Udopia Update

Obsessive word counts, part two...

A while back, I mentioned my current novella-in-progress, Udopia. Later, I posted my word counts for the week of 7/18 - 7/22, which saw me log 4,400 words. The week that just concluded was a pretty good one, too.

I started with 24,055 words. Here are the daily counts.

7/25/2011    25,439

7/26/2011    26,157

7/27/2011    27,230

7/28/2011    28,332

7/29/2011    29,119

So that's 3,680 for the week, and just shy of 11,000 since July 13. That's progress. In fact, I suspect that I may "finish" either this week, or early next week. Of course, by "finish," I mean completing the linear progress, getting from the beginning to the end (which was written months ago). It's no where near the point where another person can look at it and judge it. I have too many "verbal post-its" to take care of.

But I will. And I believe I will make my September 15 deadline. 

Another Poem

This one is kind of a downer. I was thinking about a friend who lost his young son a few years ago, and these words came out.
 

Lost

All life can be lost

In a flash,

In a heartbeat

Right before your eyes.

But if we dwell on the possibility,

The probability,

The certainty. . .

Then living is lost.

Do-do-do-do Do-do-do-do

I had two "low-level" Twilight Zone experiences today.

1. In the building where I work, the restrooms are right across from the conference rooms. As I passed a conference room on the way to a "necessity break," there was a pretty big meeting in full swing. I would say there were 20 - 25 people there. I did my business, and emerged at most one minute later. AND THE PEOPLE WERE GONE! The room was empty; the lights were out. I understand that meetings end. But usually a few people linger and shoot the breeze. But there was no sign of life. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing any of them around for the rest of the day....

2. Then on the way home, I stopped at Great Clips to get a haircut. This was my second time there. The first time, I learned that they ask for your name and phone number, purely for "servicing purposes," as in, logging what they did, so they will know what was done in order to help them on your return visit. They swear that the information will not be used for marketing purposes.  And that may be so. But as a privacy professional, I know that if they later decide to sell my information, they can, if they notify me in some fine-print legalese. So I try to avoid giving it out. The gentleman who checked me in was the same one who cut my hair the last time. He said if I had been there, my surname would be in the system. So I gave it to him, and he looked it up. "You're here," he said, showing me the screen. The name was "Seese." There was no first name shown. The address was not mine. BUT...the street was Bushnell Avenue.  My father grew up on Bushnell Avenue. It's a fairly small street. . .perhaps 500 feet long. I can't say when my father's parents moved out of the house. But they died in 1963, and by that time, my father was married, and not living there. He had no brothers. In short, I have no known living relatives on that street. And yet, there is someone with my name there.

(Cue Twilight Zone theme.)

Funny Foto #3

I noticed this in the parking lot of the building where I can work. 

As you can see, there is Braille.  Two obvious questions came to mind:

1. What would a blind person be doing in the middle of my parking lot?

2. How would he even know this thing is there?

Word Counts

I obsess about word counts. I probably shouldn't. But I do. I track them more compulsively than a fantasy football leaguer tracks his players' stats. Of course it helps me to meet my goals if I can see real progress.

So having said that, I'm happy to say that I had a good week working on Udopia. here are the daily counts.

I started the week with 19,652 words. At the end of each day, it was:

Monday:    20,623
Tuesday:   21,619
Wednesday: 22,302
Thursday:  23,026
Friday:    24,055

That's 4,400 words; 880 per day. Not bad for probably one hour of work per day.

What does it mean? Well, as I referenced Monday, the publisher I'm targeting said they will accept 50,000 words, max. So I'm at least halfway there!

Obviously, when I get to the end (the first time) I need to then get out my machete, go back to the beginning, and mercilessly hack away the crap. That will reduce the count. But once I fill in all the placeholders--the places where as I'm flying along I know I need more, but don't have it in the forefront of my brain, so I type "MORE" and keep going--it probably will even out.

Poetry Update

For me, writing a poem has two phases. Perhaps this is oversimplified, but first I need to come up with an idea--for example, a strong opening line--and then I need to "decide" what I want to write about to finish it. Take, for example, "The Daily Caffeine Stream," which I wrote the other week. I came up with the opening line

Starting the daily caffeine stream

some time last year. But then two weeks ago, the rest of it came to me. As I referenced in that post, when the poetry muse stops by she is very productive. To illustrate, below are four poems that I wrote last Friday. In the interest of complete honesty, I wrote about 90% of each on Friday, and then finished them over the next few days.

The Unscripted Moments
The knock on the door said my friend had arrived.
Guitar in hand,
To play some songs.

Two puzzled looks, first mine then his.
I wasn't sure
Just what to say.

"Is it tomorrow?" he asked glumly.
"Yes it is.
But come on in."

Apologizing up the stairs:
"I can't believe
It's tomorrow."

"Well, you're here now, and we have no plans.
So no more 'Shoot!'
Let's have some fun."

We opened our cases and then some wine.
We learned some new songs.
Some his, some mine.

We sang and drank until the new day.
"Let's do again."
Then hugged goodbye.

I thought about what fun we'd have missed
If I had said,
"Not tonight, Joe."

Calendars are for the week days. The
Unscripted moments
Can be life's best.



Caged
I wanted just to hear her sing,
Every day and every night.
So I waited with a net
And snagged her while in flight.

She soon gave up her struggle,
As if she had a choice.
I whisked her to a foreign place,
Thinking about that voice.

"welcome home, my darling,
Now channel that sweet rage."
I lifted her out gently,
And put her in a cage.

"Now sing, please," I said softly
As I smiled and stroked a wing.
But all I got was silence:
No peep. No chirp. Nothing.

I then commanded her to sing.
More silence in return.
A test of wills? I will not lose.
She will comply. She'll learn.

Was it fear which sealed her lips?
Could it be stubborn pride?
I could not coax a single note
No matter what I tried.

I withheld food and water.
I withheld warmth and light.
But she would not / could not open up
for me, try as I might.

Instead she sat immobile,
Unmoved day after day.
It did not feel like conquest as
I watched her fade away.

Her body limp and listless.
I did what must be done.
I opened the cage and heard the voice.
A victory song. She'd won.


Little Nightmares
"I had a bad dream, Daddy" came
His small voice as I slept one night.
I gathered him up in my arms,
And tried to hug away the fright.

"What happened in that dream?" I asked,
As I carried him back to his bed.
"It's just a dream. It's over now,
So tell me about it." He said,

"A car fell on our house and then
The car and our house caught on fire.
Please don't be mad, but I added
Paper, and then the flames went higher."

I said, "I can't be mad at you.
It's just a. . .movie in your head.
Go back to sleep. Here's your bear."
He softly snored. I left his bed.

I thought about what scared him so,
Its innocence both real and dear.
A boy's little nightmare pales when
Compared to all our grown-up fears.

We sink or swim, it's dog eat dog.
Our world unforgiving and gruff.
I didn't tell him all those things.
That world was coming soon enough.


Back Home
On days like these
I want to go
Home, where I'm safe and warm.

Not to my house,
With bills and weeds,
And carpeting that's worn.

It's home enough,
My real-world trap,
The place where I live now.

But home is where
I want to be.
Go back in time, somehow.

Back to my bunk
Bed, toys, and games.
And ragged teddy bear.

Back to the days,
Not long ago,
When I had not a care.

Sometimes I amuse myself.  :)

"Udopia"

As much as I love writing for the simple pleasure of it, I always seem to do better when I have a deadline. It's probably a holdover from my newspaper days. As I have told people on many occasions, when I first started out, if I had to write two articles by Monday, my weekend was basically shot. But getting out of a council meeting at 10:00 p.m., and looking at a blinking cursor thinking, "As soon as I finish this, I can go to bed," will do wonders for your ability to knock it out.

And so I have given myself a new deadline. From a source I mentioned before, Poets & Writers, I found a publisher, Main Street Rag, which is looking for novellas in the range of 30-50,000 words. I've been kicking around an idea for literally years. I liked the concept, but somehow knew that I would be hard pressed to flesh it out to the 80-100,000 words typical of a novel. 

The title I settled on is Udopia. I think it is along the lines of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I don't wish to compare my work-in-progress to Orwell's classic, because that would be horribly vain. But like Nineteen Eighty-Four, it's  a cautionary tale about what can happen if we let our guard down, and give too much of ourselves to the government and, more critically, the Internet. I could not have written this ten years ago, because there was no Facebook, no Google, no geo-tracking, and no 9/11. But because of what I've read in the news, and because of what I've learned through my work as a privacy professional, I think I have some things to say.

Here is the opening:

    It's been a long day.  It's only. . .5:30, I think.  But it's just been a looong day. A long, trying day. One of those days. One of those days you just want to end. But I want to start. I need to start. I need to start now. Because there's a lot to say. And if I don't get started, I might not have time to finish.

    I wish I could call this a cautionary tale. But I can't. You can't think, "I’d better slow down before I get to that sharp bend in the road" while you're plunging off the cliff. You can’t think, “I wonder if there’s an undertow“ while being dragged beneath the waves and out to sea. And you can't think, "Maybe this isn’t the best place to seek shelter" while you're sitting in the lion's mouth.

    Near the town of Cairo, Illinois, the Ohio River meets up with the Mississippi River to form the “Lower Mississippi,” though those who live along it have another name, born of first-hand experience: the Mighty Mississippi. While neither river, on its own, would be called puny at any point north of Cairo, once the two join they form a nearly unstoppable force.

    What’s the point of my little lesson in geography?

    In the early years of this century two seemingly unrelated--and individually powerful—tides came together to create a different, though equally treacherous, unstoppable force. There was 9/11, and there was the Internet. Once they converged, no one could hold back the waters. Our world changed.
     So where do I begin?

    Most folks would say, “At the beginning, naturally.” But it’s not that simple. You see, to begin this story at the beginning really doesn't make sense, because the ending--or near the ending--is really where it all begins. The beginning is just, well, something that comes along in the middle.  And you can't begin in the middle, now can you?  If I began at the beginning, you'd get a good story, all right, but it wouldn't make too much sense.  Because the ending is really where it all begins.  And so if I began it at the beginning, you'd just be plain lost, because you'd miss the beginning.

    Or was that the ending?

    Am I rambling? Or would that be "wrambling," since I'm writing? I apologize. Like I said, long day.

    Let me just tell you how it ends, and you can judge for yourself.  At the "trial," they tried to paint me as a traitor. "How could he do what he did and claim he still loves America?" they asked, though it was more statement than question. And 24 empty eyes looked back at me, waiting for my response. I didn't answer. I didn't speak the truth, say what was on my mind: that I did what I did because I love America. Or at least the country that we once called America. It wouldn't have mattered. The judge, the prosecutor, and even the jury of my peers would have stared blankly at me, unable to decipher the words coming from my mouth. Words like “values” and “honor” and “freedom.” Especially freedom.

    And besides, what was I going to say?

    I am guilty.

   Of what? I guess that’s what I want to talk about.

   It all started, or should I say, ended, in a country that was called America. 

I imagine I'll post updates and progress in this space. I'd love to hear your comments. 

My deadline is September 15.

Magazine Cover!

If you want to read something in the "propeller-head" genre, I wrote an article which is the cover story of this month's ISSA Journal. FYI, ISSA stands for "Information Systems Security Association," a group dedicated to information security professionals, of which I am one.

The article concerns end user computing applications--which typically are spreadsheets--that are turned into quasi-programs by non-programmers, often with adverse effects. If you're using such a spreadsheet to track your diet, it's not a big problem. But if you're using it to calculate numbers which are reported to your company's general ledger, and then to Wall Street...

Funny Foto #2

Another image in my continuing effort to make fun of helpless signs and other inanimate objects. 

I saw this on the change machine outside of a self-serve car wash.

I think that warning applies to many of my friends.

Raven In The Grave...Rave On!

I just picked up the Raveonettes' latest disk, Raven In The Grave. Two words: love it! Of course, I'm not surprised. I had heard about half of the songs on WRUW over the past month or so and really enjoyed them.

If I were still doing music reviews, I would rate this an A+. To me, it's simply a great album. Disclaimer: I'm a big fan of songs with distorted guitars and dreamy, hard-to-decipher lyrics, all mixed together in a wash of sound. In other words, the shoegazer genre; Lush was my favorite band from the 90s.

But this is no exercise in "nu gaze" music-by-the-numbers. I immediately was struck by the musical, lyrical, thematic, and sonic range across Raven's nine tracks

Do you want fuzzy guitars and a driving beat? The album leads off with "Recharge & Revolt," an anthem to fighting (literally) for your love. As an aside, I have to admit that when I initially heard the tune's opening power chord, my musician's ear flashed back to the Raveonettes' 2003 release, Chain Gang Of Love, which bears the cover note "Recorded In Bb Major." And they weren't kidding...it's all in Bb. I'm happy to report that even though this disk has its fair share of songs in that key, they do use other chords as well.  :)

Do you want tender? How about "Forget That You're Young," which breaks down a relationship, start to end, using a string of simple monosyllabic verbs:

And I see

         chase

         meet

         get

         hold

         kiss

         need

         please

         hurt

         scare

         leave

         miss you, and I forget that you're young.

Do you want to drift off and dream? Then cue up "My Time's Up," the best sleepy-time song this side of Julee Cruise.

My personal favorite tracks are "Apparitions," with its hollow, nearly amelodic vocal, the lyrically spartan "War In Heaven" (which I would bet money started life as a work of poetry), and the aforementioned "Forget That You're Young." The latter is one of those songs that I could listen to, then hit the << button and listen to again. Who am I kidding? That's what I do.

In conclusion, two more words: buy it. Or "download it," since as I write this, Amazon is offering the MP3 for half price, which includes a bonus track.

"Tragedy On Aisle 3"

Tragedy On Aisle 3
Chinese oblong?
Orange peekaboo?
Darling jelly?
Keep mum? About who?

Jaundice?
Green chaise?
Yellow?
White?
That says "Ass-what?" Can't be right!

Irish beerfest?
Early grave?
I wish I had my glasses today.

OK, so this one probably won't be taught in 9th grade English any time soon. But I think it's fun. Hey, even the muses can't come up with "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" every time.

Good Resource For Writers; My First Sample

A few weeks back, I learned of a great website for aspiring writers: Poets & Writers. One of the most intriguing sub-headers, to me, is the "Call for Manuscripts: Anthologies." Writing a novel--or even a full book of poetry--takes a lot of time. But if you've got a single short story you want published, these are some folks looking for one. Immediately catching my attention was UNCLE JOHN'S FLUSH FICTION, which is looking for fiction of most any genre, as long as it's under 1,000 words.

I'm always coming up with new ideas that I simply don't have time to flesh out. But 1,000 words...I can do that in my sleep, as mentioned in my second post to this blog. In fact, I intend to submit my ghost story, and more, before the August 31 deadline.

As I was contemplating other ideas, a title came to me: "Tarantulas On Leashes." So I started writing. (If bugs creep you out, don't read this.)

     It was a nice day, so I decided to take “Harry” for a walk. “Want to go out, boy?” I called. He scooted across the floor and over to the door, jumping up and down (as best as he could) in anticipation. He was so excited. Harry loves to get out of the apartment, even though to him, it’s quite spacious. He immediately complied when I said, “sit.” Those obedience lessons really paid off. I then stooped down to put on his harness, no mean feat when you take into account all the legs. Suitably leashed, I opened the door and he dashed down the hall, pulling me along as he ran. When we reached the elevator his excited demeanor immediately changed. I’ll never understand how, but his grain-of-salt-sized brain just knew that the elevator somehow was related to the fact that we live on the 12th floor. And he was deathly afraid of heights, something I found odd because many of his brothers in order Araneae live quite high up in trees, or even on the window ledges of skyscrapers. But Harry won’t even go near the windows. Of course any tarantula owner worth his salt knows that most members of the family Theraphosidae reside near the ground. So I suppose it really isn’t that surprising.
     Aside from heights, the only other thing Harry fears are wasps. As well he should. As any caring Tarantula owner knows (or should know), you constantly have to be on the lookout for a Pompilidae, or hawk wasps, which have a particular gruesome evolutionary need to sting, paralyze, and lay eggs on helpless pets like Harry. So naturally I sprayed him with some Off before we stepped outside. My vet has suggested a pill which offers season-long protection. But Harry hates pills. I can’t even sneak one past him by hiding it in a fly...

There's more, of course. In fact, it's about 2,400 words, which makes it too long for the "Flush Fiction." So I'm weighing my options.

1. Find a publisher / anthology which publishes slightly longer pieces.  I have found quite a few on the Writer's Market.
2. Make it an e-book and sell it for $0.99 on Amazon. A nice idea, but a buck for 2,400 words seems a little bit undervalued, from the customer's perspective. 5-6,000 words, maybe. Or...
3. Write a few more related stories, bundle them, and then either do #1 or #2.

We'll see what happens.

Actually, I think some version of #3 will happen, since I've already started a few other "bug stories." I'll post some snippets in the coming weeks.

"When I Fell From The Sky"

     When I Fell From The Sky

     When I fell from the sky

     I closed my eyes,

     And simply let my life pass by.

     The good,

     The bad,

     The in-between.

     Would I wake up?

     Was it a dream?

     I was light.

     A shiny plane?

     A kite?

     No wait...a drop of rain!

     Heaven2Ocean.

     River to shore.

     A cup scooped up and carried to pour

     And quench the thirst of a fledgling tree.

     To leaf,

     To Earth,

     Then back to sea.

     To sky,

     To cloud.

     Then plunge.

     Splash!

     Lake.

     I rose once more then fell awake.

Like I said, the muse is in the house. The meter of this poem is basically the same as yesterday's. Perhaps she'll change things up tomorrow.

I conceived of this song while listening to "Let Me On Out" from the Raveonettes Raven In The Grave. (BTW, great album. I think I'll talk about it in a future post.) Sometimes when I listen to a song, I hear other words. Not in the delusional, schizophrenic sense, of course. My mind just goes off on little journey and crafts something similar.  In this case, the lyric was "And how we fell apart." So "how" became "when" and "apart" became "the sky." Not exactly a long journey. Also, the song "Forget You're Young," from the same album, has the lyric, "Can I fall away now?" which led me to the final words of the poem.

"The Daily Caffeine Stream"

Today, a poem.

     The Daily Caffeine Stream

     Starting the daily caffeine stream,

     Held hostage by a little bean,

     Plucked while green then roasted brown.

     Damn it! Hurry! Come on! Drip down!

     Fill my pot! Then my cup!

     I need this little pick-me-up

     On days like today. Slo-mo tick-tock.

     What? It's only 9:00?

     Four meetings down and more to come.

     I'd better brew another one.

     Oh, Juan Valdez, what have you done?

     You're more than habit. You're religion.

My poetry muse is very fickle. Erato seems to visit about every six months and stay for about two weeks. When she finally does go, I find about a dozen poems lying around.

Expect more in the days to come.

Some Humor To Start The (Logical) Week

Near my house there is a gas station which I frequent. On the pumps is posted the following:

 Every time I see it, I think, "As opposed to prepaying after the fact?"

It's tough being literate sometimes.

Why Write?

I've been  writing quite a bit lately. At least 30 - 60 minutes each day, which isn't bad when you consider that I have a day job and three young children. Why do I write? A recent Janet Reid blog was built around the message, "Keep writing, no matter what." I posted, "I often find myself writing, not because I want to, but because I have to. 99% of the time, I'm OK with that. But when I have to at 2:00 a.m....

And it's true. I do have to write, because the words are in my head, and I have to get them out. I can think of three recent examples, each with its own twist.

1. In my first post, I mentioned my book of interconnected short stories. I had been working pretty diligently on it. One day at work, I had a noon meeting. So at 11:45, I thought I should take a "necessity break." Standing there, two lines came to me:

And then came a revelation. No, make that THE revelation.

I really liked that, especially the "THE revelation" part, and didn't want to lose it. So I hurried back to my desk, grabbed my pen and trusty notebook, and wrote down those words. And more kept coming. And coming. At noon, the little pop-up said I had to dial in to my meeting. So I did. I went home that night and typed in what I had written. 350 words. 350 words that came flowing out of nowhere on the heels of two short sentences. So the words apparently were there. I just didn't realize it.

2. About a year ago, I read about a Chicago Tribune ghost story contest. It had to be under 700 words, and set in Chicago. Since we had recently published our book of short ghost stories, I thought, "Why not?" I've only been to Chicago once, to see my beloved Indians play the Cubs. That was a great time; but it's another story. So Wrigley Field probably was the only Chicago setting I could reasonably talk about. The deadline was approaching, and I hadn't written anything. I was lying in bed one night, and my mind started to work: some guy is having a bad day, he feels strange; he goes to Wrigley to watch a game; he's always wanted to catch a home run ball; dark clouds gather; then a ball starts heading his way; he puts out his arms to catch it and it passes right through him; a blowing newspaper stops by his feet; he sees his face and reads the headline, "Man pushed in front of El. Teens charged." Then I started to fill in other details: he was having a bad day, made worse by the punks at the train station, etc.  Finally around 1:00 a.m., I said to myself, "I might as well go write it. Otherwise I'll be thinking about it all night." So in that case, I worked over the words obsessively, and they forced me to get them out of my head.

3. On my far-away horizon is a series of thrillers that feature the same protagonist: an intrepid reporter. One of the story ideas that had been kicking around in my head for literally a year was his adventure in a certain well known legendary place that he stumbles upon. (Actually, he's kidnapped into it.) So one day I had some time, and decided to do a brain dump. One hour, 2,000 words! So in the final case, the words had been bumping around my brain, and I just decided to extract them.

That's why I write.