Toiler, Student of a Certain Philosophy

I'm so glad that I chose to use a pseudonym for this blog for several reasons, but mostly because I do not want my writing to be associated with Objectivism.

You heard me right.

I'm a huge, huge proponent of Objectivism, for it is the best -- and only -- philosophy available to a modern man who wants to live on this earth and live well. This philosophy contains the greatest set of ideas to grace this earth since the days when Aristotle, leading in the footsteps of some of his fellow Greek philosophers, tore his way through eons of mysticism and so gave men a chance to walk through life, perhaps not on solid stone, but at least on earthen clay, which at that time was an enormous step up from the mists through which earlier men had to swim. Now, thanks to the awesome accomplishments of Ayn Rand, a man living today finally has the opportunity to stand where he belongs: on marble, on a foundation that will never fail him as he walks the entire length of his life, a philosophy that will help him to discover immense spiritual contentment in the act of being real, meaning rational, independent, productive, honest, true, and good -- in short, being proud, which means, being worthy of the word "I".

(Those of you who have read Anthem will understand the vast meaning projected by that last statement.)

But I am no philosopher. I am only a student of this particular philosophy, and perhaps not even a very good student. In addition to having read all of Ayn Rand's published fiction, including her early fiction, I have also read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (OPAR) by Leonard Peikoff several times, The Romantic Manifesto at least several times, plus just about every other major philosophic work at least once, including quite a few essays and tapes by Ayn Rand from the 1960s through late 70s. However, other than Ayn Rand's The Romantic Manifesto and her course on fiction writing and maybe to a lesser extent OPAR, it cannot be said that I have truly "studied" any of these works, only that I have read them. I am not even a layman. At best maybe I am only an accomplished student of her aesthetic theory. Beyond that I am merely a fan.

To be more than this, I would have to virtually end my writing career and devote far more of my time to intensive philosophical study, beyond just Objectivism. Can't do it. Won't do it. Don't want to do it.

When I am finally published -- I still intend to be and actually believe that my chances are looking up -- then you will probably never hear me speak my pen name in the same breath as the word Objectivism. The truth is, many of you will not even know who I am, and I plan to take steps to keep it that way.

I say this, not because I'm embarrassed by my philosophy. Quite the opposite! On a personal level, it's because I don't want the pressure. Writing has to come from exactly who I am right now, including every premise that I hold, possible warts and all. As many writers including Ayn Rand have stated in one manner or another, there's simply no other way. Fiction is simply too personal; the author can only project that which he has already integrated into who he is. Trying to go beyond that during the act of creation is suicide.

On another personal level, it's because the philosophy that I love so much deserves a more competent spokesman. I have seen in vivid detail recently what happens when a student of Objectivism misrepresents his philosophy in a public forum. The ensuing bloodshed (speaking metaphorically) is not pretty. I don't mind the bloodshed. Objectivists should be passionate about reality; as such, they don't take kindly to facts, especially about their philosophy, being skewed by the uninformed.

So there you have it. Toiler will probably publish under a pen name -- for more than one reason, incidentally -- and he will avoid discussing Objectivism when he represents himself as a writer. He will be, well... him.

I'm quite content with that, because I happen to be a big fan of me.

Update: Happy In Fantasy Land

I try not to use this blog as a personal diary. After all, who wants to read my griping about tedious challenges or snoozing about how bored I may be today. Zzzzz. I hate diaries.

But right now seems like a good time to give everyone an update, because I'm happy! Yahoo! (Or Yeehaw! with apologies to Yahoo!'s trademark office.)

Seriously, things seem to be going much, much better for me after my having wandered aimlessly for so long through a vast, dry, and colorless desert in my mind; that is to say, through a failed novel. Now it seems as if I have finally crossed over that desert and I am back in what appears to be a lush, temperate rain forest — not just any forest, either, but one that's full of animals, fascinating people, mysterious events, and great courage. I like it here!

Thanks and many thanks to my wonderful and amazing partner for his continued advice about thinking skills, but also to my friends and blog readers for the great stack of reading materials that they suggested. By the end of this year, I will have read more than I have read in the previous ten. Each story has been a plot-training device, and my efforts appear to be paying dividends.

Always before, I would outline my novels with only about three hierarchical levels: one that was very general (too high in my hierarchy to be useful) and one or two that were right down in the details (too low for my crow). My one and only successful novel worked only because it was so simple that my crow could handle it. This time around, though, I seem to have learned some things.

The main lesson, as I said, is that a critical mid-point was missing from my outline, one where I could see my story as four or five major "events" instead of just one or many. Not only that, but I have learned that these key "events" can't be too generally defined so as to be useless. They have to express real action, such as "Adam wins the race and becomes the celebrated hero of Smalltown." Additionally, any one of these broad "events" may comprise many chapters in the novel, or just one; I neither know nor care early on.

I have also learned not to flush out these four or five major events too carefully at first. I have to let my mind play with them until the overall trajectory of the action seems to work. Even when I do go down into the details just a bit to test my ideas, I have to come right back up to rework the high-level plan, then I can go back down again into the details, expanding as I go — but not very quickly! I can't spend too much time in the details until I know for sure that I can't improve the four or five major events to any good effect.

I thought that I knew about this kind of thinking already. In fact, I was sure of it, but I guess I was wrong, or at least I wasn't doing a very good job of it.

I make no promises about when this current novel will be finished or whether it will be publishable (by my standards). I have progressed far beyond that folly! Still, there's reason to hope.

Oh, and there's one other lesson that I've been sorely reminded of: Write what you love! So far I am loving this story the way I love my favorite chair, blanket, cup of coffee, fire in the fireplace, and book in my hand. In other words, I enjoy going to work once again. That's a nice place to be — however long it lasts.

[Update: Edited for clarity. This is the hardest part of blogging for me. If I write on my blog as well as I write for work, then I won't blog very much. Then again, I can't stand to have crappy entries on my blog. Grrr.]

Over the Road Bump

To sum up my last post, here's what I think the school of hard knocks has been trying to tell me: Before a novelist should attempt to create slowly rising conflict by means of subtle emotional dynamics — slowly rising conflict being the core of what makes a novel a novel — he had better first learn to do it by means of murderous plots, crooks, kidnappings, and so on. In short, he should start his career by writing melodrama.

After all, what skill is not acquired this way? Witness: every young apprentice first takes the basic jobs and does them over and over again until he feels as if he can't bear to do them even one more time. For example, the son of a blacksmith must pump the billows and shovel coal. He may see his father creating fine works of craftsmanship, and he may wish that he could do the same, but he will face many years of drudgery before his father will finally hand him his own set of tongs and a raw strip of iron for the first time.

As a practical matter, then, a burgeoning writer should first practice what he learns from reading simple novels, like those of L'Amour and Le Quin. Only when he can write a novel at least that well is he ready to move on. Next, he should practice what he learns from Agatha Christie and Tom Clancy. After that, maybe Dumas and Kipling. Perhaps some day he will even be able to employ the tricks of the masters, say, a Rand or a Tolstoy, but he will never live to see that day if he doesn't first persevere through more basic stages of learning.

So here's my strategy: First, I need to learn how to distinguish more clearly between melodramas and higher forms of literature. Then, I must study simple melodramas until I can see a novel's basic structure forward and backward. Meanwhile, I must sort my collection of story ideas based on how difficult they would be to write, then choose a simple one to write next. Then after I write it, I will repeat the process, taking great pains to avoid letting my literary senses outpace my skills.

I know how to write literary short stories. That I have learned how to do fairly well. Also, my one and only completed novel is fairly literary although it is also fairly simple and short. Even so, it is time for me to go back to my roots. No more high or even semi-high literature for me, at least not until I have become an expert at pumping the billows and shoveling coal.

Road Bump

So you want to know what that “road bump” I mentioned here is all about?

Several months into my current novel, I have come to realize that I can't write it. It's too complicated for me given my nascent novel-writing skills.

Now, doesn't that explanation sound up-front and professional? Maybe I should be a little more direct about it. How about this: I overshot my skills, and it sucks like nobody's business. In fact, I've been off-and-on miserable for months.

Since this blog is partly about “the synaptic anatomy of a struggling writer”, I'll let you in on some of the inner workings of a writer who wonders sometimes what the hell he got himself into.

(By the way, if I hadn't already developed a plan to solve my problem on my own, I wouldn't be posting this information, so take it as an interesting set of experiences.)

Here's a selection from my personal journal, which, like this blog, is solely devoted to discussing my work:

“I think it's time to move on. I can't get this story started the right way. I can't figure out what's wrong with it. I'm buried in questions, and I'm buried in even more answers. Which ones do I choose? What's the matter? God, I wish I new!

It's too conceptual for me, too touchy-feely, too emotionally complex, not concrete enough. It needs a simpler plot, like one of those guns and bombs novels. It needs fewer emotional denouements, more crashing cars. It needs a “thing plot” not a “thought plot”.

But you thought you had plot. It was beautiful. Glorious. Original. Moving.

Oh, yes! Plot, plot, plot! More like plodding.

“The seagull appears in the fog...blah, blah, blah.” Jesus Christ!—no, a story about Jesus Christ would be much more interesting. This story feels more like: "Nice Joe Smith and his pet mutt go to the beach for a pleasant vacation. Joe gets a sunburn, his mutt swallows a crab and nearly chokes to death, but overall they have a good time."

Will somebody please wake me up from this nightmare?

No, Toiler, that's your job. Wake your own damn self up. Get your own act together. What the hell good can come from your plan if you aren't getting a damn thing done that's worth doing. Snap out of it! Repeat after me: Get something done! Get something done! Get something done!"

This entry continues along the same depressing vein for a bit, but I think you get the general idea. It was dated August 22, 2006. Yes, I've been developing ulcers for going on two months now. Of course, what writer hasn't ever felt that way? This is nothing new. Just ask any serious writer, artist, or intellectual anywhere. Even so, it's gut-wrenching when it's happening to you.

So I was sweating bullets one day in my office when I looked up at my shelf and — God have mercy! — I see a book entitled How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey. This little book is currently one of the hot sellers among "how to" guides. I don't know why I hadn't read it yet. Maybe I thought I didn't need it. If so, I was wrong.

As you may gather from the book's title, it is aimed at teaching the practical nuts and bolts of writing basic genre fiction, not high literature. Frey breaks a novel down into a set of rules, and he does so in simple terms using straightforward examples. It's a remarkable little book in that regard. His advice reminds me of the still lifes and musical scales that were discussed in this thread. He makes writing novels sound easy.

Well, in fact, it ought to be much easier than I'm making it out to be. And that, I believe, is the root of my problem. I'm once again trying to run — nay, leap into outer space! — before I really know how to walk, by which I mean, before I really know, know, know how to walk — and that kind of knowing can only come from learning, learning, learning, then doing, doing, doing, and then repeating, repeating, repeating!

The last thing I should attempt right now is an emotionally complex novel. If I'm going to write a novel, it ought to be another simple melodrama — a James Frey novel — then another simple melodrama after that, and then another. Like playing musical scales, I won't come to know how to write a novel merely by slogging through one once (which I have). I must become an expert at each level of writing before I move on to the next.

Isn't that what a real skill is after all? It's not just a point-in-time discovery; it's a continual state of acting by means of both automated and conscious effort — mostly automated. It's a state that can only be achieved through practice.

I see now why Frey and several other editors and writers, including the authors of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (Browne and King), counsel young authors to avoid serious literature altogether. Unless a new writer is a budding genius, then there is no other logical place for him to start than by writing the very simplest tales (and perhaps even if he is a budding genius).

In my defense, I do in fact know how to write literary short stories. That I seem to have figured out well enough. But I don't want to write short stories. I want to write novels.

"No problem," someone may say, "just write a very long short story." Not so! Short stories are to novels what cookies are to wedding cakes — totally different ingredients, totally different recipe, totally different methods all around. No one would ever claim that a wedding cake is just a great, big cookie. Likewise, those who only ever write short stories generally know precious little about how to write novels.

I do still believe that my current project is profound and wonderful. I have no doubt that a better writer could make magic with it. It has all the potential to be the next Chocolat (the movie, not the book). In fact, several days ago I extemporaneously narrated the opening scene to my partner. He put down whatever he was doing at the time, walked over, and sat down in front of me, never taking his eyes off of mine, and his eyes were wide with fascination. He was hooked — hooked well! I know there's magic in this story — but I'm not Gandalf yet.

This is also part of my problem. When I peruse my stack of ideas for stories, I see that most of the best ones are literary. In other words, I have a mind that is able to imagine stories that I can't yet write. Coach Toiler says, "Pace yourself!" But it's not that easy. Knowing what makes a story difficult to write is not obvious to a beginner, at least not to this one.

So there you have it: a big, ugly road bump. But it's not the end of the road. It's not even a crash in the road, though it feels like one right now. It's just a big bump, and maybe I hit my head on the ceiling and got a bruise. It'll heal. Pick up that pen and keep moving forward.

Who knows? Maybe one day I will have earned the skills that I need to tell this wonderful, lyrical story of mine. Until then, it's back to writing about guns and bombs.

A Writer's Life

Here is an anecdote (lifted from this article) about one of my favorite writers, Alexandre Dumas:

In 1868, as Dumas' health failed, his son paid a call and found him reading. When the young man inquired about the book's title, the author replied, "The 'Musketeers' ... I always promised myself that, when I was old, I'd decide if it was worth anything."

"Well," asked the son, "where are you?"

"At the end."

"And what do you think?"

"It's good," Dumas replied.

That is how I want to live my life.

I'm Back

I saw two plays while I was away on vacation this past week, Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. I'll have more to say about them—especially about Cyrano—in a day or two. As a teaser, I'll just say that seeing Cyrano was very nearly a life-altering experience for me.

We also took a side trip along the Oregon coast on our way back home so that I could revisit the setting for my current story. I've actually combined several different places into one, as writers often do. One particular place—my personal favorite—always makes my imagination go into hyper-drive. Here's a photo of it:



Mysterious, eh?

I'm glad to be home and back to work. I trust everyone had a great Independence Day (and Canada Day, for you neighbors to the north).

Can't Write When I'm Pissed Off

[Posted Tuesday]

So I'm waiting for some city inspectors to come by my house right now, and they're very late. They were supposed to be here this morning, but now it's looking more like 4:30 if at all, and not even a single phone call to tell us what's going on. You know if it were me doing this to them, they'd fine my ass and threaten to slap a Type III Renewal on my head (you don't even want to know what that means).

Welcome to the People's Republic of Portland. They own my home, my land, and my life. Well, not quite that bad, but close. Right now I feel as if they do. Today is/was supposed to be the last day of a tortuous, three-year-long struggle between us and the city over some of the most convoluted and senseless environmental laws you could imagine. Don't even ask me to explain.

Now my partner is starting to get nervous, because he can see that I'm getting pissed off. He keeps reminding me not to say anything unless someone asks me a direct question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at me, I'm a church mouse.

Maybe he'll tell me to go and get some work done in a cafe somewhere and leave him to deal with the city. Nah. He needs me to be here. Besides, I couldn't get any work done today if it would save my sex life. Writing is one of those jobs that you can't fake. On a day like this -- like when your cat gets run over, your brother is arrested for embezzlement, or your best friend calls in tears because he/she just discovered that his/her partner is having an affair -- forget about getting anything done. Not with a creative job.

Maybe I should do something pointless like watch a violent movie. Hey, that gives me an even better idea. I should run down to the rental place and get Doom 3. I've been meaning to try it. After all, add a little hair to that demon on the box cover and he could look exactly like the inspectors from the city.

Ultimate Mobile Writing Platform

Apple just announced what might be my dream machine, a 13-inch, Intel-based mobile Mac Book.

It's tiny, it's light, it's a Mac.

I very nearly bought their 12-inch Titanium version a while back, but I held back because of its screen — not its size but its quality. The backlight level had been limited for power reasons, and the text wasn't particularly sharp, which made for tough reading in a cafe or bright space. I've heard that the fonts on this new screen show up very black and sharp, and the back light is plenty bright.

I do prefer the metal shell that they use on their Pro line over the white plastic of this model, and their move to a poly Lithium Ion battery seems like a backward step, but these are just minor preferences.

Now if the good people over at Open Office would step it up with their native Mac version of my favorite document writer so I could finally drop the X-windowing environment, I'd be in writer's heaven.

[Correction: I may have created the impression that I bought a Mac Book already. No, I'm just dreaming. I'll post a review of it after I buy one and use it for a while, maybe some time this winter.]

I'm Not Dead

I haven't posted for a while, so I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still alive. I know you've been worried, because the emails are starting to sound frantic. (Just kidding.)

So here's a status report on the writing projects: My next novel (which I first blogged about here) is about to happen for a second time. It's the one that I started writing once before only to hit a brick wall after about two paragraphs.

I've been wrestling with it almost every day since then (except when I stopped for a couple weeks to dash off an unexpected short story). It's easily the most difficult story I have ever attempted to write, because it's very socially and psychologically complex and emotionally intense — and with that many big words coming into play, you can only imagine how frustrated I must be.

In a nutshell, the story is challenging because the main character has to go through a significant shift in the way he lives his life. Such a huge reversal in the main character just doesn't come easy. A lot of groundwork has to be laid in order to prove the change to the reader.

And to think I originally imagined this as a short story! I probably deserve a "Noob of All Noobs" award for that one. Anyway, once I actually start writing again, my posts here may be few and far between. I'll try to remember to post updates once in a while so that no one starts planning my funeral.

My Story Child Has Arrived

Well, it's happened. My baby's here. I penned the last word of my new short story last week, and it is everything I dreamed it would be. It's also a really devastating premise. By the end of writing it, I was so leveled that I went to bed and slept for almost twelve hours straight.

Some of you may not imagine how physically and emotionally trying it can be to write a story. When bad things happen to the character, and when I have truly become the character, then it's as if bad things happen to me. It can be awful. But it's also wonderful, because I know that I've captured something important.

I've given it a first-pass edit already, but that's probably all it will get for several months. The story is politically incorrect and at odds with "either side" in today's political turf war, so don't hold your breath for a publication date. Sorry. That's just one of those tough things about my job.

No matter. I love my baby anyway.

Moleskine Update II

I've only had my Moleskine for a few months (I blogged about it here), and now this: the bookmaker, Modo and Modo, announces that they're selling the business.

Damn it all. Could it really end so soon? I haven't even consumed a quarter of my first Moleskine. (Technically it's pronounced Mol-uh-skeen-uh, by the way, even though I intend to go on calling mine Mole-skin.)

There's a bright side to this story. From an article that appeared in The Telegraph (UK):

The Moleskine, named for its oilcloth cover, gained cult status after its relaunch in 1998 by Mario Beruzzi.

Last year, his company Modo & Modo sold 4.5m notebooks across the world, half of them in the United States. The company, with a staff of 13, had turnover of €12.7m (£9.1m) last year and profits of more than €2m. In the UK its classic notebook sells for upwards of £7.

Good for Mr. Beruzzi and his staff of thirteen. What a nice way to retire. I wish the man lots of happiness and good cheer in his 70s and beyond. (He's 69.)

But the real bright side for me is seeing in print what I suspected all along: that such a fine and carefully made product did not come from some mass-market notebook mill in China. I am not at all surprised that it's made by a small company. The Moleskine had to be designed, created, and carefully looked after during its production by someone who gave a damn about it.

I appreciate the free market for (at least) two reasons:
▪ primarily because it allows large corporations to operate as efficiently as they know how to in order to provide goods and services to the widest numbers of people possible (mass production), and
▪ secondarily, but just as importantly, because it allows individuals who don't wish to provide goods and services to the widest numbers of people to exist and to flourish, even if only on a staff of thirteen.

As much as some people like to scoff at mass production for its cookie-cutter and cost-reduced products, only in such a productive society could a staff of thirteen ever hope to turn a little notebook and other fine paper products into annual revenue exceeding $10 million. In the Middle Ages, without the benefits of mass production, no one but the tax-funded state or the church would have had the money to buy paper. Mr. Beruzzi would have been a pauper trying to sell his product to masses of people who had no income.

So thank you, Mr. Beruzzi, for what you made. If, by chance, you sell the Moleskine to someone who doesn't love it the way you did, I'll accept that fate. It's just how the wheels of change grind.

I Interrupt This Programming

I interrupt the regularly scheduled programming on this blog to make the following unexpected announcement: I'm pregnant with twins! No, I'm not literally pregnant. I'm a guy. I mean I'm pregnant with twin stories.

How exciting! That means two sets of everything: strollers, blankets, bottles, and beds. No more sleep for weeks or months. I get to eat strange food. I'll get gifts. And what's really great is that one's a boy and one's a girl, blue and pink — and I mean that almost literally.

I've never had twins before. I've had plenty of story ideas that came to me when I was writing something else. When that happens, I just write down the idea as far as I can go with it in about an hour or two, maybe a day at most, then I go back to my working story. But I've never attempted to write two stories at the same time—until now.

And yeah, I'm having sleepless nights. A few nights ago, I went to bed only to find myself getting back up to work an hour later. Then I got up at 2:00 AM last night and worked for an hour or two. It's like my brain is on caffeine but without the caffeine.

Fortunately, unlike a real mother, I get to give birth separately. My second idea should be done soon. It's just a short story, while my other is a short novel. And I really like my short story. It's one of the best ideas I've ever had, and writing it has been great fun, not difficult at all. That's partly why I decided to just go ahead and do it now. I'll be interested to learn how this interruption will impact my other project. It might be good for it.

Brick Wall

I said it could happen. Well, it definitely happened. I ran face-first into a brick wall.

On my first day of writing, I wrote two sentences and that was the end of it. I couldn't pen another word to save my life, at least not anything that anyone would want to read.

For the next two days, I was grumpy. Sometimes I was mad. Sometimes I was depressed. For sure I was hard to live with.

This is when the writer goes into crisis mode. He cancels appointments, foreswears sleep, tells his loved ones to make themselves scarce or maybe find a job to do outside for a few days, and engages in very vocal and highly dramatic conversations with himself. It's not pretty.

All of this antisocial behavior serves a purpose. In my case, I think it's a way of buckling down and getting deadly serious about my work, kind of like locking the door and telling yourself that you can't leave the room until you solve some dilemma.

For all of the emotions, though, my crisis days were mostly spent reading through my notes, consulting other novels and various guides to writing, and writing loads of essays on voice, characters, plot, and so on. I probably produced more content on the art of writing as it relates to my project in the last few days than I've written over the last several months combined.

My story has changed. I like it better now. It might actually be ready this time, but I suppose I won't know that for sure until I try penning those first words again.

How to Deal With the Slushpile

So you finish your masterpiece, then you hand it over to an eager agent who gushes, "This is a slam dunk!" He assures you that publishers will fight for the rights, and they do. Overnight your salary quadruples. Soon you find yourself struggling to find time to write in between trips to see your new pals who live and work near a lovely beach in Antigua.

But before that inevitability comes to pass, you may want to check out this podcast from Poets & Writers magazine [the one titled "How to Publish Your Short Story"]. It's a panel discussion between several editors of lit magazines and a live audience of aspiring writers. The results are sobering, but also insightful. You get to hear from several bigwig — and probably slightly jaded — editors (The New Yorker and Paris Review) and from a few who seem to be a bit more hopeful and enthusiastic. A theme that runs through the dialog is the vast, vast, vast ratio between manuscripts they receive and manuscripts they print — basically the dreaded slushpile. [Speaking of, thanks to Slushpile for the link.]

But before you listen and weep, I'll offer my own perspective on the chances of getting published:

When I was in college and I told my father what I wanted to do for a living, his response didn't make any sense to me. The words that came out of his mouth didn't even process in my young-adult mind, as if he were speaking a foreign language. He said, "How many people get jobs in that business?"

"Well, I don't know," I said. "Probably not a lot."

He was nonplussed.

So I asked: "Do you think that's important?"

He looked at me like he'd suddenly discovered that he'd raised a stupid child. Well, I'm not stupid. I could see that this conversation wasn't going well, so I decided to take a bold approach. That usually works better with good old Dad, anyway. So I said: "I know that some people make money in the business. Probably not very many, though. In fact, probably only a tiny handful actually make enough money to live on." — I paused. — "Only the very best make it, I think."

He looked cautiously interested.

"I'm going to have to be the best, Dad. That's all there is to it."

He smiled. Nothing more was said. It didn't need to be.

Writer's Moment

I'm sitting here in my office with my usual hot café latte in-hand; my story pages spread out in front of me; my brand new Mac Mini not humming at all, just sitting there silently by the way like a patient scribe, its cloud-white LED glowing softly as if to say, "I'm ready whenever you are."; I'm warm and comfortable and quiet; and it's snowing like mad outside!

The world looks so pure and new. The trees are draped in sticky, white frosting. Five inches cover the ground, and it shows no sign of stopping (yes, I'm starting to hum Christmas tunes).

Have I ever felt so completely writerly as I do in this moment? I don't think so. Bye, bye, world! I'm slipping away into Writer's Land and I'm not going to be coming out of it for a while. If you need me, leave a message.

Café Society

Sartre did it. Hemingway did it. Today, the lovable Miss Rowlings does it. So how about you? Do you do it? That is, do you ever write in cafés?

I do. In fact I love to. You'll find me sitting in one of several locations around town for at least five or six hours every week. I call these places my East Side, Downtown, and Pearl District offices, respectively. The servers know me and they leave me be, so I spend generously on lattes and treats while I'm there for the privilege of owning a table.

On that note, I bring your attention to this interesting article in the Toronto Star:

Café society
You see them holed up in coffee shops across the city: people writing in journals and on laptops.
Feb. 26, 2006. 03:13 AM

She sits at the back of the café with her lined notepad, her books — poems by Billy Collins, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead — and a look of dreamy possibility.

Where will her thoughts take her today? To the unfortunate man, head drooped in sleep, at a nearby table? To thoughts of love, for she is young, pretty and unattached? To a play she will soon be acting in?

What matters is that Tracy Michailidis writes, three pages every day and often in this café, Alternative Grounds. "I'll write about anything," she says, "anything to get the pond scum off the top of my brain."

She's not alone. Other writers are nearby, as well as couples meeting over their laptops. Since 7 a.m., Marianne Apostolides has been sitting in the front window of the Roncesvalles Ave. café, with its ochre walls and racks of rummage sale mugs, the orderly pages of her novel spread before her.

Across the city, novelists, artists, architects, musicians, playwrights, screenwriters and poets abandon their homes for café society — the whiz and hum of espresso machines, the murmur of conversations, the distraction and inspiration of fellow beings. They plunge into zones of concentration, somehow magically encountering their muse while music — Motown, Cuban revival, Patti Smith, the Pixies — roars around them.”

And apparently this has been going on for a very long time. Back to the article:

Writers have fled to these comforting, strangely freeing public places for centuries. Of course, the cafés most steeped in literary history are in Paris, and it was there that the template for writing in cafés appears to have been set.

Some are places of legend, such as the Le Procope, opened in 1686, where Voltaire and Rousseau were regulars, and where Diderot first conceived of his famous Encyclopédie.

Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises drinking café crème at the Closerie des Lilas. The Café de Flore was associated with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre and other intellectuals of the French resistance, who warmed themselves, smoked, argued and wrote at separate tables during the '40s.

So it seems that some writers enjoy the camaraderie of working with or against (competing with?) other writers. Maybe they enjoy being part of a movement. I don't know. Maybe they simply benefit from each other's enthusiasm and also share insights. I know from my own experience that this can be motivating. But that's not at all why I go to cafés. In fact, I'd rather not speak to anyone while I'm there.

Here the Toronto Star quotes Hemingway:

'Then some fool would stop by the marble-topped table and say, "Hi Hem. What are you trying to do? Write in a café?"

Then, "Your luck had run out and you shut the notebook. This was the worst thing that could happen."'

That's exactly why I like to find my quiet corner and pretty much ignore everyone else. My favorite spots serve exactly that purpose. (It also helps that I'm an unknown.)

So why do I go to coffee shops? Like this article says, I go there “for the movement and sound and liveliness [that I] find there every day.”

I don't ever go there to write prose that will stick. It's where I go when I'm struggling through ideas, answering questions, drawing out ideas, maybe even doing a little character sketching and that sort of thing — what I call pre-writing. This process actually comprises most of my writing, and it's a long and often arduous process. Sometimes it's fun; other times it's numbing. Going to a coffee shop rescues my brain from those worst times, from the dreary solitude and distractions that mount when things aren't going well.

(Note that my office doesn't seem dreary to me at all when I'm writing prose. That's the reward for all the hard work that I've put in up front.)

[Special thanks to Randex for locating this article.]

Habits and Discipline

What does a writer do when his daily routine shows a lack of discipline? First, panic. Second, read Don Watson's essay on The Character of Habits (Parts I&II) over at Anger Management. I'll comment more here when I have some time (say, after Christmas).

This seems like a good segue to post one of my favorite quotes on this subject. It comes from the sharp mind of Elizabeth George, a successful mystery author and Writing teacher extraordinaire:

     "Here's what I tell my students on the first day when I teach one of my creative writing courses: You will be published if you possess three qualities—talent, passion, and discipline.
     You will probably be published if you possess two of the three qualities in either combination—either talent and discipline, or passion and discipline.
     You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion but still have discipline.
     But if all you possess is talent [and/or] passion, you will not be published."

Discipline is king—no, he's more like a dictator. Anyway, he should be. Mine is sometimes about as assertive as Winnie the Pooh.

A Greek Not-So-Tragedy

Here's a sharp take over at Greek Tragedy about what one writer went through trying to get published.

I love my job.

I get up in the morning, get in my gas-hogging SUV and drive to the gym (except when I don't), step-master to Pet Shop Boys for about 30 hellish minutes, take a shower with a bunch of guys, go to breakfast either at my east-side office (The J&M Cafe) or at my office in the West Hills (that being my home), then I brew up a frothy over-the-top coffee concoction, and voilà—just like that my day has officially begun. So, I guess you could say that I "require" about two and a half hours to start my day, counting breakfast. Well, that's not really true because I usually work through breakfast, but I'm fudging here a bit just to make a point: Jeesus I have a good life! I love being a writer!

But that's not why I decided to begin this, here, my very own blog. After all, who really wants to read about someone's very happy life. I suppose I could write about crack babies, incest, crystal meth and sex parties, maybe a little name dropping and Euro snobbery or something like that to really get the postmodern juices flowing, the kind of thing that just about everyone else is addicted to writing about these days. But no thanks. Not here. Not on this blog, and not in this lifetime. Not only am I a writer who believes in writing stuff that people can understand—weird, huh?—but I also believe in writing stuff that makes people want to cheer. Happiness is cool in my world, and if you're not cool with that then you won't think that I'm cool, which is cool. Groovy?

Anyway, I plan to use this space to keep tabs on myself. I've been noticing recently that no one has been officially managing my life, so I'm just going to have to do it myself. That means cracking the whip, and I just thought that having a blog might give me some kind of structure for recording my progress.

But wait, there's more: I just realized that as sexy as the word blog might be right now (is that even possible?), in the end a blog is just an online journal, and I have always hated the idea of a journal. It just seems so pointless:

"1/25/05 Today my shitzu named Pamelia started sneezing. It was really gross. I should take her to the vet.
1/26/05 Today I learned that my shitzu has asthma, and I will have to give her a nasal spray three times a day for the rest of her pitiful life..."

To prevent a slide down that slippery slope, me and my mind manager have agreed to limit this blog to all things writerly, or at least tangentially writerly, which is necessarily writerly because no one but a writer would ever say tangentially.