Tag Archives: Personal Writing

Getting Away

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I absolutely recommend taking whatever chances you can to go someplace new. Travel, see things, meet people and experience what a new place has to offer. I understand the trip my family took isn’t something everyone could afford to do, but this applies to any sort of travel. IF you have the chance, go.

We’ve taken two trips recently – both of them out of the country.

Our first trip was thanks to dear friends who invited us along to Niagara Falls when the eclipse happened. The weather wasn’t great and we didn’t really get to see the eclipse, but the trip itself was worth the effort. We got to see a true natural wonder and spend time with friends. There were very few time commitments and allowed us to just go and enjoy time away.

Our second trip, not long after this journey to Canada took us all the way across the Atlantic to Switzerland and France.

My daughter was an exchange student in France for a year. We took the opportunity to leverage her language capabilities and go to see some of the places she had been. We went to visit people we knew as well – our exchange daughter lives in France, so visiting her was added to the route. We flew to Geneva.


We stayed and toured there, then took the train into France to meet the host family where my daughter lived. Next up was the train across the country to Le Mans to see our exchange daughter and her family. Along the way we got to experience life less like a tourist and more like somebody living there. We didn’t go to any specific tourist destination, but rather took in various places and experiences along the way. We didn’t rent a car, we took the train. We walked and learned some of the public transport systems. We got to tour both the modern aspects of the cities we were in, and the older parts of the cities.

Cathedrals were two stops that were absolutely worth going to see. We went to both the cathedral in Geneva and the cathedral in Le Mans. Standing inside those structures, getting the true sense of scale was wonderful. It’s easy to understand how people would be in awe of these towering places and the beauty they delivered. Not major tourist spots. No planned tours, but absolutely worth the effort to go.

And that’s really the point. IF you have the chance, GO. Get out. See something new. Add weird things to the list of things you’ve done. Now I can say I’ve had McDonald’s on 3 continents – and I can say I’ve eaten actual ratatouille in France. Run the gamut, see all the places, and do all the things. You’ll be glad you did – and maybe, you’ll make some friends along the way.

Gaps and Dumps

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I didn’t realize the gap I’ve had since the last time I was on here and posting. I really wish there were a way to tie the things I post to my other social media here… that I understood and could easily use.

There was one, very early on and that functionality was taken away. I don’t understand how to make it work – nor do I particularly want to. I already do so many things I absolutely do NOT want to add “web developer” to that list. I really hate programming and program languages.

Yes, in the day job there have been more than one time that I’ve needed to learn LISP routines or some variation on visual programming or… I think the new one is python? I don’t know. I really hate doing them. They’re terrible and I am not meant for that kind of creation.

So – this is the ‘lump’ of things that will follow the huge gap. Hopefully the gaps will be smaller and the lumps less lumpy, but I’m certain I’ve said that sort of thing before.

Obligatory Posts

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Despite having a little time off and the availability to work on things for my website, I didn’t do all the “end of year” things that so many people program and just let go. I find as often as not that I get frustrated by recycled content. There are certainly things to look back at – both good and bad – but there are also many things to look forward to.

No, I don’t do resolutions. I made a new year’s resolution many years ago to *never* make a new year’s resolution again, and I haven’t since then. I post about it every year, and it hasn’t changed.

I received a summary of my “year in books” from Goodreads. I was extremely disappointed in my summary. Not because of the company or the format or anything like that. It was the simple fact that I ended up with less than 10 books for the year. It was just about 2,600 pages of reading total, but the “books read” also included one that I literally shelved as “DNF” because I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. It would be easy to be very depressed about this lack of quality reading, but I’m going to take the advice of a random internet person and be happy that I was reading. I didn’t stop reading, I’m just going slower than my previous years of 2 or 3 books per month. I’ve had a lot going on in my life and reading for pleasure became something of a challenge – but I didn’t stop. There are so many people out there that don’t read at all, and I do NOT want to join those ranks. I’m taking it as a win that I kept plugging along.

So this year I’m going to keep doing the things I love. It will still be a challenging time as things move and change and grow in the family life here. I’ll still have to work at making the time to actually accomplish things, but for some reason the start of this year doesn’t feel as bleak as some in the past. We’ll see.

Up next – some of that “creating” stuff. More to follow~

That drama

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Remember way back at the end of the summer? The sun was out, the weather was warm and there was all this time to just sit and ponder the particulars of being a parent. Writing and creating posts just whenever the mood moved. Something about drama and what parents should… something. I don’t remember.

Here we are in the dark and chilly days of mid-November and somehow two whole months have disappeared. Oh, I know where they went, but they’re are gone just the same.

Having two, non-driving teenagers in different clubs and school based activities has proven to be quite the challenge. Morning, noon and night the schedule here is relentless. Then of course is the drama – the laughing, the tears the yelling… and that’s just me.

There is of course also my professional world. Writing is NOT the day job, and the day job is jumping. On the up side of that, I have accomplished a major first step in my career that has taken me many, many years to get to. It’s just a step, but an important one.

In the end, some of my creativity has suffered. I would not trade a minute of it for sitting and staring at the blank page. Writing is a solitary endeavor in the end, and I have NOT been solitary. I am just fine with this. Long nights and ugly weather will pen us in and give ample time for posting things up to an old fashioned notion like a blog. Hopefully I’ll get here more than once a quarter…

Squeezing

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I have come to discover that writing in any form is a struggle. Yes, I know – all the writers and creative types I know just collectively said “duh”. I get it, but sometimes saying it (or typing it) helps with the reality of making a change.

I am a writer that runs on inspiration. Long haul work is extremely difficult doing that, and finishing something the size and scope of a novel is exactly that – a long haul. I suck at that.

I’ve been chipping away at the edges of writing for many years, but what I have been doing is clearly not working, nor is it getting me the result I desire. I need to finish more, but in order to finish more I need to actually create more. I can’t sit and wait for inspiration or the ever elusive (thought to be mythical) ‘free time’.

So – I’m going to be squeezing things in. Maybe the edits won’t be great. There will be grammar and spelling issues. I can’t edit if it’s not created. The secret story in my head will never go anywhere without trying to record it in some form.

There you go – I squoze it myself.

Secret Connection

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A starting point. I need some kind of warm up. Sitting and staring into a blank page is a genuine challenge – and one that will be overcome. Writing can be developed, just like any other ‘muscle’ so we’re stretching, then digging into a workout.

From time to time I check out a website called “Post Secret”. The idea of the project, if you’re not familiar with it, is that people write a secret on a post card and send it in to an address. This secret is then shared anonymously for others to see. Some are silly. Some are angry. Many, many secrets make connections and help other people see that they are not alone. I suspect my own life would be significantly different than it is today if something like this had been available when I was a kid.

I have spoken to friends and shared before that when I was in my pre- and early teens I was really into Dungeons & Dragons (I still am!). I started playing and gathering all things D&D very early on. This was also the time of the Satanic Panic. Other kids in my neighborhood were told not to associate with me because I played this game. Some kids didn’t get rules that applied to that degree, but their parents removed any and all chance of them owning anything related to D&D. The quote from one mom was, “We understand this is a game of imagination that only needs a paper and pencil. We know we can’t stop that, but we refuse to support it.”

That’s extremely rough when it’s aimed at somebody just developing social skills. Your friend group, likely already limited based on choices that didn’t necessarily fit the social norm of the time, being bent, battered and reduced because a swath of the adults in your life give you “we refuse to support it” as the answer to you wanting to play a game and be social.

I saw this postcard on the Post Secret site:

The person that sent it in is a little younger than I am, but likely caught the back end of that same panic. It also shows (to me) the deep, far reaching social nature of this game. The reason it endures. Fantastical, imaginative and connection creating. When you find ‘your people’ and they join the amazing journey into a place that doesn’t exist anywhere except your mind it is a powerful thing.

For many, many years I refused to share my passion about D&D. I’m not a professional author (clearly) and not a professional artist (witness my art) but I have played this game, and others like it, for the vast majority of my life. Having had all my early attempts to connect with others about it met with reactionary, panic based push back I was not interested in reaching out to get smacked down or insulted. It became habit.

Putting this out here in writing (again) I think is part of my process of getting past that. Yes, given the massive success and mainstream knowledge / understanding of D&D these days it doesn’t seem like a huge leap, but it feels that way to me. I am used to push back, insults, and demeaning nicknames. I’m not over that, but I’m working on it. I’m certainly not intimidated by any individual these days. Also, I know, intellectually, that people are aware of what I do and what I am interested in among my friends. I have recently started extending that awareness out to others, including people I am associated with professionally. I am still attempting to maintain a clear demarcation between work life and personal life (as my lovely wife likes to say, ‘don’t shit where you eat’) but I am not longer hiding things like the YouTube videos or the Twitch stream from them either.

I am who I am. I am passionate about my hobbies and enjoy sharing them. I love this stuff. Maybe not as much as sex, but this ‘secret’ was out there and did what it was supposed to do… it made a connection.

All that writing, and I didn’t even pull a muscle. Time to keep going. Maybe I’ll write up some adventures for the campaign I’m running…

Musing

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Sometimes I forget how much I used to ‘cheat’ and grab time to write from various places. A few minutes here, a couple of paragraphs there. These days those moments seem to be filled in, like water flowing down between ice cubes in your glass. The big objects are there and still relatively the same, the spaces in between are suddenly filled.

Here we are 2 weeks into the new year and I haven’t posted anything yet.

Looking back, it makes sense. There are lots of things I don’t share out here on the internet. There are things that people outside of my immediate, real world circle don’t need to know. There are things they don’t get to know. I realize that my readership numbers are not such that this is an actual problem… but perhaps someday. I will continue to treat this as if somebody actually reads this and cares.

So, along those lines I can say that while many things have changed, even more have stayed the same. Something I have noticed though is a distinct continuation of the creativity slump. When I looked back at my previous “welcome to the new year” post it showed that I’d read something more than 30 books that previous year. This past year I didn’t break 20. That’s dismal for me. A deepening slump.

I’ve submitted less of my writing as well. There just hasn’t been the inspiration… and it’s pretty clear that I need a muse. I’ve been pushing along my D&D playing and writing things for that, but it’s not translating into a creative bump the way it used to.

I have all the bits to work on miniatures and terrain… and have slumped terribly there too. It’s just not moving. There’s lots of amazing content out there to teach and show how to create excellent terrain. There are some amazing artists on my socials that show off great works (and let’s be fair, some not so great – but that’s just as helpful in many ways). I still haven’t been able to even muster a dungeon tile set.

So, what do I do? Where do I start?

I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer for that. It fills me with fear that the drive to do those things is seeping away. I love all that creative stuff. I crave great stories. I want my stories, my art, my creativity to be out there and be part of this amazing, creative world… and it’s just not going.

What do you do? How do you contact your muse?

Haiku

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Poetry is something I’ve always struggled with. It feels like being a good story teller would relate to good poetry with word choice and the way a statement flows when spoken, but that’s just not the case. I can get a rhythm, I can work with a particular rhyme structure… but it just never seems to come together.

Haiku seems to be the answer for me.

I read a little about the history of this poetic form in the book Japanese Death Poems. It’s a fascinating bit of history if you’re into something with a little bit of a dark tint. The form was massively celebrated during Japan’s history and has changed in form and format over time.

Still not something I’m going to ever be great at, but a form I can work with. Friends of mine got married this past weekend. One of the things happening at their reception was a haiku contest. While I know these poems won’t have the meaning to people reading here that they did to the couple, I felt it was worth posting them. Get outside your comfort zone now and then. Try something different. Write a poem…

You told a story
of the man in the past – it
was always a skirt

We visit the bar
then elevator roulette
who really won?

Modulating the Wave

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I’ve been away from here for a while. It happens. There’s probably some kind of wave pattern here, but I’m not going to find it. I have had a lot of feelings about so called “productivity” and what that means. I’ve been working hard at doing the things that I’m moved to do as I feel like doing them. Sometimes I practice niksen. Niksen is the Dutch art of doing nothing. Sounds silly, but it matters. Taking time and just letting my mind wander. Staring at the screen saver on the TV and just watching the fish swim. Breathing, closing my eyes and listening. Trying to get all the junk signals to quiet down and focus on the ones that matter.

I recall posting about this before, but I’m going to say it again in case there are folks that have missed it in the past. At one point I was reading a regular column from a local new source. This is someone holding the job of writer at an actual news source. Yes, writing the “local view” type columns, but still a pro. Then this writer filed an entire column that said, “I have nothing to say. Seriously, there was a deadline and I came up empty…”

I was furious. This person could have relinquished the weekly spot to somebody with something to say. Could have put in anything at all and it would have been better than “I got nothing”. I stopped reading that persons work (yes, still employed at that new source) and constantly question the managerial choice of keeping this person on board.

I will never do that here. IF I’ve got nothing to say, guess what? There won’t be a post here.

The biggest issue for me here is that I have things I want to say frequently but they tend to be time sensitive type things and by the time I get the chance to type something up it feels like the moment is past. So, for right now – I’m riding the wave. There maybe be a flurry of posts, there may be a gap. Perhaps I’m trying to change the wave pattern of my production by going to stare at some fish.

Mood Matters

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I know that being a pro in the field of writing – any writing – requires the ability to write on demand. Deadlines must be met. Words must be produced. Nobody will pay you for the fanciful ideas floating in your head until you write them down (or draw them, or paint them, or build them). Waiting for inspiration is the direct path to never selling anything. Writing takes practice. It means repetition and expansion and edits among many other things.

I often quote a very famous author who has a slick statement about inspiration. “I don’t have a muse, I have a mortgage…” is a great quote. It’s easy to say. It’s hard to back that up.

I am far more attached to my mood than is good for anyone who wishes to be successful as a creative artist of any kind. The combination of creative drain from my day job, my inability to focus on a single kind of creativity and the things that happen in my day to day life often mean I am drained and just have no creative juice left to flow when I get to the keys.

I want to include some kind of declaration here about how I intend to do more, be better or whatever would fit, but the truth is that mood matters. I have made many declarations like this in the past and none of them have ever pushed me past certain barriers. Schedules, task lists, extensive notes are all wonderful and helpful things but none of those produce inspiration. There’s no spark. I’m going to keep struggling along in the best way I can. I’ll keep looking for that moment when a story leaps fully formed from my head, into my fingers and directly through the keys. Mood matters.

What inspires you?