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Lazy, thoughtful, Labor Day

2007-09-05

Good morning Boys and Girls.

I'd planned on writing a post over the weekend teasing friend Kurt Maddox. I even gave him a heads up on the idea and he was a good enough sport about it to encourage me, saying he'd get a kick out of it.

I'd planned to start out by saying to him that I considered it a fact that in this world, no matter what, two and two are four. It's a given.

Rather than accepting my premise, he'd argue the point. In response to this assertion he'd write a overlong meandering reply taking issue with my statement citing everyone from Milton Friedman, Dr. Phil and, of course, Ayn Rand - complaining that as an objectivist, he's seen little proof of my contention being so other than that which he'd been taught by people with an ax to grind on the subject, but, that it was perfectly okay for two intelligent people to have divergent views on the subject, which, in turn, would drive me apoplectic with frustration.

Alas, once I got started, it wasn't turning out as funny as I'd hoped, perhaps because my mind was on other things. In the end, I concluded the only people who'd like it would be me and hopefully Kurt.

Another time.

I went away Monday for the day and gave myself some time to think. I'm really hoping my next book is a goody; a "worthy" book. I've been working out the story line in my head for months and I'm really looking forward to starting on it in earnest when the weather turns cold. I want to have the story so firmly ingrained in my brain by then that writing it becomes an exercise in retelling a story. I want to have so thoroughly thought through how my characters have been affected by what transpires along the way that it has become a vivid memory I can retell with empathy and warmth, and even though it will be entirely fictional, I want it to move the people who bother reading it.

Not asking for much am I?

I just want to get better.

I know I'm good at what I do for a living, even though I don't have all that much talent. Like so much in life, for me it's just been a matter of doing it over and over and over, and paying attention to what I've discovered along the way. Maybe that's how it is with writing too.

So I stopped by the house upon returning yesterday morning and flipped on the TV while I was changing my clothes to go to work. The last ten minutes of "Field of Dreams," was on. Ray was just refusing to sign over the farm for the last time, and he and his brother-in-law were arguing. When his daughter fell off the bleachers and Moonlight Graham - "Doc" - makes the choice to cross that foul line to help that little girl, I welled up. Not, this time, because of the story - hell, I know it so well I can speak most of the lines in that part of the movie along with the characters - but because I desperately want to write something that powerful and beautiful myself, even if it's just one page among hundreds, or thousands. Even, in fact, if it's the last thing I ever do.


Be good to everyone.

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Bishop\'s Fantasy? (2007-09-05)
It's obvious from what you've written here that you know how to put words on a page - words that convey what you're feeling. Good luck with that book!

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