Wandering the savage garden…

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I almost wrote a story today.

I almost wrote a story today. That’s… a loaded statement, in a lot of different ways.

First, the story: I actually wanted to write something cyclic, and the story started and ended with the wind ruffling the protagonist’s hair, which was longish for him (i.e., almost shoulder-length). I wasn’t sure what the journey was, but I thought of a few such things: a day at work (where he would endure his day, and start the next one in the same way), or an adventure.

I didn’t quite get that far. The image of the hero staring into the distance, wind insisting upon his attention and denied… that trapped my mind’s eye. I wanted to be that guy, no matter what he was about to endure (which was, in the end, oblivion; he didn’t even get a name.)

And that’s the sad part of the statement. I almost wrote a story. I actually went through the beginnings of the story; I had a protagonist, I had a location (in the western United States, somewhere in the Great Plains), I had the beginning, I had motion, I had the end, I had something actually visualizable… and it flickered and died.

The image remains, but nothing else. It’s really the sequence of the beginning of creation that matters now, not the story itself, and that’s rather sad.

This story is an almost-was, something that blinked in and out of existence, wore out its potential in a single moment and disappeared.

I do that a lot; I imagine fragments of song, of prose, of poetry, of moments and story… and I think “You know, I should write that down, so I can migrate it into a river of those other moments alongside which it lives and build something worthwhile.” (And yes, I do think that way.)

It’s particularly poignant for me because the visualization was actually fairly rare for me. Usually, my protagonists are Everyman, usually assigned a gender and a rough idea of age but little more. I don’t really describe my characters much; they are defined by what they do and say, and not by how they look.

I think that’s a weakness in my writing. Stephen King wrote more description (and with more skill than I) in one paragraph, describing a rabbit in a cage on a table – the rabbit had a blue numeral eight on its back. You and I are both now visualizing more in common than what you would see in most of my writing; I just don’t describe all that much in my prose. I don’t know offhand how I would have described it, but I keep thinking that I would have an animal on a surface … with a blue numeral eight, and little more. What animal would be up to you.

So I mourn my tiny vignette a little, because it was actually evocative – nothing specific, of course, because it didn’t last long enough, but it was more than I normally think of when I write.

savage
February 13, 2016
Lifestyle
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Almost impossible to write today

I feel like writing more about the nature of persistence, because “persistence” is a quality I feel like I’m badly missing right now. I struggled a few days ago with the idea of writing, writing, writing despite my desire to take a day off, but I think today is actually the day where it’s the hardest.

I don’t know why, either. I actually had more time today to write; I actually thought of a few ideas that could have served as sparks about which to write. Some were actually halfway decent.

Every time I thought of something – “Gee, I should write that” – I just couldn’t muster the energy to actually sit down and write. I guess “energy” is not the right word – I had the energy, I just didn’t have the will to sit down and commit the time to actually writing the idea, trying to flesh it out beyond a seed of an idea.

I’m still there. I’m just writing because I have a streak going, and I don’t want to lose the streak. I keep track of it with a community of fellow writers, you know, and I hate to let them down – even figuratively – by breaking my own streak and commitment.

I could always lie, of course. I could record that I had written something, and just not include a url – most of the writers don’t publish daily like I do. But I do publish daily, and I don’t lie. Part of my commitment to the challenge is to publish every day, and publish the url, so I have the accountability to myself and to my fellow writers.

But it’s very hard. I almost chose to break the streak through ennui, which would have been honest but … I value that streak. I value the idea that I’m making it through. I value the idea that I might actually make my streak – even if my recorded streak isn’t as long as my actual streak. (I signed up for the community after I’d started writing every day, and I missed recording a day, even though I’d published.)

So I’m not happy with what I’m writing right now – it seems paltry and weak, uninspired and uninspiring. I’m sorry, whoever is reading this. I’m trying to reach deep within to forge a sense of will, such that I’m forcing myself to write, and as a result, what I’m writing is crap.

Can’t be helped. I just don’t think I have anything better in me right now. What I want to do is sleep; what I’m doing is sitting at a keyboard, trying to spit out words the best I can.

And I have seventy words left to go. I’m tempted to use a pulp writer’s trick, and use a word over and over again (and over and over again) to build up word counts. Is that cheating?

Probably.

savage
February 12, 2016
Lifestyle
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Just be stronger?

Someone I knew wrote an “inspirational message” on their whiteboard: “Just Be Stronger.” I have a hard time not writing a response to that on their whiteboard, but first, I need to process the concept.

It makes me angry, really. Not the sentiment itself – that actually makes me really sad for him, because I know why he wrote it. He wrote it out of a sense of desperation, of needing to be stronger, but not knowing exactly how.

So who am I angry at? (Or, more properly, “At whom am I angry?” — I am a writer, you know!)

I’m angry at a lot of things. In the end, the truth is, I’m angry at God.

I’m angry at God on behalf of this person who needs an answer to what he sees as an internal weakness. I’m angry at God on my own behalf, because I have my own need for answers, for help, for succor, and I don’t know from where such aid will come.

“Succor” means “relief, or aid.” It’s probably obvious in context, just in case you don’t know what the word means. I don’t think I should use the word, really, but I’m trying not to edit what I write as part of the “500 words challenge.”

Maybe it’s selfish to assume that everyone should have a helping hand available when they really need it. To me, it’s part of the social contract: you provide aid to those who need, and the implied reward is that when you need it, aid will be there for you, if it’s doable.

This isn’t a sort of cry for help that says “Hey, Santa, give me a Mercedes.” It’s a wail – a cry that says “Someone, give me shelter from this storm.” Shelter can be easy, even if the storm is allegorical. Shelter is something you can provide by coming alongside someone, by empathizing with them, by letting them know they’re not alone, by reaching out.

And thus: I’m angry at God. He created this world; He created this person who is now crying for His help more than mine. God’s got to be infinitely better at helping him than I could ever imagine being – why does He, in his knowledge and wisdom, leave this poor fellow spinning in the wind, despite his cries for help?

Why does He leave it to us, poor and broken instruments of His Will even at our best?

If I was going to write a response to “Just be stronger,” I think I’d write: “You can be stronger. Even better, we can be stronger together than we can ever be when we are apart. I understand. I am with you in the well. You are not alone, and you will never be alone, no matter how alone you might feel right now. I will always be there with you, and I will do my best to carry you when you struggle. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.”

savage
February 11, 2016
Lifestyle
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Removing the scale

One of the things about writing day after day (after day after day) is that it has a tendency to wear down the defenses that you build up in trying to protect yourself as you write.

A couple of days ago, I saw a “How It’s Made” show on hand-axes. The blanks were formed in molds, then quenched in oil, and then a bunch of them were thrown into a tumbler for a while. The narration said that this “wore down the scale,” the rough covering that blanching and the molding process built up on the axes. (Then they were polished, ground, fitted with handles, polished again, and a bunch of other things that are relevant to axes but not really to writing.)

That wearing off of the scaling on the axes really struck a nerve with me. That’s how I feel, writing daily – I’m generally going through the motions (“What do I write about? Okay, what do I write? Is it long enough?”) and over time I’m getting tired of writing about writing, coldly and unfeelingly – and I’m trying to dig deeper into myself, such that I’m writing more about things that might just even matter to someone… including me.

That constant grind is wearing down the scale.

You find it in music, too: improvisation training takes place in short bursts, day after day, where you listen to older work (but not your most recent attempt at improvisation), such that you end up enduring a lot of repetition, even though your purpose is to avoid repetition. After a while, just like in writing, you get tired of playing the same things, even if you’re trying not to, and you start digging deeper, and start really reaching, musically. That’s when you start actually learning to improvise, when you can start finding out who you are as a musician.

I’m finding out a little more about who I am, not only as a writer, but as a person. I find that I hide well; I’m perfectly happy to throw up smokescreens about what’s important to me, and yet I want to be known and appreciated despite the camouflage.

I’m a Christian, but I tend to focus on fairly minor (secular) things, with a Christian coloration on occasion; with that said, I can occasionally reach for even Christian relevance (and hopefully achieve it.)

I’m a writer, but my writing is usually to an audience through a wall. I don’t betray anything serious, although I show what’s real – it’s filtered to hide my identity and core values. In a way, what I write is an actor’s portrayal of me.

That’s a little sad. I would hope that as a writer, Christian, and person, I continue to grow – and some day, who knows? Maybe I’ll tear down the walls I’ve built around myself and, knowing, be known as well.

Here’s hoping.

savage
February 10, 2016
Lifestyle
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