is solved, getting critique is of little good. I have to immerse myself in producing things now and try to get faster. At least now I have some initial estimate as to how long a project takes from first draft to final according to pages. The time is appalling, but consistent with how much time overruns I have. Writing the first draft is easy. Two hours per page at most. Editing and rewriting it are terrible. Add five more hours per page to go from first-to-final draft, if I don't have any setbacks, such as finding a scene conceptually isn't working. That always means creating a whole other scene from scratch, which generally takes longer than an ordinary first draft, because it wasn't the easiest thought I had.

Therefore, without setbacks, I can now expect a twenty page story to take 140 hours. Three-and-a-half work weeks. Then, I'd better add about a week for possible setbacks. Twenty pages would take 180 hours. That's a few days over a month. That is painfully slow.

If those measures fail, I might just have to concentrate on one project rather than switching between several. The problem is, and has always been, I'm not fast enough. I'm getting frustrated at not getting anything done.

For troubles outside writing: I have a friend who's in hardship right now and I might have to share my apartment for a while. I'm not as concerned about this now as I was yesterday. It looks like it won't happen. Still I offered, even though I like my privacy.

Then the situation with my Dad is not looking good. I have to go to his place now and then to help out, and when I do, it depresses me. More about my Dad will follow later. An autobiographical post is one of the big projects I've been working on.

Chilling the Neighbor Relations

I live in an interesting little apartment building. The guy living on one side is gay and has loud, howling sex with his dates. From the guy on the other side, I hear loud Christian Radio coming through my walls.

I was talking that second neighbor today, I needed to borrow something, when he mentioned I should consider tuning in to 91.5 FM. He said, "It's Christian radio. Do you believe in Jesus."

I searched for an answer that wouldn't offend him too much, but instead came up an honest one. "I think he probably once existed." There followed a moment of icy silence.

"In all the time you live, that's the best you can do?"

"Yes, sorry."

"No, I feel sorry for you." Of course he does. I was thinking of a comedy bit where we argue about who's sorrier, already done in Dr. Strangelove. But it's better to quit while I'm ahead.

I wouldn't bet the house on it, but I think there's pretty good chance that Jesus the man did not even exist. Frank Zindler makes a strong argument in "The Jesus the Jews Never Knew." There are no reliable secular authorities that recorded him, including a  few who were in Galilee and would have written about him. There's no record of him at the time from Jewish authorities. In fact, it's impossible to say Christianity even arose from Palestine. It could have started from anywhere.

I'm not as given to this theory as Zindler, but it has merit. Why would the Founders of the Church lie so terribly? Why did L. Ron Hubbard or any cult leader lie?

Since our conversation, Christian Radio has been playing quieter from the West. From the East, I expect more from Sodom and Gomorrah tonight. And I don't mind. It's much quieter here than the place I used to live in. I guess I could crank up some hetero porn to cancel the noise scientifically, but I'm used to sleeping with earplugs and they do just find.

A Guerrilla in Bright Orange Camouflage.

In my lifetime, we've moved from the Modern Era, to the Post-Modern era, and now we're in the clutches of The Spam Era.

Spam has ruined so many things that used to be great about computing. I mean, for one thing, you could download freeware programs without fear that the Chinese or Russians aren't going to hijack your computer, use it to break into the Pentagon, and load it with kiddy porn just to make if funny.

However, now there's people-spam. Called guerrilla marketing.

I remember an incident a few years ago in writers' group, a different one than what I go to today. There was one balding guy with long gray beard who showed up. He had a lost, anxious look in his eye. After introductions before the meeting, the first thing he says was that he took this online course from Professor Waddle-Waddle from Corn State University on constructing strong sentences and how much it helped him. I immediately think, guerrilla marketer. He doesn't say anything else, doesn't participate in the meeting, just wears the same stressed expression. 

So, when the next meeting comes, he starts the same way with somebody else. If he were there to improve his writing, also, or had any original interest prior to being subverted to become human spam, I would have had more respect. In one way, I felt sorry for the guy, though. He seemed really nervous and uncomfortable doing this, like an invisible guy stood behind him pointing an invisible gun at his head.

After two more meetings of doing this and not getting anybody interested, the guy left without any further interest. You can put email spam in your trash box. I wish the spammers would back off, because I hate feeling that way about people.

Nothing really.

Still juggling four projects, none of which look near getting done. I hate feeling stuck. I hate having ideas I can't put down and try out. Like, I knew how this novel was going to end eighteen months ago, and I still haven't got it down. What's holding it up?

Details on how the characters get from one point that I've thought out, through a plot line that I haven't, to another that I thought out. You might say what I've thought out have been snapshots.

Then as I write and I put things in, I spot interesting or necessary detail. For example, take scene with two characters, Character A, Character B. Character A is connecting phone wires. Character B is holding the flashlight. Character B begins to talk crazy. In outline, that's what I've figured out in the scene.

When I'm writing, however, I can't stop there. What does Character B say that sounds crazy? What does she do as she's talking crazy? What were they talking about before she did?

Along the way, of course, the dialog has to be interesting. It has to sound enough like real speech. So, while you're writing this, Character B lets slip something, something which either suggests a plot hole or is interesting enough to require development three chapters down.

So, even if I outline, I never know how long something is going to take. Every  outline is a story without the detail. You add in the details, and you might have a totally different story from what you started with.

That's what I've been contending with.

Yet another story started.

I needed something to read at the writer's group. I swore I would always bring in something there. However, everything I'm working on now is either something I've read already which is under rewrite, something that's a much later chapter than the parts of read, or something that's under complete reconstruction.

So, I went into my short story folder and found something I started a few years ago. I worked on it for a little, and found that I liked it. I took it in for a reading.

I met resolution, but I now have a lot of things started, and more story ideas which I don't have a chance to finish yet.

In other writing news: I got a rejection. Any creative writer has to learn that acceptances and rejections are mostly a matter of luck. If you're professional, submitting a work is gambling without money. On duotrope.com you can see what percent acceptance rate specific publications have. If a writer knows statistics, I'm guessing they can take the percent acceptance of every magazine they've submitted to, compare it to one's own acceptance percentage and figure out if they're doing better or worse than average.

In one way, I'm fascinated by this, in another, I recoil in fear. It's an objective way to find out how I measure up to other writers. In a another way, it makes the competition with other other writers explicit. Really, I'd rather live in a world where the spirit of competition doesn't effect the type or quality of stories the audience if offered.

There's probably not a better time to be a writer, because even if you have a story that's rejected everywhere, you could still self-publish it without risk. Of course, if the stories are rejected everywhere, you better have a pretty good handle as to why, and it better not be a quality issue, because you may be showing the world the worst examples of your writing. This might make it impossible to ever get paid for anything else.  

I'm Not Slacking; I'm Waiting for Parts.

Working on a short story, Maternal Instincts, for publication, I hope. However, it's being difficult. The first scenes I wrote aren't working. I'm using Ingermanson's Snowflake method, even though MI is a short story, not a novel. I'm experimenting, figuring that it might save me a draft or two if there's more work on the front end. Tonight, I just changed a major character, and it solves two plot problems. It's a little disorienting. I have to get used to thinking of the character differently. This might also require some research on youtube.

Fact is, this is the part of writing that doesn't look like work, because I just sit there and wait for my mind to solve the problem, with no idea how long it will take. Usually, it looks to anyone like I'm goofing off. However, so far it hasn't helped if I try to force it out of my brain, or if I let my attention wander. The answer doesn't seem to come any faster. However, I'll try the squeeze-the-answer-out method next time. What definitely helps is making sure I'm well rested.

People don't realize this, but fiction writing is not one skill. There are many involved. The skill set includes plotting, dialog, description, word choice, outlining, production, visualizing, characterization . . . and at least several others. Writers will vary in their mastery, or lack of it, in all of them. Story troubleshooting would be one of them. 

However, it's a very small part of the process, so I don't often have the excuse that I'm "waiting for parts." The same with plot development. So, I won't look deceptively lazy very often.  

Dance? Take three steps back, one step forward.

Yesterday, I cut 1,400 words out of Chapter 35 of my novel, Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond. Today I wrote 500 new ones to replace the scene that didn't work. The old had enough conflict, but it just didn't serve to point the story to its end. The chapter now looks like a mess, but I'm pulling it together.

I realized just tonight one problem I might be having is that I still proceed as though the my attention deficit is still a problem. That is, I check, and check again on what I'm doing, on what I've done. I anticipate forgetting or screwing up. This is unnecessary. I don't have to poke along and checking and double checking. I'm going to try to remember that at all times, and maybe I can build my confidence with it, and break some of these habits.

The difference Strattera makes in my life is significant. I really wish it were diagnosed and treated in childhood because recognizing, diagnosing and treating it in adulthood has taken decades, and it was disguised by other problems.

Today, I had a eureka moment and figured out how I get the characters from where they are to where they have to be through four feet of snow? I was stuck on that for a long time. I had already written scenes that hid the continuity error.

I can never count on when I'm going to have the answers to a challenge a chapter gives me. Moreover, it seems no matter how well I have it outlined, there's always something I didn't foresee, something I didn't count on.

I've never known how some writers do detailed outlines. I'll try it with Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method on my next novel. (In fact, I've adapted it for short story and I'm using it currently.) I tried it for the last for chapters of The Feral Bond, with some success. What it really does is give you more confidence, but I still ran into the problem that I can't see some important details until I have other details created, which means, doing it on the fly when I'm writing it.

Though I've heard of writers who are productive machines at it (Asimov, King) but they also had years of obsessive practice before they were known, and Asimov apparently was an Asperger's Savant, and they're in a league all their own.

No, I have an average mind, I'm under-practiced, under-trained, and I have to compensate with hard work.

Stress Fracture.

I worked long hours for many days in a row. I don't know, I think it was eight days, maybe more, eleven hours each. By Friday, I had a migraine. Yes, I've had them diagnosed, but not really treated with anything. I can give myself an aura by changing the color of my text on the screen. Everything grows dark for a few seconds. Usually, that doesn't get any worse, occasionally, though . . .

Anyway, the way I can tell it's a migraine, it hurts like crazy and responds to absolutely nothing. I ended up knocking myself out with a somewhat reckless combination of Tramadol and Benadryl. That put me down for Friday night and most of Saturday.

Part of what frustrated me was the fact that I could prove to myself that I was working very hard all those hours, and switching between five projects, I only got one of them done: the final draft of the first chapter of Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond (serious fan fiction, BTW). I didn't get that done until Sunday, after concentrating all my time on it.

I expected to have a lot more done. I can only hope I get more efficient, because if it continues like this, whatever small chance of turning this writing whimsy into a living is gone.

Anyway, so, now I the other projects. I have a deadline tomorrow, a personal one, that I'm not going to meet.

For Sunday afternoon and night, I helped my dad and brother, my dad being old and infirm, and my brother being completely disabled. Monday, I got to relax with a friend, at the cost of not having anything to read at the writers' group. They already heard the first chapter, the one I corrected and rewrote.

I'm reading through an anthology of horror stories, some of them seem to be barely horror stories. Except at least a few don't appear to be horror stories to me. The Other Grace by Holly Phillips, is about a girl losing her memory along with all emotional connection to her family and friends, who has to make a choice to either be who she was or be somebody new. It's a great story, that centers on what a person's identity really is, but I have to ask, is it really horror? I guess it is, and it does remind me of The Twilight Zone. Even so, the abruptness of the ending surprised me. I thought it was reaching for a lot more.

Of course, look at me. I complicate up whatever story I write. And a short story, Maternal Instincts, needs to be restructured because I was building it into a novel.

Financially, it doesn't make sense to write short stories. Except, a novel takes so damn long. If you don't write the occasional short story, I could easily see your publisher, your agent and readership might completely forget you exist. If your novels sell, you could always stick those short stories in a collection and sell that. Or get a gimmick that ties them together as Ray Bradbury did with The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man.

Anyway, things are back to normal now. I'm scheduling myself every day, and basically sticking to it. A great improvement in my life. My psychiatrist thought so today when I talked to her. Finally there's a med that seems to improve things rather than just keep me from getting depressed about it.

I Said, No Time Like NOW.

I kept my efforts divided among project, but got impatient. Starting Friday, I concentrated on one project: that was the rewrite of Chapter 1 of The Feral Bond. I'm now on Chapter 35, and I learned a lot since writing those early chapters, so I went back to apply it. Those first two chapters determine people's expectations for the rest of the work. So, I wanted them up before the next revision is done.

And unless I my speed takes off, that's going to be a long time. It took me fifteen hours to correct, revise and rewrite three times. That averages out to about five pages per hour, which, of course, varies.

But if I'm going to be juggling projects making no progress, until I get fed up and concentrate on one, it means my productivity might be directly proportional to my frustration.

Writers' Technique

I had a migraine last night. When that happens, I'm always desperate to do anything to get rid of the pain. I took Tylenol, Tramadol and Benadryl (just in case it was sinus instead). When those didn't help, I took another Benadryl so I could at least fall asleep.

This was a mistake. I got up four hours later than I planned, still feeling the effects, and I'm still feeling them now three hours later. I'll remember what I had forgotten, don't mix Tramadol and Benadryl.  It's just the time of year where I'm tempted to do that.

I got the headache after editing and rewriting. It's hard to tell right now, but I think I'm getting better and faster at it. The edit I'm concentrating on is the first chapter of Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond. I think I was just a little wordy with it, and tried to stuff too much information into the dialog and description.

So, I covered 20 pages yesterday.  Finished the redraft, started and almost finished another. Now I'm on a third, but there's not so much left to change. Next draft should be the last.

I've tried to improve my writing skills. I study grammar and style every day I can. Two books I'm reading through on the subject are The MLA's Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing by Claire Kehrwald Cook and Plain English Handbook 8th Edition by J. Martyn and Anna Kathleen Walsh. (I look up the 9th edition on Amazon and it costs $34, used!).  I recommend both these books. The first one is better practically speaking, but the second is better at giving you a complete description of the rules.

You have to perfect your craft as a writer. Whenever anybody says they want to write, it's difficult what to advise them because you don't know what their educational background is, or what level of skill they're starting out with. Such as, Stephan King was writing when he was nine-years-old, and kept it up. So, he was already an old hack by the time he was in college.

For people who didn't start out with a writer's education and suddenly decided they want to write in their 20s and 30s or later, I advise you get used to failing first. You probably have as story your writing that inspires you, except when you write. You can't understand why it looks so bad.

Don't look for promise and encouragement for your early work, because it's going to look unpromising. You're going to look terrible in anything when you just start out, with unless you're a Asperger's savant. Even then, you can't count on it. Writing takes so many distinct skills. There's the initial visualizing, there's story construction, paragraph structure, sentence mechanics and so on.

Pondering whether writers are born or made is a silly question. Of course, writers are born like everybody else. What must be done to make them will vary from person to person.

Sneaky Racism: Reclaiming Racial Slurs for General Use

I've met a few people, an ex-roommate and a brief dating relationship in particular, who have said the N-word can't be racist if you use it to insult White people, too. They would never tell me why they felt so much endearment to the N-word that they thought it had to be rescued and not forgotten. To the ear, the word sounds both stupid and ugly, an illiterate derivation of "negro." It doesn't make sense given what other -er words, like "teacher," or "archer" mean. A word like "asshole" sounds better. They also never told me why it was such a great insult that they needed it in their arsenal.

I didn't make my point with them very well then, and so I thought about it and have finally figured out exactly why this exercise bothered me. First, did they going to use it against White people and not Black people?  Of course not. That would be racist in their Teabilly minds. No, after sanitizing the term racially, they intended to use it in a "racially neutral" way. It's affirmative action scorning. They felt n***** wasn't racist as long as fifteen percent of people they directly insulted with were White.

So, in their minds, if they called thirteen Black people n*****, then they better find two White people to insult with it or face their racially sensitized consciences, or worse, have their neighbors talk about it. "Oh, Bill's not really racist. He'll catch up on his quota soon."

If you're really behind, though, I guess you'll seem like an asshole when you call a white co-worker a n***** for using "infer" rather than "imply." But only until you explain to him that it's all in the interest of fighting racism in your very soul. He should understand. He doesn't want to be a racist either, and you can return the favor by letting him call you one in six months when he's under quota.

The other thing I wish I had said was, "Oh, you believe it isn't racist to call a white person a shiftless, sloppy, inarticulate black person, who deserves servility?" It's too bad I didn't find those words, because in fact, when I substitute the usual insulting definition of n*****, it's clear that it's even more bigoted against African Americans if you use it to insult Whites, too.

I did try to say this but wasn't very clear. My disdain alone didn't get it across. However, they were pretty ignorant to not grasp this already without somebody bringing to a conscious level for them. Other people know it even if they don't know how to explain it.

Racism

I grew up in South St. Louis. There was a lot of fear and anger directed toward the African Americans in the North and Central parts of town. The neighborhood was overwhelmingly Catholic, and ethnically Irish, Italian, German.

In the 60s and 70s, it would be fair to say that racism was casually practiced, and the N-word was used in polite conversation to approving nods and enthusiastic giggles. As a child, you never know what history might have led to this, (definitely a subject of another post) but I found the hatred aimed at African-Americans bewildering. I took some bullying and taunting because of it. Yet, there was one weakness I had, and that was jokes. My childhood was tough, and I was willing to laugh at anything, including jokes directed toward me. I had a too-well-developed sense of irony as a kid.

We didn't see African-Americans that often. Yes, I heard that so-and-so friend went to North St. Louis and got jumped, but we seldom saw them in our neighborhood. When they came down, they were just as likely to get beaten or harassed as any white kid in a north city neighborhood, except I think, the police would be far less helpful to the victim.

People complain about "political correctness," but if my memory serves, in the absence of African-Americans, racism was constantly refreshed and reinforced through jokes. Yes, whoever could tell the grossest, coldest, racist joke was pretty certain to have some status in the short-term. The way you hate n** was a reliable conversation piece. It sometimes turned my stomach.


The Catholic nuns who taught me deserve criticism in many ways, but I'll give them credit for this: they did really try to teach tolerance in their own heavy-handed way. We had a particular nun who would rant against it. They took us on a field trip to see "Sounder" staring Cecily Tyson.  (The priests now . . . that's for a different post.)

Unfortunately, among my peers as they reached adolescence, tolerance became something to rebel against, even though the source of the racism was the parents. I think that the same people who rebelled against tolerance are the ones who now have more subtle complaints against "political correctness." I guess the jokes are just too good to give up. For a teenager, often times something doesn't need to rebellious, it just has to look that way. The cigarette companies have made a fortune off that.

 

Anticipating Too Much Incompetence

I have extolled on the virtues of pessimism, that is, where appropriate. There is a such thing as going too far, of course. One example happening to me today.

I take some drugs for physical problems. I have my prescriptions at a low-cost community pharmacy. My plan has changed recently, but the community clinic for which the pharmacy is a part wouldn't call in the prescriptions to another pharmacy. That is to say, the insurance provider couldn't get them to return calls and neither could I. No, to get them to move I had to make a doctor's appointment. While this was going on for weeks, of course, I'm running short of meds. Today, I ran out of a particularly important one. I called it in. I couldn't get a person on the phone for an expedited refill, so I entered the prescription number and asked that they expedite it.

When I go in this afternoon, there's a big line, and a sign up saying the computers are down and they can only take pick ups. Of course, I'm wondering if they got my message, listened to it, and whether they had time, with the computer being down.

I almost gave up and would have called for the refill at the pharmacy in my old neighborhood, which was seven miles away. Given all the trouble I had, I was anticipating more incompetence, which in turn raised my blood pressure. I told  myself it was irrational to fold before I knew whether they had filled it or not.

To my surprise, they had.

It reminds me of the time at my writers' group where our leader was waiting outside the door to our usual venue, a gallery. She had the key, but didn't have the alarm code, and was afraid of setting off a false alarm, which would cost us a fine. She was waiting for the caretaker to call her back. After talking about it, she remembered she had just asked the guy to leave the alarm off, that she had the key. So, she wondered, had he done as she asked? There was no sign telling her, by why would one leave sign saying that your burglar alarm was de-activated? That would be even more incompetent.

So, she tried the lock, no alarm. We were able to go in and go on with our readings.

It's in human nature to try to find a pattern and anticipate things. Optimism and pessimism describe not just prediction, but they dictate strategy. If you've had problems with an organization in the past, you'll think it'll be a problem in the future. But errors in anything like pharmaceuticals, are rare. Usually you can call in and they will listen to your request and expedite the your order, even on a day after a holiday.

But it's when the usual goes wrong, anxiety and frustration overcompensate. Afterward, you begin to respond to the residual fear and anger itself rather than anything that's really going on.

Even after I reason all of that out, I still end up anticipating based on the emotional response in the past and not anything actually happening in the present real world. It goes to show how limited knowledge of your own behavior can be.

Saving it up.

I couldn't actually rest this weekend, so I set aside today. I'm restless, I want to write. I'm hoping I get up tomorrow spring-wound for writing. I have been anxious to get back to the stories, Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond first. The short story, Maternal Instincts.

I've written out my schedule for tomorrow. Back to work then.    

Respite, sort of.

Had to stop writing and do something else for a while. So, I went over and helped my Dad around his house. He's too feeble to do a lot of things now, so I do mostly cleaning. It's hard seeing his slide, and it was hard seeing it with my mother, or anyone.

We try for immortality and instead we end up extending age a decade or two with diminishing physical and mental capacities. Yet, when faced with that or death, despite what they says when they're young, people choose overwhelming to fade away.

I read a blog by an acquaintance about my age. He said (paraphrasing) unlike people he sees languishing in nursing homes, he's going to kill himself first. My response, which I kept to myself, was, "Don't you think the people you see in nursing homes thought of that?" When it came to pulling the trigger, though, or the switch, or taking those pills or that cyanide, they procrastinated. Until they reached the nursing home level, and still they either procrastinate, or, as horrifying as it is to anybody younger, they find that they're happy enough living that way. They can deal with it.

Fact is, your brain changes as you grow older. Previously boring things become entertaining.  You go from punk rock to Mozart. Ultimate Frisbee to Sudoku.

I'm not young. I'm finally happy with what I'm doing and where I'm at, with a caveat: I wish I had been doing it when I was twenty. I don't have as much time to accomplish what I wish to. I hope I'm blessed with staying healthy and sharp in old age, because apparently, I'm not be able to retire, and never, ever wanted to retire anyway.

However, sometimes your body and mind insist. Having ruined my previous years, I don't have a choice but to gamble, or to continue to live sad.  

Anyway, my real rest comes tomorrow. Yesterday, even with helping my Dad I wrote 300 words nonfiction and edited another 600.