Sleep Notes

My hair is far more sexy now.

Out of the great wisdom God has seen fit to dump upon me (oh dear, we can see where this is going already), I decided not long ago to open a file on my iPhone’s Notes app titled, “sleep notes.” The intent was to provide a way for me, the author, to jot random arresting thoughts as I hover on the fringes of sleep at night.

Some things are just too good to forget.

The problem is I forgot most of what I wrote about. I can’t blame me, either, because what I left for myself is pretty cryptic. Take the first note, for instance:

But you will be brought home with yr head in a sack.

I am wracking my brain to try to remember what that was all about. I’m pretty sure I had been listening to my audio Bible that night, somewhere in mid-Genesis. Life was rough in those times. We’re a bunch of pansies now. That’s what I get out of it. I should take better notes, I know, but you’ve got to admit I’m doing pretty good for a guy who’s writing while mostly asleep. Next.

Underwater ok w o scuba. Rooms that go forever. Something is wrong with my companion. Strangers walking by my son and take him big clang

I’m providing fodder to the psych machine, I know. Before everyone else has a crack at my subconscious, though, allow me to oblige with my own analysis: I can breathe underwater, but only in large rooms, and only if my buddy is completely deranged. If someone I don’t know tries to take my son whilst we’re walking, they will be destroyed by a massive falling steel girder. That is all. Next.

Dog your own grave without knowing it.

I like dogs. I like them when they belong to other people and I don’t have to live with them. I don’t like picking up poo out of the grass. I especially don’t like, and this has been well publicized, picking up poo out of my grass, especially since I do not own a dog, and I especially do not like it, Sam I am, when your dog is the cause of the poo in my grass. Therefore the meaning of this cryptic note, having set the stage for proper context, can be summed up with one word: dogicide. That is, if I catch your mangy walking shite factory doing the doo on my grass. I will throw rocks and not try to miss.

Of course I’m speaking metaphorically. Which brings us on to our final dreamland note:

Metaphorical plunger

I’m pretty sure I was thinking along the lines of a stopped up toilet. Perhaps what had clogged it was, let’s say, akin to “waste.” I really don’t know what I was thinking, but I can guess. And by the way, why does it always come down to potty jokes for me? Is it because I’m a man? Perhaps. If that’s true, and a man, any man, every man, can be summed up so cheaply and so easily, then all women—by extension—are vicious gossiping harpies. See, that’s not nice, is it ladies? DON’T JUDGE ME, THEN. I’m a man, and I have feelings too, and they’re in my heart, not somewhere else as has been rumored, FALSELY. Just because a man’s definition of romance is a little different than yours doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Okay. Uh. Where was I. Oh! Yes. The meaning of this dreamland note is this: I’m not taking any more of your crap, World. Yeah!

Oh, and one more thing: Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

How to Be a Good Writer, Part 2

Last week I posted the first in a series of blogs about how to be a good writer. I’d like to say thanks for sticking with me past the sheer presumptuousness of the very idea. And now that my anti-self-aggrandizement clause is out of the way, let’s get down to it.

In keeping with the template, I’ve come up with three more things good writers do all the time:

1. Write.
2. Write.
3. Write.

Point one: write. Keep notes, in other words. Again with the reference to Stephen King here, but good writers always have a notebook handy and that’s something I learned by reading his book, On Writing. You never know when your ideas will come. Well, scratch that. You know precisely when they’ll come. 5% of them will come at extremely inconvenient times, like when you’re driving on the freeway or in the shower scrubbing off the detritus of another sweaty day at the keyboard. The other 95% will come at the moment you are just drifting off to sleep. To minimize blazing fits of profanity, please at least keep your notebook on the nightstand. Try to make a habit of it. And don’t forget the pen. This is very important—writers should always have some way to record their ideas and keep their notes near at hand at all times. You may think, as I have done, that you’ll remember it in the morning. You won’t. Trust me.

Point two: write. Write articles. This is where the rubber begins to meet the road, folks. I read about this little bit of advice in an article (imagine that) on Helium, a great place to get exposure and get feedback. You can sign up to become a contributor there, or on sites like Factoidz or Examiner.com. Start a blog. Get it on a schedule and post at least twice per week. I’ve done all this. And the discipline of writing concisely, clearly, accurately and simultaneously threading in various keywords for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes will only help you in the long run.

And the long run perspective, by the way, is the one you’ll be wanting to adopt as your own. This is a little aside, but writers—or anyone, really—for the most part, do not make it big overnight. Sure, your life can change in a single day, but that normally only comes after years of hard work. So many of us newbies (a moniker I’m only now just beginning to outgrow) have this completely unrealistic attitude that something is owed to us. It doesn’t go well for anyone with that mindset. But I’ll get into that more next week.

Point three: write. Write stories. Now, I’m not recommending that you run off all half-cocked and dive into your magnum opus. I dabbled with that; it’s more work than it’s worth, really. Start off with a 5,000 word short story. Find a professional editor who will give you a read and give you some detailed feedback—you’ll probably pay them about $50-$100 for this, but the investment is well worth it. You might also want to look into joining a local writers’ group, where fellow writers meet perhaps once per month to read and critique their work, and read your stuff there. Your next short story might have a goal of 10,000 words, and you could do a novella, around 20-30,000 words, after that. You can even publish eBook versions of your (finely polished and edited) writing on Amazon while you’re busy working on the next project. It helps to earn rewards for all that work.

Next week I’ll share my thoughts on how to be a good writer a little more. We’ll be covering writing mechanics, plot and character development, and the all-important Attitude. Until then my friends, go forth and write boldly.