Tangibility

The author hard at work in a different kind of office

In my affinity for all things old I have discovered a common thread: Most of the old things I like can also be described as substantial. They’re analog (i.e., non-digital). Maybe even traditional. Definitely physical; tangible. Since the world has become so virtual, I find myself longing for things that are real. Older cars, for instance. They don’t have bits of plastic and silicon in them. They’re 100% real. Somehow such a thing is more impressive to a man.

The quest for reality applies to a project I’ve been working on in my backyard, too. I used to be a part of a building company, see. It went under because we built an enormous Ishmael—that’s what I’m calling it—up in the Boise foothills in 2006-07. It’s still sitting empty and unfinished inside, waiting for a buyer. I don’t know who in their right mind would want to buy a 5,000 square foot log house in Robie Creek, but I do know about business failure (a post for another day). I also know a whole hell of a lot about how to build a house from footing to rafter, but in all that knowledge there’s precious little experience with the real old-school techniques. In other words, I know how to build with dimensional lumber, even logs, but not with bricks and mortar.

But the old is becoming new, at least to me. Hence my enthusiasm for my little backyard project. It all started when my wife’s dad popped over with a find from the Main Auction in Boise: an old fireplace insert. It was in good shape, but a little too ratty for an indoor install.

Now listen. I love my wife. She has vision. She didn’t know, setting out, how much work it would be to build what she wanted. When her imagination really got going though, and she started talking about an outdoor fireplace, the first thing I should have done was hit up the Costco for a family size pack of Motrin for the body aches that were coming for me. Instead I procrastinated until I broke ground, and the anti-inflammatory meds were an afterthought.

Anyway. I’m well into the middle of the beginning stages (!) of building a pretty nice little outdoor fireplace. I poured the slab, then started setting the cinder blocks that make the parapet around part of our little paver patio. That parapet is two blocks tall, and when the coping is finished, it’ll be a nice bench that ensconces our fireplace.

Building with bricks and mortar, though, is just another example of my quest to lay hold of something significant by mining history. I love, for instance, those massive heavy full color picture books at the library that feature architecture, whether it’s Roman arches or the Greek “golden section” (a ratio of 1 : 1.618), manifest in the Parthenon of Athens. Again, a post for another day. What fascinates me about building with bricks and mortar is that the tools and techniques really haven’t changed in several thousands of years. That’s quite unlike any other method of building that remains to us today. And I can’t help but feel, as I build, a distant but warm communion with the builders whose monumental works came (and sometimes went) before me.

Perspectives matter; they help to keep us anchored in what matters most. My little building project is a manifestation of the kind of real durability that lately I have been craving. When so few things last, it’s nice to know that I can create something that does.

An Hour with Alan Heathcock

I recently attended a reading of Volt, with Alan Heathcock, at the Boise library.

It may seem to most of you that I’m quite cultured and jet-set, experienced to the point of boredom with all the finer aspects of the literary culture, but that ain’t necessarily so. This event was the first of its kind that I have ever experienced, and it was enjoyably unique. I’ve played trumpet recitals and been a drummer (on more than one occasion), but this was completely different.

Though it wasn’t quite the same as the poetry reading scene from So I Married an Axe Murderer, it was satisfyingly highbrow. Mr. Heathcock’s reading was a little like the above scene, but also a lot like listening to an old-time Midwestern preacher wax eloquent for a while on some illustrative anecdote. It’s really indescribable, how Heathcock sounds when he reads, but it’s good. More of a performance than a reading, per se. He’s from Chicago, after all, a place from which both sides of my family hail, and for at least a few generations, and Chicago ain’t for sissy la la types.

On to the material: Mr. Heathcock is one of us: he has struggled under the whip of the muse. She can be a harsh mistress, and Alan fully understands this, having written two attempted novels only to watch them fall “like a house of cards” toward the final stages. Therefore his methods have changed over the years, and he has been known to sit for hours before the keyboard imagining the details of the world he’s committing to paper, before a single keystroke is exercised. He calls this “imaginative preparation.”

Maybe that’s why, according to him, it took 12 years to write his latest short story, Volt. What little I was able to co-imagine at the reading certainly seems to be high grade, and worth the wait. Alan says that he’s “never not a writer.” I can relate to that. It is a conscious act for me to walk away from my storytelling; I get brainwaves at all hours about that one last niggling thing that needs my attention in the story I’m crafting, and it will send me no matter what to my notebook so that I can write it down. But why do we writers work so hard all the time? It can be summed up in another Heathcock nugget: “I think writing is an act of hope.” So that’s why.

I can’t recommend more heartily the work and the man, who, though we met only briefly, certainly seems to be one of the good guys, a quality individual who is a genuine part of the community of writers, of people here in Boise. As Vincent Zandri has said, “Boise is the new Paris.” That very well may just be so, but time will tell. With the talent cropping up around here, I think our chances are good.

"Writing" by Talking

Writing with voice recognition software?

How could that be called writing, first off; I know. But it’s been an intriguing prospect for me for many years. It’s probably been that way for me because I didn’t pay much attention to Mrs. What’s-her-face in keyboard class in junior high. That’s the IBM Selectric keyboard as opposed to the Korg or Steinway varieties, to be clear. Anyway, typing is not my strong point. I’ve managed to get this far by using two or three fingers on each hand, and going back to the proper method would be quite painful.

All this to say that I’ve been waiting, pretty much ever since the time I got my first digital watch (as a reward for winning a T-ball game at eight or nine), to command my computer a la James T. Kirk: with my voice and not my clumsiness.

Enter the Dragon. Nuance’s Dragon Naturally Speaking, that is. This software is in a class of its own, really, as there don’t seem to be many competitors out there. According to the company’s Web site, Dragon is 99% accurate “right out of the box,” and works with your iPhone or iPod as the microphone (eliminating the need for a sexretary to take dictation), or you can use it to input directly into Word and other MS Office applications, “turning talk into text.” That’s more exciting than an early Christmas morning in the Richie Rich household.

Since I’ve not yet tried this particular nugget of tech though (and since I‘m deeply suspicious and hateful of technology in general), I won’t presume to provide any kind of review on its functionality. I’m just speculating here—because if the ad copy hype is anywhere near accurate, the learning curve would be quite easy, methinks, and in no time at all I’d be turning out 10,000 words a day. This blog, for instance, would be done by now.

But that raises the ultimate question. What effect would this technology have on the creative process for writers? Don’t think I’ve not noticed that there are times when my fingers cannot keep up with my brain. There’ve been times that I’ve lost completely the train of thought I wanted to record on the page simply because of butterfingers. And after all, we writers are just storytellers anyway, and weren’t Homer and his ilk orators in the final analysis? Too, and obviously, one would not be able to use this kind of software in all the indie author’s usual haunts; the coffee shop, the library, the kitchen table with the children buzzing past making WW II bomber noises. But think of all the places it could be used, and quite effectively. Like in the car. On a walk, perhaps. At the gym? That would be brazen. You’d make no friends that way.

I don’t know if I would use Dragon—or even try to use Dragon—to write a novel. And obviously the editing process would involve a keyboard still. But for blogging? Short stories? Dragon might just be the ticket. They’ve even got a social media plugin; woo-hoo. Before the year is out, I’d like to give it a shot. I think, used properly, voice recognition software has the potential to increase efficiency for most of the things I do as a writer, and that means I’d better try it and find out if my hunch is right.

No Blog Today

There's no blog today because of summer vacation, outdoor fireplaces, cigars, rum, sleepless small children, and my body, which is no longer eighteen. See you lovely people Wednesday.

The Passage, by Justin Cronin

I have a confession to make. This book just irritated me. No, scratch that: I hated it. Why? Because it had no purpose. Maybe I’m just too stupid to comprehend it. If I was, I wouldn’t know. But I waited for hundreds upon hundreds of pages for Cronin to get to it, to make some kind of point with this avalanche of words, and it never came. It was a huge disappointment to me, just the prototypical template for postmodern futility. I’m over all that bullshit; it’s so been done. Art is meant to have a purpose in the life of the beholder these days. Novels are meant to pose universal questions and then answer them. It’s like this story was written by a roll of the dice; it’s insufferably random and not even the title makes any sense at all.

I originally borrowed this book from the library quite a while ago, returning it after a few pages. Call me capricious. Call me an acquisitions editor; call me jaded and predisposed to judge a manuscript by its first three chapters. Or pages, as the case may be. In other words, it just didn’t grab me by the collar and make me beg for more. I don’t mind being manhandled by a book from time to time; in fact I rather enjoy it. I guess I should have stuck with my gut.

I read The Passage on the recommendation of my brother, a voracious reader in his own right. He’s more into Sci Fi and L. Ron Hubbard and the like, whereas I’m into dictionaries and literature. Anyway I trust his judgment and he said it was really good, so I acquiesced and took home with me the paperback that he lent.

And right off the bat I have to say this: there wasn’t a single time that I sat stupefied by some example of glorious prose, lowering the book in reflective semi-awe as I soaked in the spell of profundity that some authors are gifted enough to provide. This book didn’t deliver that to me. It’s just that the book happened, sort of. It just ambled along in front of me, and I followed along obediently behind its clumsy cow-like hindquarters, both expecting and hoping for more, at some point.

To add to my irritation, Cronin seems to be particularly fond of two words: “thrum” and “spangled.” He uses them quite often, veering dangerously close to overuse. I’d think maybe twice each in a book of this size (enormous) would be sufficient, personally, but they kept popping up, like curious plants that are interesting the first couple of times they’re encountered, but eventually become annoying and are prime candidates for being rooted out. I would have expected a professor of English at a major university to have a better handle on it. That may sound harsh, but hello, wouldn’t we expect a petroleum engineer to be an expert in his field?

You know what else? Whenever I turned a corner in the book and started to get into the story again, a blaring phrase in passive voice would pop up and scare the bejeezus out of me—never mind the “virals” (the primary antagonists in the story). I mean, if the characters walk into a room that “appeared to be like a garage,” for instance, just tell it to me like it is! Tell me that they walked into a freakin garage! Not that it appeared to be like a garage. See how irritating that is? And wow, is this a long read. It just does…not…end.

Was I supposed to be scared? Okay, a few times I was, but that was when I was bedding down after spending the day reading it. Normal and passing. Given the subject matter, would I have liked to have been more scared? Well yeah. Yet again, it didn’t reach out and yank my chain. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and I know how these things are made, but the book wasn’t a thriller—not for me. It was a future-shock post-apocalyptic Mad Max-meets-Dracula kind of hybrid, and I wasn’t into it. Why? Because it’s not really original. It’s a rewarmed rehash of all kinds of stuff that’s already been done.

The world really didn’t need another vampire novel anyway, especially one this badly executed.

The Passage, with its innumerable faults, its many plotlines left adrift and wandering, and the mildly repugnant nature of its entirety, is nothing I can recommend to anyone. If this is the kind of stuff the Big Six are investing in, no wonder we're seeing the rise of the Indie Author/Publisher. 

Writing from Soundtracks and Other Oddities

I know all kinds of creative people. Writers are an interesting bunch because we have all kinds of ways we engage the process of our art. Some people like to sit down and crank out ten thousand words in a day. Others like to chip away at a novel in bites of three to four chapters. Some of us prefer procrastination, and whatever the case I’m sure I’ve been all three of these before.

But there’s one question about creative methods that really intrigues me because of the magnitude of the response usually given to the question…and that question is, “Do you write to music, and if so what?” That gets an undiluted reaction every time.

It’s usually an enthusiastic yes or a condescending no. Let’s explore those, shall we, because I’m both. Really.

First, the quiet-lover. I get this. I bought noise-cancelling earphones when I bought my laptop. I go to the public library to write quite often. And I have become an old fuddy-duddy apparently, because I give sternly crushing glares to the stupidly ignorant people who insist on having loud cell phone conversations in the fiction stacks. Sometimes I wonder what has happened to us as a nation, and then I remember: it’s the teachers’ unions, plus young skulls full of mush, plus an abandonment of Biblical truth that equals this, the youngest American generation. Ah, but I wore ridiculous clothing once myself, ‘tis true. ANYWAY. I sometimes like to write in dead-quiet environments. Rare as they have become. Especially since I have children of my own. Destruction, thy name is boy.

Second, the Stephenie Meyer. She famously writes to music. Muse is her muse. How quaint. I get that, too, because most of the work I did on Airel was to music; specifically movie soundtracks. One of them was Howard Shore’s brilliant score for The Lord of the Rings. Writing fight scenes with that kind of accompaniment, the imagery simply pours out in a torrent of words. Plus it's easier to write scenes that are supposed to be frightening when you've got appropriate music blasting in your ears, and there are some of those in Airel. I also stuck some Switchfoot songs on repeat all day, and more than once. The Hello Hurricane record (2009), if it would have been vinyl, would have been worn out on Sing it Out, Red Eyes, and Stitches, and quite a few of the more intimate moments between Airel and Michael received their treatments thanks to another song on that record, Yet. Still more musical inspiration helped me out on another book: The Marsburg Diary (coming soon). This music, however, came from another modern genius: John Williams, the man behind the music for movies like Indiana Jones and Star Wars. His score for Memoirs of a Geisha has been motivating my writing off and on for the better part of a year now.

So writing to music or writing to silence—as for me, I can do either. It just depends on my mooditude. If you’re a proponent of either camp, I’d encourage you to test the waters on the other side and see how things get on over there. I personally was amazed at how music greased the creative skids for me.

Independence and a Declaration

"Uncommon valor was a common virtue." ~ C.P. Nimitz at Iwo Jima

On this Independence Day it’s more than appropriate to define the word, because meaning is the foundation of sense.

Independence. n. The state or quality of being independent; absence of dependence; exemption from reliance on others, or control from them; self-subsistence or maintenance; direction of one’s own affairs without interference. ~Webster’s Unabridged (1890)

The entry above also includes a reference to our own Declaration of Independence: “The solemn declaration of the Congress of the United States of America on the 4^th of July, 1776, by which they formally renounced their subjection to the government of Great Britain.”

Such language resounds deep with the heart of those of us who see the evil that threatens our very lives even today, and at the hands of our own government. Who would have thought that we would capitulate to socialism, to dictatorial authoritarianism, to the backward idiocy of Keynesian policy in such a feeble and docile manner, like sheep: too dumb to know, too stupid to care, trodding underfoot the solemnity of that Declaration.

Today I make my own declaration, because I have seen more than enough: That the government under whose thumb we now scratch out our meager living is guilty. I level the charge that our American government has taken by force of law, by crooked and subversive means, and by crony conspiracy, our God-given right to “exemption from reliance on others,” our God-given right to “self-subsistence or maintenance and the direction of our own affairs without interference.” I declare that our government is guilty of these things and therefore has ceased in any way, long ago, to be a servant of the public—as was its original design. I therefore also declare that it is our God-given right as a free people to throw off the bonds that our own government has laid upon our necks by refusing to be pilloried by it any longer. I trust that those who do not know the definition of pillory will have the sense to look it up; it is indeed instructive.

One might ask, “how then do we go about throwing off these bonds?” I have one idea, and like the best inspirations, this one came to me in the course of a day’s work in the Idaho countryside. I think part of the solution to our many national and cultural problems can be found in a return to the economy of Madison, of Jefferson, of Washington. These were actual men; not the effeminate wraiths in man-costume we see paraded before us today. There was a time in America when we used to not be helpless—that which we needed, we made, or made do, or made do without. We used to produce things, not only consume them. And we used to barter these, the fruits of our labors, for goods or engage in the trade of skill. There was no contractual exchange of consideration (favors), but trade based on debits against equities for which no books can be kept, at least not by honest, forthright, sensible people. That’s how Washington lived; it’s how men in his day thought. Everyone pulled together for the good, for wherever their interests, skills and goods overlapped and became common: where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. They did it not by coercion, not under duress or for fear of punishment. They did it with joy, magnanimity, with no expectation of undue return. There was not some great scramble for riches and power, in other words.

Let me illustrate with an example. The day that provided me with the inspiration for today’s blog was spent not long ago in a small town in Idaho’s countryside, where neighbors are neighborly, and living day-to-day is a team effort, one that requires all hands to carry the load. One of my friend’s neighbors, Rick, was working on his irrigation pump; he maintains a large acreage and raises cattle. A fitting on the irrigation line had punctured from fatigue; a funnel-shaped housing that isn’t simply stocked on the shelves of the small local hardware store, about a 30 minute drive away. Another neighbor stopped by and lent a hand. He’s an expert welder. As the day wore on and the situation was assessed, he ended up welding two large steel plates over the fitting’s weakest areas, mending Rick’s pump, allowing it to be reinstalled on the irrigation system, saving Rick’s alfalfa fields from the hot dry Idaho sun. No money changed hands. No “favors” were performed or called in. It was simply two men helping one another as God had designed.

Let the IRS bear the burden of proof so that these men can be taxed on their industry—if such a thing is possible. I will only add that We the People are not required to volunteer to pay as much tax as possible, contrary to the opinion of our sitting Vice President, who views it as our “patriotic duty.” In fact it is our obligation to minimize the tax as much as legally possible, and there are U.S. Supreme Court decisions that say as much, which is further in keeping with our founding principles and traditions.

I was struck by the simple order of nature that day. Surrounded by mountains in a high rolling plain, we were outnumbered not by bureaucrats but by the dragonflies, the field mice, the raptors that hunt them. A man’s handshake is firm there, his smile is genuine, and self-interest couples unparadoxically with selflessness. A man takes care of his business, and when circumstance overwhelms, his neighbor steps up to the plate and gives that heavy mistress a good hard shove in the back. Hands join in strength to overcome obstacles. Work in the working season begins at sunup and doesn’t stop until sundown, because good hard work is what good men understand they need most. That’s the objective. The purpose of it is to grab hard to life and suck the marrow out. Start early, finish strong, invest well.

This Independence Day, remember. Do not let the toil endured, the risks taken, the grief borne, the blood shed, the work performed by those brave ones who have gone before us rise up in contempt against this generation in witness against her own laziness. Honor the America that was founded as a Union of independent States who formed a government that would provide for the common defense and the impartial regulation of interstate trade, and insist that that government today toe the line; force these “servants” to either serve or vacate the office they defile with the excrement of their works. America, we are more than we have become. It is time to rise up and declare it to be so, to throw off the bonds of our would-be masters and assert our God-given right to self-govern as We the People.