Writing Journal - Learning From the Loyalty of Hired Goons

           

          

Always make room for Statham in your movie.

             I’ve slowed down my blog stuff because I am working on my magnum opus.  For me, anyway.  It is a book (or two) that I have to write and try to put out there in the world.  Things just stated clicking this week and I have that energy you feel right at the beginning of something special.  It’s not unlike that moment on the first day of an extended vacation.  You take a deep breath, realize you have the day off, and you can see the calendar in your mind with blanks across the page.  For the next week or so, the world is open to you and you are excited by the prospects of the almighty different ahead of you.

            Taking time to plot a novel is a strange process.  You have to make your characters do stuff that makes sense, but isn’t predictable, but also isn’t too unpredictable. For some reason I thought of bad stories.  If I’ve seen this plot move before, I reconsider it immediately.  Since I usually quit a shitty novel that doesn’t grab me or just pisses me off, I relied on bad movies for my story ideas.  That is, I put my ideas up against shit movies to make sure I’m not hacky or lame or wasting everyone’s time.

            I guess I should reveal I like many crappy movies. Mostly crappy action movies. They provide a thrill and if I can ignore the alarming plot holes and ridiculous dialogue I can have fun.  It’s a lot like 80’s rock.  If you just have fun with it, there is something there for you.  If you think too deeply about the message or the idiotic lyrics, you are in trouble.

            Intentionally bad movies, or schlock or Ed Wood or Birdemic is not really my thing. I’ve learned to accept there is entertainment value when you witness the Truly Awful, but I never really make the time for those. 

            Shooter.  Last Man Standing. The Rock. Con-Air. Statham movies you’ve never heard of. The 2^nd and 3^rd Die Hard’s. Revenge stories. Vengeance stories. Bruce Willis. Liam Neeson. Nic Cage. Cars. Explosions. Paper-thin plots. Gorgeous women. Over-the-top bad guys. Horrible accents.

            These are my Saturday afternoon movies.  If I’m desperate to kill a lazy day and one of them is on TV, I toss the remote aside and I’m good for an hour. It is the 12-year-old boy inside my head who longed for more GI Joe and Star Wars playtime.  I don’t yearn for a good cry. I want excitement.  With these movies, you get plenty, however you have a lot of baggage.  It is what I hope to avoid when I’m plotting my own story.

            The first thing that jumps out at you is the question of motivation.  All stories need it, but action films only rely on a few tried and true reasons for endangering one’s life.  Duty, revenge, and money.  Duty is for cop stories and a handful of military stories.  It keeps John McClain from saying “Fuck this” and leaving when terrorists show up.  Money is the motivation of a lot of villains.  One has to separate humanity from themselves to truly blow up half the world just for a nicer home and an updated wardrobe. I always think about the henchmen.  How dedicated would you be to be earning a paycheck at the lowest rung of a hired goon ladder?  Would you really take a shot at Jason Statham after you know he’s just leveled a room full of cronies?  No, you’d get the fuck out of there and change your drawers.

            That leaves vengeance.  My wife loves vengeance movies, as, I was surprised to discover, many women do.  Vengeance is interesting because it excuses just about everything in an effort to right a wrong.  It serves as a neat plot device because your character has a well of hate and pain and extinguishes it as the story progresses. Hopefully the pain is gone once the big bad is laid to waste.  That is rarely explored in these shitty movies.  Mostly it’s a ride into the sunset with a hot girl and a smoldering pile of asshole bad guy in the background.  Guitars. Credits.

           What do I hope to learn?  Well, the best possible outcome is capturing the fun of these movies without the embarrassment of their true validity as stories.  I could also get my head out of my ass and just like what I like without shame.  That will help with my day-to-day life.  But for the story, I’m looking for something a little more substantive. But not too much.

I Love Time Travel - Part 22 - Interstellar and Harry Potter's Wand

Let's all be grateful to this guy right here.

            Medium-sized spoilers ahead.

            What I know of quantum physics I learned from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s reboot of Cosmos last year.  I had Physics in high school, but I did not pay attention. I was too busy… not paying attention. Interstellar is a film about travelling through a black hole, and putting the theory of relativity through practical paces. There is no time travel per se, and what I gleaned from it was merely an observation about the entire idea of time travel.

            So, it is a bit of a tease that I wrote about this movie.  Sue me.

            McConaughey’s character, an astronaut on a mission to find another habitable planet, unexpectedly finds himself adrift through a black hole. During a sequence that is sure to break some brains, he observes his daughter from decades before. (I kinda saw this coming. ) It is time travel by observation only, and the slightest of interaction.  What Interstellar and the science behind black holes does is alter our perception of time.  It is, as mentioned it the film, another dimension; one that can be manipulated and bent. 

            That is the physics behind what we have theorized about the mechanics of time and gravity.  What is also understood is that there is no backwards.  There are no working theories behind travelling backward through time.  As of today, it is a concept.  An idea.  A fiction.

            That’s where I come in. 

            I’ve watched all of these movies and read a sizeable stack of books about time travel.  One thing is clear, the way in which time travel works is completely up to the writer.  Can you go back and kill Hitler or not? What happens when you come back?  Can you come back?  We don’t really know if it is anything more than an idea, so we can shape that idea to fit our narrative.  There is no wrong way to do it scientifically.  It only makes sense if we make some sense out of it for the reader.

            Harry Potter’s wand can shoot out spells, remember spells, have relationships with other wands, and, it knows exactly who is wielding it.  We know this because Jo Rowling said so.  Those are the physics of this magical stick that doesn’t exist. George Lucas created a laser beam that just stops in midair after about 3 feet.  It is a lightsaber, and we bought it.  I have to try and sell my version of disturbing space-time.

 I am attempting a story of my own.  It is big and it is made out of a few other projects that stumbled or ran out of steam.  I have to make a very big decision how the time travel will work. I get to do it.  I get to create time travel.  It is like creating a tiny system of governance for one small world. It has to be consistent, and obey the laws that I establish.  I get to also make the laws and decide when to disclose them. I am the creator!  My ego aside, I am hesitant, because it needs to be just right for the story I want to tell.

Loop time travel? Single string? Consciousness time travel won’t work.  A combination?  Can combinations work?

Every single idea of time travel is fraught with paradox. It is one of the reasons we can’t get our heads around it.  It is a zero in the denominator.  It is undefined. I have to make an excuse for the paradox, or accept that there is no way around it. I have to remember that this is fiction first; I’m not trying to prove my favorite flavor of travelling through time would actually work. 

So there was a method to the madness of writing all these blog things where I break down time travel stuff.  It’s all a bit of research.  

Walking Through an Oregon Neighborhood While Listening To Sly and the Family Stone

Spring reboots once again and I’m never ready for it.  Years of no transition between dry winters and deathly humid summers dulled my senses; I was color-blind. I try to start with the smells that drift in an out like waiters in a restaurant, each carrying their own aromas of blossoms, pine needles and the faint background of a farmer’s manure. There are too many to sort.

            I follow one to a tree with tiny buds and the beginnings of red leaves.  I curse myself every year for not know the names of trees.  I don’t know why it makes a difference, they are all still here every year, names or not, but I want to know all the same.  The tree stands near the street, shading a patch of grass that is surely a popular spot for dog walkers to stop and let their little guys mark some territory.  Up ahead there are a dozen trees of different varieties (Damn, it would be so cool if I knew what to call them!) The pines reach up the farthest, and the candy-corn shaped flat-leaved fellahs, some with rusty yellow, some with burgundy, and some with a deep plum shade keep them company.

            The sky cannot be ignored.  It is what my wife and I call “an Oregony day”.  The weather is cool, not cold and the sky is overcast.  When it lasts a week, it’s a bummer, but when it sneaks in and interrupts the sun, I welcome it.  To me it’s a giant blanket, tucking me in and loosening my shoulders.  These days are in balance with the sun, each one trying not to stay too long at the party. 

            I see a blue cardboard sign for a garage sale pinned to a telephone pole. “BABIES FOR SALE”.  Looking closer, they have intentionally made the rest of the print smaller.  What it actually reads is: “BABIES’ clothing FOR SALE”.  I appreciate the hell out of the writer and wish I had a few bucks on me to buy some of their crap.  I see a lot of that here.  Intentional dips into a creative pool, all for the collective enjoyment of the rest of the community.  I hear the nearby dogs bark and I move on.

            It seems that everyone here owns a dog.  I see my fair share of kitties and a handful of horses and pigs as well, but the dog is number one.  I am a dog person, as in I own one and the majority of dogdom just flat-out loves me.  Even these two yipping assholes that spend their lives in a backyard, who have barked at me 20 times a month for the last eight years, would love me if I hopped their fence and played with them.  Dogs live and breathe for love.  They pass the time with food and sniffing butts, but it is love they give and love they want in return.  It is an inescapably comfy energy.

            Oregon has changed me.  It changed me two or three times over.  I have seen my darkest lows and my sweetest highs in the same place, surrounded by all these gorgeous trees I can’t name.  We look for that sense of belonging in people our entire live, but we also try to find it on earth.  Many of us are not born or raised in the place that suits us.  There is no substitute for it.  You either feel it or you don’t.  I feel thankful to this place.  I want to thank you for letting me be myself.

            (Again.)

I Love Time Travel - Part 21 - The Flash - “Rogue Time”

Dude is fast.

           Lay off superhero fiction.  I’m tired of hearing the bitching.  Hollywood is only making movies and TV shows about people with capes and superpowers. Wah,wah, wah.  You know why?  There are two reasons:  They make zillions. The second reason is, for the most part, they are good.  They are just flat-out good now. The right people are making them, writing them, starring in them.  It is as if America had these characters sitting around for decades and we’ve just recently figured out a way to bring them to life and not be embarrassed by the results.  I, for one, can’t get enough of it.

            The Flash is in its first year on the previously unwatchable (save Arrow) network, the CW. By the end of the first episode, I knew it would work.  The show accomplished what so many movies in the past fail to do when you create a superhero world.  You create a fictional town with fictional problems, full of conflicts and villains and relationships.  You create superpowers and peril and secret identities.  You mix in some inner turmoil.  All of this is negated if you fail to nail down the tone.  The tone is everything.  The tone is the difference between a haunting and interesting Batman, and one with Bat-nipples and a car that looks like a giant dick. The wrong tone takes all the lore and throws it against wall to be laughed at and ridiculed.

            Barry Allen has superpowers, like so many other famous heroes.  But the character is known for being light-hearted and fun.  He is the class clown of the Justice League.  He has abilities that defy physics but he’s also sort of a goofball.  It maintains a balance of the potential danger of such a power with a likable guy who just wants to help people. The Flash got the tone just right.  Barry is a sweetie-pie who is also a nerd.  That’s all you have to know.  There is no brooding, no hidden darkness. He’s just a young guy trying to do the right thing.

            When the show began, the idea of Flash as a time traveler was planted early.  Barry’s mother was killed when mysterious strangers invaded his home when he was a boy.  They could not be identified because they were moving too fast.  It’s not too difficult to connect the time loop dots.  But in the most recent episode “Rogue Time”, we finally see the Flash take a trip backwards, albeit by accident, and have to deal with the consequences.

            I guess that’s what makes this episode unique in time travel lore.  Most of the time, when the past is altered to one’s benefit, the character learns a lesson about reconstructing a timeline. That’s fine. Certain events cannot be changed without repercussions; every change causes ripples, space-time continuum, etc.  “Rogue Time” was a little different.

            Barry tries to keep a tidal wave, unleashed by a weather-controlling bad guy, from destroying the city. He circles the beach at warp speed to create a something that will stop the something.  Because he reaches a certain speed, he zips back about 24 hours in time.  The Flash is right back at the beginning of the previous week’s episode.  He knows where the bad guy is and he figures he can stop all this mess from happening before it starts.  However, he learns that old time travel chestnut that time cannot be toyed with; that preventing one disaster may create another.  Barry makes the decision to alter time to change the city despite the consequences.  Of course, it sucks for the Flash.

            Instead of following Barry through his mess, the episode turns to his friend Cisco and what previously would never have happened if Barry had not changed things.  In fact, unbeknownst to Barry, Cisco was murdered for uncovering someone’s true identity.  The bulk of the story is now the events that fill the vacuum caused by Barry’s immediate disposal of the bad guy.  Cisco ends up in trouble, there is a Captain Cold sighting and Barry has to clean up a completely unrelated mess.

            Plus, the actions of the previous timeline led to love for Barry.  Iris, the woman he pines for, admits to Barry that she loves him.  Barry reveals he is the Flash, they kiss, and then…he tries to tackle a tidal wave.  In the new timeline, the drama never happens, but Barry assumes the feelings are still there.  He is wrong.  It is explained to him that emotions are not predictable; it could have been the events of the previous timeline that led to Iris professing her love.  Now, the feelings are still locked away.

            And you know what?  Barry has to deal with that shit.  There is NO resetting of the old timeline. That is what makes this episode kinda funky. The new timeline is life now.  He threw away the old one. Iris still isn’t into him, Cisco is alive, and Barry got a really shitty lesson about time travel.

            In time travel stories, there is always that moment characters decide meddling with time isn’t worth it and the DeLorean is inevitably run over by a train.  The Flash got that lesson, but to Barry, he’s stuck in a kinda crappy timeline.  His friend is alive (no one knows he was killed), but the love of his life thinks he’s kind of a creep now.  Plus, he has that loneliness of being the only one who knew what could have been. The worst part is, as far as speeding fast enough to travel through time, he is absolutely positive this is only the beginning.

My Anxiety Files – The Splinter in the Floor of My Downtime

             Apparently I am just not satisfied unless I address something that occurs in my brain that makes me appear to be an absolute nut bar. I’ve written about all manner of idiosyncrasies sparking around between my ears, from the impulse to always hurry, to my overthinking everything and squashing fun. I’m cool with that.  This is one that defies explanation; or at least is so mysterious and flat-out dumb that I have a hard time pinning down exactly what it is, or what it does to me.

            It is under the umbrella of my difficulty with free time.  I have always let anxiety or insecurity in even when it is time to relax or goof off.  When all my work is done, and it is now my turn to do what I want.  I can write or read, play a game, play guitar, take a nap; whatever.  I never know what I want, so having that choice wide open is a bit too much for my brain to handle.

            Here comes the strange part.  Whenever I do make a choice, there is a small part of my brain that has the most fucked-up criteria for deciding with what flavor of activity I engage. For a second, and usually only one second, my brain says Is this the thing you want to be associated with if you die right now?

            Yep.  You read that correctly.

            My brain actually has a list of movies, songs, settings and activities that are representative of me as a person.  If I am trying something new, watching a poor-quality Chinese action flick, or dipping into some old music that has sat in my collection for ten years, I get this ridiculous thought. For some insane reason, it sends a signal to me that this is not in that library of what I am, that the characteristics of this pastime would not jibe with who I really am.

            Yeah, I know.

            The only conclusion I can make to explain why this thought is even in my noggin is that it some type of protection against an embarrassing death scenario.  It’s some sort of Michael Hutchence/David Carradine deal, except with shitty movies and Hagar-era Van Halen replacing the belts and closet doors.

Yes. Gross.  Not denying it.

Whatever this is, be it fear or insecurity or just wacko bananas talk, it has affected me.  For years, I was so hesitant to try new things.  You name it, my brain had trouble associating with it.  My intellectual side had no use for this glitch and I had to step over it like splinters in a floorboard.  I like to read new books and listen to new music.  I don’t mind plays and arty-farty films. I also don’t mind taking a look back at old shit I used to love.  There is plenty of room in anyone’s mind for all of that input.  It will sort out what you like.  That’s in its job description.

So, if I have reasoned that it just silly to have a glitch in your brain that sorts out the input before you interact, on the sheer chance someone thinks you embrace it, then why does that thought come back?  Why is that splinter even in the floor at all?

Time. It has to be time.  It’s the only thing left.

My brain might be saying: Hey asshole, life is short, you don’t want to kill two hours with a movie you won’t like.  You don’t want your last minutes on earth to have a shitty soundtrack.  You don’t want to fritter and waste the hours that make up a dull day.

Again, the logic falls flat.  Whether you think life is long or life is short, you would like to fill it with memories and activities, and in your down time, you would like a smorgasbord of ideas and sounds and art and stories.  You can’t do that with the same old shit flashing in front of your eyes.  

              I tried to explain earlier, I do not have this figured out.  The point is, I have a minor, yet persistent stumbling block in my mind that tries to prevent me from acquiring new sights and sounds.  I do not know from whence it came, I do not thoroughly understand its reason for existence, and it is a pain in the ass to destroy.

Half-Assin' It Since '72

“No one lives their life doing all the things they say they should.”

I suck at everything.

Let me start again.

I think I suck at everything.  Just two minutes ago I realized I wasn’t going to exercise today, and I had even planned a time to go.  I don’t have a valid reason for not going, but I am a little beat after a long day and that excuse will just have to do this time.   I also want to start fleshing out my book idea, and those ideas are coming slow in the last two days.  I look around the house and I see no less than 20 projects I need to finish. I have a hole in my garage ceiling, kitchen remodeling is almost done, the yard is a mess, I have four books I’m reading at the same time, and I still have tax forms on my desk screaming at me about home much of a slob I am.

I know it takes some self-love to let this shit go.  I can do that now, even on crappy days.  And, I would never write an essay about how tough it is to get through the day and finish all your chores.  That’s for daytime TV and grocery checkout magazines.  The feeling I am describing is just not caring about what you’re doing.  It’s darker, more sinister and scarier.     

A lack of passion is that familiar signpost of depression.  The dark and heavy afghan of depression robs you of your will.  I can say that I am not fighting the beast right now.  However, a lifetime of living under its shadow has left me with some nasty habits. 

For most of my adult life, I have been an exemplary employee.  I am usually relied on to accomplish tasks on my own, and I usually have a decent rapport with the boss, owner, or corporate lackey in charge of my comings and goings.  I have had the adult responsibility of bringing home some kind of bacon since I was the wee age of 21.  Mouths to feed.  Mortgage to pay.  Hair to lose.

Inside my head, I was a giant pile of who-gives-a-fuck.  I did the work, showed up on time, was honest and dependable. But I never experienced one good day of work.  I just could not manufacture an ounce of pride. I could never buy into what the boss and the company were selling.  I’m not cool.  I am somehow broken.

So, I was a stand-up Joe at the job, but I was no go-getter. I kept my head down, sometimes literally,  and punched in and out on time. I can blame anxiety and depression and being a young dad, but the truth is I could not find a reason to excel.  I half-assed it all.  When you half-ass your 40 hour a week job, you can easily slip into half-assing your entire life. It becomes easy to quit things. It is so easy to let messes accumulate, stop caring about yourself, leave the house without deodorant.  It’s easy to cut corners and you forget what that sensation of a job well done is supposed to feel like.  I had a few of those sensations in my college classes.  It was nice.

I work for myself now.  I have a client, and I recently caught a little shit because my work was getting sloppy.  It’s fixable, and I’m sure I can right the ship.  In the past, this news would have sent me spiraling.  I hated when I screwed up at a job I couldn’t give two shits about.  From the outside, it makes perfect sense that I would screw up at a job where I had no focus. But, I would just feel like a super-loser; I couldn’t even correctly perform at a job I felt wasn’t worth my time. But I was at the job.  And this was my time as well as the company’s time. I couldn’t put that together.

There was no freak out after I heard from the client.  Which is good news. I also am nursing new ideas for a book, and things are taking shape.  I remember feeling passionate about the first novel I wrote, and how it was as if I carried a little backpack around with me; I could fill it with every dumb idea I came up with and I could sort it all out when I got home like Halloween candy. The key word is passionate, right?  I’ve never had a damn thing published and it irks the hell out of me.  There is a passion in my chest for this.  There is a fight.  It could be all ego and I’m doomed for another disappointment, and it is likely that I will fail, but I still have to do it.  That’s what passion does to you. 

None of those jobs ever ignited anything inside me.  They were a means to an end.  I judged myself and all the residual half-assing it caused by my failures at those jobs.  Jobs I didn’t like.  It is so very corny to repeat the notion that you have to find something you are passionate about.  Most people would like to make money at it.  Yeah, that would be sweet. But I’m willing to bet most of us will never make a nickel off of our passions, or at least not enough to retire on. But you still have to do it. Its passion...it’s kind of an asshole.

So I’m screwed.  This is my passion. Typing letters and symbols to express thoughts.  I love to do it and when I’m on a roll I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be.  Everything else, outside of my personal relationships, is basically a waste of my time.   

Except exercise.  Yes, I’ll go tomorrow.

Today. I Tried. To Slow....My Life Down

Well, they're definitely not in  a hurry...

Last year, I wrote about my internal clock and how it is set to maximum speed.  It is still a problem, and until I can tackle it effectively, I will still face the same problems, no matter how well I think I’m doing with my life, career, relationships, health and a dozen other things.  My instinct is to rush through everything, savoring nothing, and the result is, well, a friggin’ mess.

So I’m trying to slow my life down.  I learned an excellent maxim about work: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.  The more you take your time and complete the task carefully and deliberately, the less actual time it will take in the long run.  Fewer mistakes, less frustration.  Less hair loss.

I’ve been working on weight loss for a few months.  My medications, unfortunately prevent any quick outcome.  I will have to do this the old fashioned way.  More exercise, eating less and patience. And even that will not guarantee rewards.  I’ve accepted that. But, I have to actually eat slower, too, and that is proving to be quite the bitch.

We bought a new couch recently so it’s another good excuse to not wolf down anything in front of a TV.  We have a table with chairs, and that’s what it is there for.  So now, my distractions are gone.  My task now is to physically chew and swallow slower.  Holy crap.  Eating food, even good stuff you are happy to eat, is pretty boring when you chew it like a cow chews cud. Dinner is now an insurance seminar or an HR meeting.  When you have others around, at least some conversation can get you through it, but when you have to eat alone…it’s all you can do to not fall asleep in your salad greens.  Longer eating time equals feeling more full, so slower is better. But what a snooze.

Time perception itself is also a problem.  I have a job where I need to occasionally make appointments that require me to anticipate traffic and travel times.  From the outside , not a major issue.  But a life of anxiety and people-pleasing has made it a mortal sin to be late to anything.  It is the height of inconsideration.  In the real world, shit happens and people are late from time to time.  I was insistent when I started making these appointments that I would give them a specific time; a specific minute, when I would be there.  Later I learned is acceptable to give a window of three hours when you set the appointment! Three hours!  That’s a Lord of the Rings movie!  I certainly can slow my life down and cool my anxiety by giving a very fair and reasonable half-hour window.  Less stress, less hurrying.

I also have to think slower.  That is probably not the best way to describe it.  I have to organize my thoughts and be perfectly content with setting one string of thoughts down in favor for another.  I can simply say: No.  There are so many thoughts in our heads and we get overwhelmed.  You have to remember that these are just thoughts that take up no actual real estate.  They can only reside in the space we give them.  I have creative thoughts and I’m working, so I have to concentrate on work stuff now.  I’ll jot some notes down in a notebook and move on.  The same goes for the reverse.  I’m writing this junk, and I have work thoughts.  They’re not going anywhere. Make a note, and get back to the fun stuff.  You’d be amazed what you can control with the parade of invasive thoughts that march through your brain right before you fall asleep.  Jesus, why am I thinking of a game of Risk I played in 1987?  How did that get in there?  And why am I now breaking down my favorite songs in the REM catalogue?  If you need to sleep, practice saying No.  It’s not always effective, but it’s worth trying to extend that sense of slowing things down to bedtime.

The true reason I am looking at this now is that I want to try novel writing again.  I’ve been sitting on an idea and a handful of notes and unfinished chapters for a while, and I’ve just read a novel that got me excited about the long, arduous, painful, thankless, and mostly lonely art of writing long form.  To write a novel is so different from anything else.  It’s like working out.  You have to a little bit each day for a very long time and eventually you will have results.  It can’t be rushed or the process will suffer.  Everything must be slowed down.  The thinking, the planning, the organization.  But, again, why am I in a hurry in the first place?

This is a lifestyle change.  (You know, the hardest changes to make…) I talk fast, type fast, handwrite fast.  I wash the dishes fast and vacuum fast.  All of those things I usually perform at a piss-poor level.  I am so accustomed to rushing that doing the job well is just foreign.  Everything in life was just something to get through and endure.  It’s not Zen.  I’m not present for anything, whether the events are memorable or mundane.  It’s all a blur.

All I can control is what happens today.  Like writing this essay.  I did my best to take my time and the next one I will do a little better. 

Now I have to go sip my decaf like the Crawley’s sip afternoon tea.