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)
Thursday, January 29, 2004 Senior moments One of the things you inevitably think about after you reach a certain age is when you're going to get signs of physical and mental deterioration. The body begins to ache, the mind begins to go. The latter appears to have slipped more than I had hoped, earlier than I had expected.
Last spring a friend emailed me that her mother had died. I knew and liked her mom and sent my condolences. In late summer, in another email, she mentioned the passing of her mother, and I responded as if I had heard it the first time, having forgotten the spring email.
Today I have no memory of either of these exchanges.
Yesterday she mentioned it in passing again -- and again I sent my condolences as if hearing it for the first time!
This is all a bit scary, reminiscent of blackouts during my drinking days. I have many vivid memories of the past, even of the distant past, but I also have great gaps of memory. Ah, me.
1/29/2004 06:52:00 AM |
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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Fallen hero One of the heroes of my youth has passed away:
Sports - AP
Hall of Famer 'Crazy Legs' Hirsch Dies
By JR ROSS, Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. - Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, an NFL Hall of Famer and later the athletic director at the University of Wisconsin, died early Wednesday. He was 80.
Hirsch died of natural causes at an assisted living facility, according to Wisconsin assistant AD Steve Malchow.
He earned his nickname for his running style as a halfback and receiver for the NFL's Los Angeles Rams in the NFL from 1949-57. Before that, he played for the Chicago Rockets of the All-America Football Conference.
Hirsch became a key part of the Rams' revolutionary "three-end" offense in 1949. His best season was 1951, when he led the NFL with 66 catches, 1,495 yards receiving and 17 touchdowns.
1/28/2004 09:54:00 AM |
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Life & Lit A nice quotation at today's "Today in Literature" website:
"Literature is mostly about having sex, and not much about having
babies; life is the other way round." (David Lodge, who was born on this day in 1935).
1/28/2004 04:24:00 AM |
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Tuesday, January 27, 2004 What if ... ? In the mind of a writer, many story ideas begin with the question what if...? This happened to me last Sunday at church.
Early in the service, there routinely is a period of silence for meditation. The minister strikes a chime, waits about a minute, and strikes it again to end the silence.
What if he didn't strike it a second time? How long would the congregation, or the other minister on stage, sit in silence before someone did something? Five minutes? Ten? An hour? Several days? This, of course, is rather like the question Melville posed about his character Bartleby.
At any rate, I am working on a short story, Meditation, that addresses these possibilities. Onward.
1/27/2004 05:26:00 AM |
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Sunday, January 25, 2004 Kerouac P.S. So the plan seems to be this: leave after I turn in my grades and beeline to Boulder to see the Kerouac scroll. Then drop down to the gorgeous four-corners area for some serious camping and meditation, finally making a loop home, our early short vacation. Then later, probably after Labor Day before school starts, take our annual trip to northern Idaho to see Dick's mom and son. I feel overdue for a coast-to-coast drive. Maybe summer of 2005. Got to do these things while I can still drive ha ha. (When my dad learned they would not renew his license, this a month before it expired, he left New Jersey for Oregon the same day, a last cross-country cruise. Cruising is in the family blood.) Onward.
1/25/2004 10:09:00 AM |
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Friday, January 23, 2004 Kerouac scroll Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road single-spaced on a 120-foot scroll. There's marketing for you. Six years later it found a publisher, and the rest is history.
Recently the owner of the Indianapolis Colts bought the scroll for 2.43 million dollars -- and now he is putting it on tour. It hits Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado from May 10-June 25 this year, the closest it gets to me for a long while, and my classes end soon enough that I can get there to see it. I hope to! It will tour through 2007, in later years hitting Las Vegas, San Francisco and Santa Fe, where I also could see it.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004 New work It's been a highly productive writing week -- and it's only half over. I drafted two short chapters on the novel in progress -- and I wrote three very short plays.
The plays are:
Patriots ... sometimes war is bad for your marriage (inspired by my novel in progress).
Habitat ... just another gray day in the 22nd century.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004 Puddle City Here in Puddle City, home of the Jail Blazers, winters are typically gray and wet. So when the sun appears, as it has today, folks tend to go a little bonkers. It's still much too cold for yours truly -- the older I get, the more I feel like joining the senior exodus to Arizona -- but from my basement office window, the sight of a blue sky suggests that spring and summer may arrive in 2004 after all.
Meanwhile, I had a good writing morning on the novel and a smaller project, another short short story. Am ready for my university class, so likely will read for the few hours I have before heading to campus. Onward.
1/20/2004 11:56:00 AM |
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Monday, January 19, 2004 Homer Six books into The Iliad in my Homer project. Haven't read it since I was an undergraduate, and I'd forgotten how bloody it is. Some surprises. I'm disappointed in the Chapman translation, which isn't as lyrical as its reputation to my ear, but astounded at the modern Robert Fagles translation, which is gripping and reads like a contemporary novel. So I find myself spending more time with the latter. The audio tapes by Elizabeth Vandiver are first rate. A fun, enlightening project that I suspect will inform some future project of my own. Onward.
1/19/2004 11:02:00 AM |
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Thursday, January 15, 2004 Writing on the run Have moved forward on the novel-in-progress today by writing spurts on the run. First, very early this morning, up to pee, a new first paragraph rattled around my brain, so I darted down to my basement office, cranked up the computer, and added it. It sets a whole new tone to the story (in a non-commercial sense, I must say: I am a master of finding ways to make my work less commercial, ha ha). We'll see how it sets. Right now, I like it a lot. Then today, afternoon, quiet office hours, I managed to send myself an email with a new short chapter in it, or rather the rest of the chapter I had started a few days ago.
This is a fun draft to write because I feel secure in the story (i.e. having written it first as a screenplay), and now I'm both translating the story into prose and fiddling with different voices and rhetorical styles. The real "progress" draft will be the next one ... this is a transitional draft, moving from script to prose, but since the story is firm, there is a lot of security in moving through it. I'm having fun. And seeing exciting possibilities ahead (like that new first paragraph). And the pressure isn't on yet, the way it will be later when it is time to get all the pieces working together.
Today in class I'm showing Frankenweenie, the short I always start my discussion of dramatic structure with. It's fun, it's thirty minutes (leaving time to talk about it), and it is a textbook example of beginning-middle-end storytelling, which is what my class is all about. Onward.
1/15/2004 03:38:00 PM |
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Marketing Did some marketing grunt work yesterday, making sure some newspapers got review copies of Love At Ground Zero, querying some agents regarding the film rights (so far, one has requested a copy). The necessary chores of the writing life.
I've mentioned this before but the opening voice-over monologue in My Dinner With Andre is a hoot in this regard, about the daily chores of the playwright.
I also learned that my play American Gadfly: the Story of Wayne Morse, written almost twenty years ago but only getting its first audience last summer in a staged reading, will get a full production in Eugene, opening at Lane Community College in February. Since this is Morse's home, there is considerable interest in it down there. I look forward to seeing it.
Last night the director phoned me, asking me about some production details -- and since it's 20 years since I was in the Morse archives doing my research, I wasn't much of a help at all in helping her track down some stuff. It seems like a very, very long time ago when I was involved in this script!
Teaching It felt good to be in the university classroom again. After class Tuesday, I felt the same rush I got when I performed my Guthrie show or an occasional role in a play. Teaching as acting, as performance. The rhythm of the term has finally begun. Onward.
1/15/2004 01:45:00 AM |
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Tuesday, January 13, 2004 Office hours Ah, back to the comfort of my quiet office at the university. Time on my hands, an hour and a half before my class starts. Expect a couple of continuing students to come by with enrollment forms for me to sign, otherwise just passing time, although I did bring the laptop to write -- though I may not do that. Nothing wrong with staring into space.
Had my class time preference sheet for 2004-5 to fill out. A moment's hesitation: well, am I going to teach another year? I filled it out. I can change my mind later if it comes to that. Meanwhile don't want them to go hire another screenwriter.
1/13/2004 02:49:00 PM |
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At last Dug out the van this morning, which is what I use to drive to park & ride to catch the bus to the university. First class today, finally, and I'll try to do 2 weeks in one so we can be back to the syllabus next week. Eager to get into the rhythm of the term. Hope our winter is back to normal, which is to say rain, rain, rain. I'll never complain about rain again ha ha. Onward.
1/13/2004 10:48:00 AM |
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Saturday, January 10, 2004 Hello, world Managed to dig out one of the cars yesterday. Not bad at all on the major streets. Getting out of our driveway was the real chore. But we don't go below freezing for days now, says the forecast, so we should be out of it. Next week at the university, finally start class and do two weeks in one.
Thursday, January 08, 2004 Slow thaw Still frozen in. University closed down for third day in a row.
1/08/2004 12:03:00 PM |
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Wednesday, January 07, 2004 What a mess First we're snowed in, now we are frozen in. Constant freezing rain for a day and continuing. Entire city pretty closed down (midwestern transplants laughing). My university class cancelled yesterday, not sure if it will be tomorrow or not. But we're hanging in and nothing disastrous here, knock on my wooden head.
Sunday, January 04, 2004 Winter haiku Portland in the snow:
Great panic in the newsroom,
bare shelves in the store.
1/04/2004 09:23:00 PM |
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Origins Writers find stories everywhere. A chance event on Jan. 1st triggered two story ideas, a short I've started and a short novel I've outlined in its 18 story steps. What happened is this.
It was midmorning. I was still in pajamas for the third day in a row but out of bed, on the downhill side of the flu finally. The phone rang. My wife answered and quickly made a face. She brought me the phone, saying, "It's Breathy Voice."
Her least favorite ex-girlfriend of mine, who was calling to wish me Happy New Year. "Breathy Voice" has, well, a breathy voice, which I consider natural and attractive but which my wife considers affected and comical.
From this event a short-short entitled "Breath" popped into my head whole as soon as I hung up. A man on his death bed calls for an ex-girlfriend to come to his bedside, which upsets the wife. I started the story. As it continued to brew in my head, another idea spun off it, an adultery story, which exploded into the 18 story steps the same day.
I may never get to the novel but I hope so. Patriots, of course, should take my time for the next six months or more. Next I had something else planned but I may look at this new one, which I am calling The Kiss. It's in the same family of stories as Pinter's Betrayal, about how much savagery and pain can come from so little initial flirtation. In this case, a story about the disastrous consequences of a kiss on New Year's Eve.
The story I hope to finish this week. It will be under 2000 words, this short-short form I enjoy writing lately.
Meanwhile the latest snow prediction is a bust. The "big storm" is supposed to come tomorrow night, which if true might cancel my first day of classes at the university. I hope not actually since it would require me to adjust the syllabus before I even pass it out. Everyone is going crazy here, snow this rare an event, stocking up on supplies as if the blizzard of the century were coming. Rather amusing actually.
The coldest place I ever lived was on Maryland's Eastern Shore. We rented a farm house out of Salisbury, and one winter snowy day I walked the hundred yards out to the mailbox. I had a very long beard then. Along the way I apparently brushed the snow off my beard. Later, after coming back, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My beard was gone from half my face! Apparently the hair had frozen along the way and when I brushed my beard, it snapped off like tiny icicles. Yes, when the wind blew across the sandbar of a peninsula in the winter, I felt chilled to the bone as nowhere else.
1/04/2004 07:41:00 AM |
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Friday, January 02, 2004 Hammered A rare snowstorm has had us snowed in for several days -- but I got hammered by the flu and wasn't going anywhere anyway. Hopefully on the downhill side of the flu if not of the snow. Onward.
1/02/2004 02:32:00 AM |
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_The Writing Life