The Forest for the Trees and other Branches

 

photo by Valentin Salja

Finished The Forest for the Trees--a lot of fun, I don’t mean like a comic book. It was sophisticated and full of good advice, but it had a nice flowing writing style--inviting, like a knowledgeable friend talking about the publishing world.

Right after, I started another book, a more formal book about writing and publishing which more befits the dignity and magnificence of a serious author. In other words, boring. It looks like I’m going to be reading this one just for info not joy.

It starts out saying writing is the deepest, most important, most spiritual thing in the universe which for me is a yes or no depending on my mood and objectively probably somewhere in the middle. If zero is eating frozen pizza and ten reaching nirvana plus cosmic oneness with the universe, writing would probably hold a steady five along with other stuff like acting, singing, painting, raising a healthy child, a garden patch, a redeemed social condition, etc, etc, etc.

Agnes has married Shakespeare. Judith has the plague.

In trashy horror novel news, 6 men killed, five woman, two 9-year old’s, and various dogs.

Reading, Writing, and Stuff

 

photo by Enzo Muno

Writing my latest. There’s a story there somewhere as opposed to dramatic unrelated actions, but I’ll have to eliminate some blabber to get there, wish I could send it to Maxwell Perkins or someone and have them fix it.

I’m reading my junky horror novel quickly.

I’m reading Hamnet slowly.

And I’m also  enjoying the second edition of Forest for the Trees. Not much seems to have really changed since the first. I think the 2nd edition for the 21 century is just a gimmick to get people to buy it again, but it's been long enough since I last read that every statement seems newish. It's all over the place like a distracted fascinating conversationalist (or this blog). Some of it I relate to, some of it I don’t, but the book is good as well as more fun then I remember.

My junky horror novel is… junky. But exciting. I know how hard it is to write exciting, so I appreciate it.

photo by neonbrand

Hamnet I’m savoring like a fine wine if I drank. I feel like a hypocrite talking about fine wine, because when I did drink, cheap sangria was about as sophisticated as I got. That and alcohol mixed with chocolate. I thought of it all as candy. I gave that up and began a two gallon a day diet coke habit which I dropped and now I just drinking water and my strange cayenne pepper, lemon, and maple syrup tonic.

Spaghetti and More

Photo by Cottonbro

I really want to read now but I set an intention to write a blog post and feel I must fulfil it. 

It’s toward night now. Whatever the time my blog says I wrote this, don’t believe it. The man  is trying to screw with your brain or rather Blogger has me on Australian time and I live far away from Australia. This is the second time I’ve mentioned this and you figure I’d have it fixed by now, but it would ruin the conversation piece.

Made whole wheat spaghetti with a homemade sauce and me and Roe actually enjoyed it. I know people say no carbs, wheat belly, radiation has wiped out the soil or something; the last good crop of wheat was in the sixteen hundreds, but the spaghetti was very satisfying and what satisfies the soul satisfies the body so the stuff  I cooked tonight was practicality a health food.

 I really want to read, but I’m writing this damn post and the tragedy is after I’ve finished it’s my turn to do the dishes. I might hold them off until one in the morning. Then I can read, do a meditation, walk around the room. Everything.

I read the first edition and rather liked it. I'm starting the second edition of The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner tonight. It's about writing and writers from a mass market editors perspective, now "updated for the 21st century", curious about what she's changed. 

Not Bad

Photo by Neel

I know this doesn't hold much authority. Probably saying your mother likes your story is more impressive, but I have to mention--I don’t know why I have to mention, but you’ve got to fill these blog posts with something,--I just read one of the short stories I wrote: a flash fiction piece and I was able to get a little outside myself for once and just read it like I’d read a regular story, detached a bit and not analyzing every mistake or worried about whether it’s accepted or not. It was pretty good. I mean not a masterpiece, but decent. I’m rather impressed with myself.

In less sillily self-congratulating news, I’m into new thought books. I’m  unimpressed with Joe Suit blabbering on about his three hundred dollar law of attraction course "definitely a 2000 dollar value”, act now or be lost, but sometimes the classic books are written so nicely I get swept up in the language and excited. I’m talking mainly about As a Man Thinketh by James Allen and The Game of Life and How to Play it by Florence Scovel Shinn. There’s something very satisfying about  reading them whether they work or not or whether I want them to.

Slowly going through Hamnet, but now I have a junky horror novel,  so we’ll see if the former goes to shit. However, at this point, Maggie O'Farrell has my attention.

In these uncertain unprecedented times my reading patterns are weird. I’m just reading because I want to, when I want to, with no effort to improve my writing, or mind, or anything. It’s works for me now. I don’t know for how long though.

 

Photo by Jose Antonio Gallego Vázquez

Meanwhile Roe plays too much Bruce Springsteen. I like him too, but every songs so vivid and incredibly dramatic I can take him more in limited quantities. Like a small block of fudge is delicious, but ten blocks of fudge gives you a stomach ache. She enjoying him so much, however, I don’t want to say anything about it to her. I’m thinking of silently suffering  as long as she doesn't play Point Blank more then once.

$

photo by  金 运

Money is made of green bills.

In the United States they have presidents on them.

Money symbolizes power and freedom. Without money you are poor. Poor performance of funds is piss poor. 

Money is God. No, God is God and he will give you money

Money is green like the woods.

I want money, but by stating I want money, I am stating I need money. I am stating I don’t have money. Therefore, I am creating a resistance. This is difficult, because I am obstructing the flow of money.

Money is a beautiful thing.

Money is the root of all evil.

Spend money like it’s going out of style. You’ve got to spend money to make money.

This money: it makes the world go round.

Buy a ticket, win a lot of bread.

You can’t take it with you.

 

Light Blues

photo by green ant

I really want to go to bed. I somehow I got my blogger set for the Australian clock, so I don’t know what time the system claims I’m writing this.  Here however, it’s late night.

Writers must write though.

I sent out my heavy story. I think it’s good. Maybe in two months I won't. In any case, now other people have to judge it. The most unfun part of hopeful publication. However without gatekeepers, no ones going to want to spend time reading anything and literature becomes a vast unlooked at twitter, so as a gray day’s rain keeps us from dying in a desert, editors have their place too.

I ate baked penne at an Italian restaurant for lunch and salad for dinner to try to balance it out. I know it won’t and my health will suffer, but just for a day or so.  

Nothing really great has happened. I just have bits and chit chat to inform you. Maybe I should review a book or something, before everyone runs away.

It’s cold, but the sun’s coming back, days getting longer, slowly but surely. I haven’t gotten the winter blues this year. Well, maybe light blues, not falling into despair, but a kind of permanent annoyance. No one wants to comfort me. They kind of want to give me the third finger. I can’t really blame them. The consequences of being obnoxious, but not truly depressed.

Roe puts up with me, so I’m happy enough and I can reign things in to the extent various baristas enjoy my company, while I wait for my iced tea: which is good, but makes me colder.

I have food and shelter, so now I should be busy seeking the top of Maslow’s self-actualization pyramid instead of sitting around. Maslow would be very disappointed if he knew or maybe being self-actualized, he wouldn’t care.

Tonic, Ganesha, and my Heavy Story

 

Photo by Josh Cris Gayle

I’m writing this blog instead of doing the dishes that are left over this morning from a tonic I make everyday.

It consists of spring water, lemon, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. It’s supposed to do something. It feels like it's doing something, but I’m not sure what.

The obvious answer would be detoxifying, but I don’t think that’s scientifically possible. A body doesn’t really build up poisons that need to be released, despite popular opinion, unless one has cancer or something and  that wouldn't involve detoxifying. That would involve chemotherapy or something.

 I like the way the drink tastes though. It feels like it's clearing you out, maybe just mentally, but in any case, it can’t hurt.

 Better mood finally, but  I’m writing a heavy story. I’m trying to make it light enough to be accepted somewhere, but it's hard because it sooooooo heavy. Maybe I could find a heavy editor… Wish me luck.

 I took down a gaudy colored poster of Ganesha, but then I got worried he wouldn’t help me anymore so I put up a little gray and white xeroxed picture of him. I think this goes the other way into too subtle however. You can’t get a charge out of it or even really see it.

Maybe a statue. That cheapest nice one is 48 dollars  Two spaghetti dinners. Spaghetti’s all right, but I like the fresh vegetables and fish 48 dollars privileges me. Roe likes them better too. She says spaghetti makes us fat and perhaps she has a point, but a nice statue of Ganesha vs. a little weight, you know?

Being a quasi-elephant, Ganesha is very fat, but I digress.