Elias Gets His Groove Back

Well, it's been one of those very strange years. For various reasons that all seem to come together at once, I haven't been able to get into much of the writing I wanted to do this year, but I have managed to write some weired little things. My screenplay and novel have been left undone.

Now let me put some of this into perspective for you. My novel is 355 pages finished, and the screenplay only required one last little final scene to complete, yet they both sat in those little shelves on my desk for an embarrassing amount of time.

I've even been neglecting my blogs.

But last month, suddenly my dearth of ideas changed. Last month, I was able to complete an article I'd been playing around with for months. Then last night, I woke up at three o'clock in the morning to write a poem that appeared in my head fully formed and on its horse.

The screenplay that's been sitting finished by my computer and waiting for rewrites and additions is suddenly completed and we're going to send it off soon. (I've been writing it with a less-than-happy collaborator.)

Today, I'll finish some changes in a short story and send that off to where it needs to be, along with a completed poem (not the one from last night, but one that needed A SINGLE LINE to be before it was sent).

I guess I'm back. Now I'll take a crack at those 355 pages of American Revolution horror. Wish me luck.

The Walrus Said,..

It's time to learn how to dilate. Time, that is. I have so much to do I can barely think straight. Home repair projects. Work on And the Beast Cried Freedom (not to mention outlining the sequel and filing it away so I don't have to worry about it so much). Research. And it's the end of the semester: I've got papers to grade and a math report to finish. Wow.

I'm hoping I can dodge most of my responsibilities tomorrow, so I can plant my spreading backside in front of the computer to do a little more on it. Maybe I can get up a little early on Saturday and enjoy. The morning, a glass of iced green tea, my computer and a series of Steely Dan mp3s. Also my friend has a webpage he wants updated.

We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck...

Steve

The Return of Elias

For the three of you who actually read this, I offer my sincerest apologies for having been gone so long. Life intruded, and I had matters to attend to. I know that doesn't make it any easier for those who actually follow my words here, but from here, I'll make a sincere effort to be more regular in my updates.

But I've learned something in the meantime.

A few months ago, my creative life came to a halt with the screech of an oversize SUV with tires the size of a NASA crawler. I couldn't make any progress on novel, stories or even the few scattered essays that leered at me from my guilt-ridden desktop. Try as I might, everything that came from my keyboard was deplorable and unreadable. My muse and I, we became more estranged than predivorce friends and my late creative self.

I could make the excuse that I was worried about my chronically sick wife, or I could say that my real life takes precedence, but that would be a lie, since I write obsessively about my concerns and my life. What happened?

I don't know. But I could have fixed it.

I could have sat down, done writing exercises, poured out that proverbial million words that are supposed to be abysmal before my muse is able to return. The hours and hours I spent slack-jawed and drooling in front of the TV as though my IQ were my daughter's dress size could have been spent in productive writing.

Even if the product sucked. But statistically, it wouldn't have, you see.

So with the return of spring and the cold weather -- that's right, I said the cold weather; the climate has been like the butcher who backed into his meatgrinder around here: half-assed and off-kilter. With the return of the cold weather, I make my "spring resolution" to get out that certain amount of words a day.

On a positive note, it looks like a very old story I wrote with JP Edwards a few years ago may have found a home. We're sending it to a humorous horror anthology called "Until Someone Loses an Eye." With a little luck, it will become a part of it, and then I'll post a link to order it here. If not, you'll have to find out how to get the darned thing by yourself.

And I'm back at work on "And the Beast Cried Freedom!" Mayhap I'll finish that in the next two or three months as well.

So what did I learn, you ask?

That it really is all about me.

In the sense that no one is going to come along and fix my life. That part is up to me alone. I might ask my family for help, but I can't do it if I don't initiate the process myself. In other words, to quote the great George Carlin, "Ya gotta wanna."

And now, I wanna.

More in a few days.



Look up! Life doesn't happen on the ground.

Steven Elias Marx

Back to the Grind

Well, I guess it's time to go back to work on my book. I've been away from it for quite some time because I had to take my writing time and use it for money making purposes. A starving artist I will not be.

When I made the decision to take my sacred time to work on my transcriptions, I knew it'd be very, very hard to get back to writing, so when I stopped needing the morning time, I simply slept through till seven, rather than getting up at five-thirty.

Well, I'm feeling the need. It's time to go back to work. I've already got 300-odd pages, so hopefully, I can finish that remaining 100 in just a few months.

And then the hard part begins: Revisions. I'm not looking forward to it.

Hopefully I can keep making more timely entries here as well.

Steve

But hasn't this been true forever?

Your Summer Anthem is Speed of Sound by Coldplay All that noise, and all that sound, All those places I got found. And birds go flying at the speed of sound, to show you how it all began. You're out of your mind this summer, in a good way.

What's Your 2005 Summer Anthem?

Ad astra per aspera

All right. I'm not the kind of guy who shows a whole lot of people my "sensitive side," if indeed I have one, but I'm an army brat, and there are certain things related to the military and the government that just get me in the heart, even today at the age of ... well, let's just say early middle age.

For example, I cried during Armageddon. You know, the Bruce Willis movie. I didn't cry when any of the characters died. I didn't cry when they blew stuff up in the last scene -- you know the scene I mean -- though I heard most of the theatre sniffling.

What got me were the five jets at the very end flying in "missing man" formation. I guess it just makes me think of all the people at once who are "missing" in my life in one way or another. If you can keep your face clear during a military funeral, you are either asleep or have no heart.

I had that reaction again today, when I ran across this site.

Support Space Exploration!

And as I read, I felt the tears flowing freely down my face. I had to put my name on it. You might want to also, if you're like me at all.

Even if you're not.

I work for a university and as of May 15, we switch for the summer to longer days. I have to show up at the office by 7:30, which is not tremendously difficult, given that I get up to write at roughly 5 am. All I have to do is remember to stop by 6:45 or 7:00, so I can get into the shower and into the car with enough time to spare to make the five-minute drive.

The upside? Two words: FRIDAYS OFF. Enough said.

It's true, it's true!

 

Okay, this is an absolute scream, if you've had the misfortune to be afflicted with the writing disease (or worse, be married to someone with it...).

http://www.livejournal.com/users/scott_lynch/127371.html#cutid1

Enjoy.

Married to my Keyboard

 

Lately, I've been in an extreme state of vomit.

No, I'm not sick, nor is such a state necessarily a bad thing. For two years -- two years! -- I'd been stuck in a condition of stasis, where no decent or finishable projects would come flowing out of my keys. Oh, sure, I'd sit down and get an idea, and write for two, three, even five pages, but the resulting stuff, with a couple of notable exceptions, was just abysmal. Litarally, I could not produce any material that was even submittable, let alone printable. So, like a dog smacked with a newspaper each time he approaches the water in the toilet, I learned not to go there. I went to my computer less and less, worked on less and less, and produced less and less, abysmal or otherwise. I began to dig up trunk stories to read to my writing group, and I let everybody believe I was producing.

That was a bad thing.

Then something "strange and wonderful" happened. A friend of mine performed a mild intervention. He said basically that I did too much for too many. In another life I run a website in which I have to collect and analyze pieces of fiction, deciding which are fit to publish and which are fit to pay for and have to be nice to the rest saying, "It ain't good enough, but don't lose heart." I do work for a professional organization. I've edited a number of books anonymously over the past year, and my friend said, "If you haven't written anything for two years, it's time for some behavior modification." Not in those words, but in "so many."

Then, clearly not expecting me to take his words to heart, he turned on the TV and proceeded to watch an old episode of Sanford and Son.

But I did take his words to heart. I took them to heart because my wife had been saying them for years.

**************************************************************************
SHORT DIGRESSION:
Okay, at this point, I can hear you thinking. Ladies, I can literally hear you screaming from where you sit at your keyboards. "We tell our husbands things like this all the time. Why do you guys never listen to us? How come you only listen when another *guy* tells you?"

Well I'm going to give you your answer. It's not an answer you'll be happy with, because the bottom line is, if your guy wanted to treat you right, he'd listen the first time instead of pooh-poohing your ideas, just like I did with my wife this time.

I was out of line. But not for the reason you think.

Here is how most guys think. Many, if not most, of us are brought up to ignore "one voice." If two or three people say it, it's worth listening to. But if only one person says it, chances are it's wrong. Now of course there are exceptions to this rule, such as occurred when an entire country ignored the evidence and reelected a dishonest monger of lies in 1996. But generally, we go with the most voices. The more people who notice that the sky is blue, chances are we'll believe it's blue.

But if only one person says it's blue, even if it's our wives, we probably won't buy into it until we hear one or two more people say it.

Granted. If we had any sense, wives would count for three to seven opinions, but ladies, you'll have to give the more dense among us a break until we learn this fact. We're doing our best.

My point is, it's not about sexism. Just a misplaced attempt at rationality.

END DIGRESSION.
**************************************************************************

At any rate, I took my friend's words so much to heart that when I finished my current big project, I made a unilateral decision that there would be no more "big projects" unless they were novels that had my name on them. I took a hiatus from the website. In fact, it may die a dismal and unsatisfying death.

But from the ashes, the phoenix shall rise.

The last week in January (05), I made a vow that I would get up every weekday and write. From that day to this, I've only missed about seven weekedays total (due mostly to migraines), and I've even gotten up earlier on weekends. I would get up at 5:15 and work. Okay. I started at 5:45 and worked my way back to 5:15. But that's where I am now.

Here's the result.

In the first week, I completed a short story I plotted ages ago, and never got around to writing. When I finished working on that story, I started on (drum roll please), THE NOVEL. Now THE NOVEL has been sitting on a mental back burner for quite a few years, waiting for my to get off my spreading hind end and start working on it. I've had about ten pages of it just lying around since at least 2002.

Well, the week after I finished my story, I began it. THE NOVEL. I am currently on page 231 out of a projected 400. Yep, I'm working on a 100,000 word book, and this thing is more than halfway through.

Who'd'a thunk?

Since then, I have been spewing words everywhere. I'm working on a screenplay in the evenings. I'm writing policy and procedure manuals at my day job. I am barfing words everywhere, and if I may say so, many of them are halfway decent words.

Hence the state of vomit.

And boys and girls, it doesn't taste too bad. I hope I can stay here and roll in it for a long time to come.

Inaguration

Well, I feel like I ought to come out with some words of wisdom for my first post, but the only thing I can think of is to quote another famous Steve.

"May I mambo dogface to the banana patch?"
Steve Martin

I think that will suffice for now.