We write, some newcomers, some greatly experienced, all of us differently, uniquely.
Now it’s on to our passion: writing, where the heart feels the fire.
We write, some of us newcomers, some of us with great experience, and some of us with success if getting published is the measuring stick. One thing is sure: we all write differently and uniquely.
The day begins, contact the hotel, my real job, make sure it’s still there. Back and forth a bit with my pastry man. Now it’s on to my passion: writing. where my heart feels the fire.
On to writing. Gentle breeze this morning here in my writing loft, Max my old beagle asleep next to me, also restless, I think his leprosy or whatever he has is making him particularly itchy this morning. He moves, restless. The vet’s pills don’t help him at all. He’s at the mercy of whatever is digging away at him just beneath his soft pelt.
The day begins, like a dance, or a chess game, turn the music on just right, not too loud, oops not the right music, this happens often, need to corner the mood. Remind myself it’s all up to me… Right now David Bowie, ‘new’ for me, brilliant music, amazing musician.
Sit, get up, to get all my important props, a stick of incense, oh, out of pine, ok get sandal, cool. Can’t use nag champa, as that’s my sacred one for meditation. Sit. Get up, where’s my coffee, second or third cup remembering my three-cup limit; it all has limitations, nothing forever, get the feeling. Settle in, smoldering cup, chair scrapes on porch concrete floor. Emerald throated hummingbird comes near, pokes its beak into the hanging, red brick and yellow tumbergias flowers next to me. Max just fell off the couch with a plop, weight issue, not something seen often, something worth noting; is there a story there… Wonder if he’s hurt. Nope, his face unquestionably hilarious tells me to mind my own damn business.
Start, lift the lid on the laptop, plugin, what are filter words, you have to remember what those are otherwise, how do you know when to weed them out? Behind me on the wall, I’ve taped some reminders from Brad my friend, editor, and coach: passive versus active construction, short sentences, arcs in each line, paragraph, page, hard consonants, filter words, ‘the bane of all writers’… and such, none of it makes any sense, or at least very little.
Yes, filter words, you could theoretically scissor away half my manuscript and it’d still be full like a plague of little black ticks on the back of a small, miserable, um, Beagle dog in Panamas’ steamy tropics. Uh, thanks, Max. Sure, boss, Max says…
Fired up, click on, get in, get up, want to get some recent chapters beyond the ones that Brad has asked me to work on thinking wishfully, refreshingly aggressive that I will move this ball forward. Yeah, but it can’t be crap. Put the chapters aside. My brother Mark, a fellow writer, told me about an app, a writers’ app which will correct all my foibles and without my knowing will on its own produce additional copies of my entire manuscript, you know, in case I lose one. Yes, so I sent Brad the wrong, corrected chapter from a wrong, older version from my laptop. Correct that before anything else…
Get up, time to get a Coke, no sugar; something about the caffeine in Coke, think it’s purer than the Guatemalan coffee Incasa, like better heroin. Ice not purified, do bugs survive getting frozen? I’ve heard, not entirely. Can’t let a minor thing like that sidetrack me. Amoebas…
Get up, bathroom break, diuretics.
David Bowie singing one of this life’s favorite tunes, China Girl, wait time out, ah yes it carries me away to another land, another place, a place where I am left in peace, yes a compliant ‘China girl’ nearby, why a China girl, whatever that might mean… ‘Oh, baby, just you shut your mouth’…. Terrible. Please don’t hang me for that; it’s more a thing of worship, (gasp).
Maybe half an aspirin will help.
Don’t need to work out today, did that yesterday; my credit is good on that count. Today may be a long walk, I do it for my health. Brad tells me to journal chapters thirty-three through thirty-four, I say, yeah right. Like I say Huh? Haha, you know what I mean right? Haha, journal, right, I can’t even tie my damned shoes, pal. Today feels more like a sentence and a half day… Of course, I tell him, ah yes, damn why didn’t I see that journal, damn, will whip out ten pages when we’re done with our phone session, yep. Brad definitely gives me more credit than I deserve, bless him! The point here is: having a writing coach and confidant, a writer far superior to the student can be hugely helpful and I highly recommend it.
Sure, sometimes ten pages will just appear out of nowhere it seems, most times though, this is not about to happen, zip.
Truth being a factor here, the story I’m working on rolls along, fascinating me more and more, contrary to what I thought would happen from diving into this every day. Oddly, Lenka, my muse, my story, although my fabrication, perhaps my love unrequited, draws me more and more. I just want to do her honorably, she deserves it. She is the love from a life lived or not yet lived… Not yet lived? Dreamworld… What’s that mean, ha. Not gonna happen this time around. Yep, the six shots in the cylinder are thoroughly spoken for and burned amigo.
Get up, get another incense, these are just half-hour sticks, need those hour-long jobs. Did you know you can time your meditations by the length of the burn of a stick? Yes. Didn’t know that, did ya? Huh, did ya? Oops, bring it back now, writing is the task at hand… Plenty other times available for mental meandering as much fun as that can be, hey, even sometimes productive, there I go again… The required measure of concentration.
Couldn’t sleep last night, gut trouble, so I had to go to my breath. It beckons me now, more and more, like the sure solution, amazing, can feel the sleep flow almost instantly. There’re clear moments that tell me that my thoughts are tied to my emotions, and then the other way around… It all seems to tumble, slow motion out of the same rolling globe of conundrum, from there come both the solutions, the challenges, and the countless halfway measures.
Okay, sitting again. Lunch. Have eaten little lately, in fact hate to eat, yeah I can say that, I’m a writer damn it. A writer with cancer. Now there’s a cocktail, no? Presuming that a writer can say, almost whatever comes to mind. I can add that cancer and treatments killed my appetite. No, not complaining, actually an unexpected dividend, a long-overdue diet needed, a cancer dividend!
In fact, before I wrote this current flow of thoughts, I had already done chapter thirty-three for Lenka. The fifteenth time, maybe? Sent it to Brad and in three days we will go over it on Skype. So now will move forward a little cleaning up those damn passive verbs whatever the hell they are!
These thoughts were about revealing the mind-body process, at least for this writer. The daily routine. Everyone varies, but reading others’ accounts helps me grease the gears for my strategy, I hope, with some humor added in, this helps you.
Another hummingbird buzzes by, industrious little jewels, wondrous in fact, preparing for what, haha, yeah I know:
The End.
