The Hive
The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.
William Gibson Blog
Famed author of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic: The Screenplay.
The Word Foundry
Joe Clifford Faust's "blog of a working writer: tracking writing projects, musings on the
creative process, occasional side trips into music, media, politics, religion, etc."
A Writer's Diary
By Cynthia Harrison, who has the good sense to quote Virginia Woolf: "The truth is that writing
is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial."
The American Sentimentalist
"Never has any people endured its own tragedy with so little sense of the tragic." Essays by Mark W. Anderson.
Screenwriting By Blog
David C. Daniel writes a screenplay online. "I've decided to publish the process as a way to push myself through it.
From concept to completion, it'll be here."
SeanAlonzo.com
Official site of occult fiction author Sean-Alonzo, exploring symbolism, alternative
history, philosophy, secret societies and other areas of the esoteric tradition.
Crafty Screenwriting
Maunderings of Alex Epstein, tv scribe, about life, politics, and the tv show I'm co-creating.
Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God
Writer & Artist, Dee Rimbaud reflects upon politics, religion, art, poetry, the meaning of life,
the nature of God and why toast always lands butter side down on carpets.
Robert Peake
Heart and Mind, Fully Engage ... a poet's website.
Sidestepping Real
By Ren Powell, poet, children’s writer, essayist and editor.
(Posts archived here are from 01/10/03 - 10/31/06)
Saturday, July 05, 2003 A Day in the Life [concluding a memoir that began on 4/13/03]
I am closing this memoir with a disclosure of my typical day.
I wake up. The first thing I do when I wake up is to reflect on how lucky I am to have another day on the planet. I am alive. By odds, I shouldn’t be. Although I quit before drinking myself to death, I still could have killed myself with an automobile. I shiver to recall all the times I’ve been behind the wheel while intoxicated. I never even received a drunk driving citation, let alone killed anyone. The only two car accidents I’ve had as a result of drinking were both solo affairs, one time taking out a farmer’s fence in Maryland, which I replaced, and the other time apparently hitting some object or other, perhaps a telephone pole or a parked car, which in fact I don’t remember. I woke up the next morning to discover a front fender missing on my car. I assumed I had hit something on the way home. There was nothing in the paper about dead bodies or wrecked cars. I don’t know what I did, but evidence showed it was an accident, not a theft.
After I wake up and give thanks for life, I give thanks for sobriety. I woke up so many mornings (over 10,000 of them) with a hangover that I expect the absence of one to be a great joy for the remainder of my days. Not only am I alive, I am in a condition in which I can appreciate it.
Next I am aware of Harriet beside me. I reflect on how fortunate I am to have her in my life. She travels a lot and when she is gone, when I wake up alone, I miss her.
Recently our dog Sketch also is on the bed, and when he is aware that I am awake, he may move close to greet me. The morning has begun.
If it’s after four in the morning when I first wake up, I am likely to get up and go to my basement office. I turn on the computer. I may work on my front burner writing project or I may go online and check my email first. But I usually write for at least an hour. Depending on the time, I may return to bed for an hour or two more, or I may stay up. If I stay up, I usually do the dishes from the night before. Then I make breakfast.
Harriet may or may not be up yet. We usually have some kind of hot cereal for breakfast. Harriet gets up between eight and nine, and her breakfast is usually waiting for her. By then, I may be downstairs working again, but when I hear her, I usually climb the stairs to greet her good morning.
Harriet is usually in a rush in the morning. She stays in bed for as long as possible before whatever class or meeting has her hurrying out the door. She’s far busier since she retired than she was while teaching. After she leaves the house, I go back downstairs and get back to writing – or I read student scripts and get ready for my Tuesday or Thursday afternoon class at the university.
Two days a week, then, I leave for the university early in the afternoon. I usually drive to a park-and-ride and take the bus. I love buses. I steal a lot of dialogue and speech cadences from eavesdropping on the bus.
I have my office hours before class. When Ger was alive, we’d grab coffee together before they began. I miss this.
After my office hours, I teach my class. I come home.
On days when I don’t teach, I write some more through the morning. I typically am working on more than one project at once. Today, for example, there are four projects I am involved in: this memoir, a novel, the libretto to an opera, and a dramatic reading from Dorothy Parker’s work, which I am assembling and directing for a presentation at the Unitarian Church in July.
Harriet usually comes home from her morning activity before noon, and we have lunch together. She tells me what she’s been up to. My remarks about what I’ve been up to are short and monosyllabic.
In the afternoons when I don’t teach, I rewrite or work on projects that are not on the front burner. Or I may do my writer’s chores then – buying supplies, going to the post office. The opening monologue in My Dinner With Andre captures in a wonderfully comic way how writers can stretch out their chores to last longer than they should.
Harriet’s busy schedule may have her off in the afternoon, too, for meetings or voluntary activity, such as leading tours at the Performing Arts Center. She gets out into the world much more than I do. She usually is home for dinner but sometimes she may dine with women friends first, before going to a dance concert or lecture that I’ve declined to attend.
During the day or evening, of course, I may read or listen to music. There’s a wonderful scene in a Woody Allen movie in which a character lists the reasons why life is worth living, including a number of books and songs. Here is my list off the top:
· Ramblin’ Jack Elliott singing the songs of Woody Guthrie.
· Little Walter playing and singing the blues.
· Doc Watson picking guitar.
· The Weill/Brecht opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
· Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker playing “My Funny Valentine.”
· Frank Sinatra singing “It Was A Very Good Year” and so many others.
· Graham Greene’s novels, The Quiet American and The Human Factor.
· Evan S. Connell’s novel, Mrs. Bridge.
· John Steinbeck’s short novel, Of Mice and Men.
· John O’Hara’s short novel, Andrea.
· Gilbert Sorrentino’s short story, “The Moon In Its Flight.”
· Lew Welch’s “Chicago Poem.”
· Friedrich Durrenmatt’s play, The Physicists.
· Edward Albee’s play, A Delicate Balance.
· Peter Weiss’ musical play, Marat/Sade.
· John Guare’s screenplay, Atlantic City.
On Friday or Saturday nights, Harriet and I often go to a movie. More rarely we might go to a play, or an opera, or a classical concert. We used to go out to hear music and dance but in recent years my tolerance for being in bars has shriveled into significant distaste. If we are going out, we often go out to dinner first.
When the weather is good, which in Oregon means from late spring to early fall, primarily in summer, we may go for a drive to a scenic spot or to a place, like Astoria, we are especially fond of. Sometimes the writing business will take us somewhere, to a reading in Baker or to see a play in Corvallis or Eugene. This summer we plan to camp at Flathead Lake in Montana, which we haven’t done in a few years, but which is one of our favorite spots.
I like routine more than Harriet does. She is far more adventurous than I am. I love staying home. I love the small cottage we are buying. I love mowing its large lawn with a push, reel mower. I love sitting on the deck and watching meat cook on the grill. I love sitting on the deck with my small radio and earplugs, listening to a Mariners game. I love sitting on the deck and reading. In summer, it is hard to get me off the deck.
There are a few interruptions that I welcome. Harriet may come home earlier than I expected. The phone may ring, I may actually answer it (or more likely Harriet is home and she answers it), and it is Brad, Crooks’ oldest son. Brad calls often these days, which I appreciate. He is almost like a son to me, certainly like a nephew. I’ve known him practically all his life, and in many ways, the good ways, he is his father’s son. (Kass, the younger son, inherited most of Dick’s demons, and he still wrestles with them.) I visit Brad and Dick’s mother every summer.
No matter what I am doing, or when, or where, my thoughts return to writing, to whatever it is that I am working on. I am never far from this. I am never wholly, completely, divorced from this. I could no more stop thinking about writing than I could stop breathing. Some things are too close to one’s being to remove by an act of will.
My life has its dark moments. I have my demons. Most have to do with a sense of failure, both personally and professionally. Most echo from the questions, So what? and Who cares? (often phrased as, Who gives a shit?). A larger perspective usually keeps my demons in check.
The balance sheet of my life looks something like this. On the one hand, my life has been far from perfect:
· I hurt many people, especially women who cared for me, during my drinking days.
· Because I ignored her, my own daughter knows nothing about my character. She believes things about me that are not true.
· Carol, whom I still care about, won’t talk to me.
· Dick and Ger have passed away.
· I stopped writing short fiction just as I was being recognized for it.
· I neglected to go to New York as a playwright, which is where playwrights belong.
· I neglected to go to Hollywood as a screenwriter, which is where screenwriters belong.
But I’ve had and still have many blessings in my life as well:
· My parents gave me unconditional love and support, even when I made decisions they didn’t understand.
· I grew up without TV as a babysitter, the last generation to do so. We didn’t bring television into the house until I was a teenager.
· I was a teenager during the birth of rock-n-roll.
· I did my military duty between “hot” wars.
· Today, on most mornings, I get to wake up beside Harriet.
· Linda and Zeena remain close friends.
· I am writing better than ever. Along the way, I received enough success and awards to keep me from feeling totally isolated. Today I feel only marginally isolated, as in fact most writers do.
· I’m alive and I’m sober.
When I analyze this balance sheet, I must conclude that my life by and large has been a failure, both personally and professionally. In each instance the root of failure is disconnection. Personally my life is a failure because I have no experiential connection to children and grandchildren, no legacy of shared family experiences that continues the energy my parents passed on to me. Professionally my life is a failure because I have no significant audience for my work.
But being a failure does not mean I am unhappy. I am happy much of the time and content almost all of the time. The last ten years, my sober years, have been the best years of my life. I have not felt less disconnected but I have felt more at peace with myself and more at peace with my chaotic past. Never have I enjoyed writing more. Never have I enjoyed waking up to greet the day more. But I do spend most of this enjoyment alone.
To an observer, I imagine my life today must seem dull. It is never dull to me. It is a perpetual engagement and a daily, renewable miracle. It is, after all, the only life I have. I feel blessed to have it.
IN MEMORIAM
Chick and Flo Deemer
Charles L. Deemer
Aunt Dot (Deemer)
Aunt Hilda (Deemer)
Matt Couch
Donald Deemer
Billie Bache
Betty Minorics
Bob Trevor
Phil Fuqua
Tom Campbell
Dick Crooks
Levi
Ger Moran
7/05/2003 07:00:00 AM |
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_The Writing Life