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It’s the same dream, but it’s always different. I am back in the old house, the one where we lived before the war came and my father lost his job and we had to move north. I know, as I always know, that HE is here. He is here in the house with me. I can’t hear him, I never see him, I don’t want to see him, because I know what will happen if he finds me.
I wake up in my bed in the room we shared. I look around me in the darkness. I can see the three windows, filled with starlight and street lights. There is more light out there, on the shingles of the roof outside the windows, more light on the lawn that slopes away toward the valley. It is most dark inside the house, but this room isn’t the darkest.
Everything is there as we left it. The huge old radio …more
How open should an open mind be? What are the limits of tolerance and understanding, and what happens to those limits as our knowledge of the natural world grows?
Today I had lunch with an old friend—an intelligent woman in her late thirties, the executive director of a thriving arts organization. We met at a vegan Indian buffet. Since our last meeting had been at a vegetarian restaurant she’d picked, I asked her a few questions about her vegetarianism. She said she hadn’t eaten any meat or fish for 12 years. I admired her commitment. I told her that although I’m attracted to the environmental, social, and health benefits of vegetarianism, I enjoy eating a moderate amount of meat too much to make the complete change in eating habits.
Later, I asked what I thought was an innocent question: Is there anywhere in Houston where one can learn to practice meditation in an environment free of religious influences? …more
I wrote 1,211 words earlier today in the form of my typical daily free-writing exercise. I write stream of consciousness for a period of five minutes, timed by a “Meditation Timer” widget I downloaded from the somewhere in a Macintosh corner of the Internet. Then I stop and read what I’ve written, look for a “center of gravity,” and write for another five minutes. Then I read again and write again. At the end, I categorize the piece by date, form, and subject matter. Today’s free-writing exercise included text on the topics of irritability, frustration, money, noise, distractions, Baby Boomers, and “running around the world and playing” (among others).
After I categorize the exercise, I copy it into my writing Wiki, where I’ve collected and categorized 356 articles of one sort or another. Some day I will figure out what to do with all those words. Or not.
The free-writing exercises don’t produce material …more
Mel was my best friend during the summer we spent at Lake Barron. When people asked what “Mel” was short for, she liked to say “Melvin.” Sometimes she’d wait for a reaction, but sometimes she’d just say it and walk away. There was nothing about her that made “Melody” seem like a good fit.
Mel and I were horsing around in shallow water in her father’s leaky rowboat the first time I saw the Payton boys race by in their aluminum canoe. I stood staring. Mel waved a greeting, but neither of the boys acknowledged us. They glided past us in a matter of moments. I watched until they disappeared from sight around the point where the campground ended.
“Who was that?” I asked Mel. Her family had spent summers on the lake for four years, …more
- I will experiment with writing at several different times of day (in the same day), for several days in a row, mixing it up with an occasional day off, etc., to see whether there are some patterns and habits that work better than others.
- I will look for magazines and journals that publish the kind of things I like to write.
- I will develop a habit for working in several different forms and stages of creative production in parallel, keeping lots of balls in the air—stream-of-consciousness exercises, first drafts, editing and polishing, final drafts, brainstorming exercises, idea-mapping, creative play, etc., in short fiction, personal essay, memoir, flash fiction, a book-length project or two, etc.
- Topic: My writing day
- I will learn to work in noisy, public places (as a change of pace, not for the bulk of my work).
- Topic: My ideal place to write
- I will develop more one-on-one social contact with other writers.
- I will experiment in combining my everyday writing routine with travel.
- I will read with greater intentionality and more careful attention.
- I will also read for the joy of reading.
- I will make some income writing.
- I will win a writing contest.
- I will attend more readings by writers whose work I enjoy.
- I will subscribe to more periodicals that publish fiction.
- I will write on nights when I’m sure that I’m much too tired to write.
- Topic: Life in the suburbs
- When someone makes a suggestion about a text I’ve written, I will pay careful attention.
- I will go on a retreat to a beautiful place when I can write in a peaceful setting.
- I will write second (and third) drafts of some of the many first-draft pieces in my possession.
- I will open a separate checking account for my writing work.
- I will start a QuickBooks file to track the finances of my writing career.
- Topic: Imagination as the root of “intuition”
- I will return to the practice of keeping a reading list.
- Topic: The waterfall at Cade’s Cove, Tennessee
- I will schedule writing times and then honor them, even when presented with the tempting offer of a social outing. (But not every time.)
- I will explore more deeply the development of characters.
- I will experiment with unusual forms.
- I will write a six-word bio. (Or many of them.)
- I will idea-map on a more regular basis.
- I will seek out workshops on some specific areas of writing craft: characterization, writing dialog, etc.
- When I travel, I will keep travelogues. But I will try to tell a few interesting stories or observations instead of an exhaustive journal of the trip.
- I will figure out how to enable Gallery 2 software to make it easier to incorporate images into my blog.
- I will pursue the idea of using my blog as a form of postcard for my next big trip.
- Topic: Deception
I will refine a couple of pieces to read at the Spectrum Center Community Reading on April 13.- I will write a book to dedicate to Gika. (Guess who suggested this one.)
- Topic: The smell of the bathroom at Latina Café.
I will fire an irritating graphic-design client (or all of them).- Topic: Pasteleria
I will go to the beach.- Topic: The new cathedral in Houston
I will take a few days off from writing to reflect on having completed the 50/50 class.I will beat myself up about letting my writing habit lapse for a couple of weeks when I had been doing so well.- I will stop reading books about creativity.
- Topic: College roommates
- I will still think of myself as a creative person even if I’m not having a creative day.
- I will feel free to disregard writing advice that doesn’t make sense for my style and voice.
I will agonize over the last exercise, dragging it out for days and days and days.I will leave this exercise unfinished in the interest of getting on with writing.And then I thought of a few more things that ought to be on the list.
- I will put together the curriculum for a workshop on new technologies for writers.
- I will reinstitute the good filing habits that fell by the wayside when I started the 50/50 class.
- I will remain curious about ways to improve my writing practice.
- I will try to have lots of fun.
- I will get better at it.
Note: The assignment was to “make a list of fifty things that might come next for you as a writer.” I’ve been working on it on and off for the last 19 days. Enough!
The items marked with a “strikethrough” line have already been completed.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
The car bumps and shudders over broken pavement and rutted dirt. It makes a lot of turns. I try for a while to track our route, but I lose count after only a few minutes. I have no idea how long I was unconscious.
As I’m trying to piece together some kind of pattern in the few available clues, we make a turn uphill and onto a smoother road. The car picks up speed. Unless I was out for more than an hour, it seems likely that we’re on the Via Nacional, which means …more
“I picked up your shirts at the dry cleaners today,” she said.
“Which shirts?”
“The ones I took last week. Your favorite blue one was in there.”
“Which dry cleaner did you go to?”
“Across from the oil-change place.”
“The oil-change place on 15th?
“No, over by the school.
“Mm.”
“You’ll never guess who I ran into at Walgreen’s …more
I think I was half asleep. You know how sometimes you’re lying there, and you think you’re still awake, and then all of a sudden, you feel like you’re falling? And then something brings you up to wide awake again. You think, Was that my own voice? You know that feeling?
I had a weird sensation, not exactly like that, but close, and then I sat up and looked over at her pillow. I might have even called her name before everything came rushing back at me. She’s gone, oh God, oh jeez, goddamn, she’s gone. Get a grip, Mike, get it together. …more
I’m not ignoring Exercises #47 and #48. But #49 jumped to the head of the line and refused to let me write anything else until I’d worked on it.
The Fixer works mostly at night. The Fixer addresses his attention to problems that no one else has the time, the power, or the will to solve.
The Fixer knows who should and shouldn’t park in handicapped spaces. He lets the air out of a tire. In a hard case, the Fixer lets the air out of two tires.
The Fixer calls the police to report the noisy party that’s keeping you from sleeping on the night before your big presentation. He tells the dispatcher that he’s pretty sure they’re serving booze to teenagers over there. …more
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