Change, and change, and change again

Well, it's been too long.

That's about all there is to say about it: it's been far too long since I've updated here. To recap the past year or so: I lost my job at the end of July 2016, which gave me a five-month "break" from my daily routine, namely "find a new routine, where that routine is job-hunting." I have to admit, it was pretty bleak, and I was feeling very down on myself. We're all creatures of comfortable habits, and I certainly had grown comfortable to the point of complacency. But a new position in the new year set things aright for me -- a new environment, a new team, new skills -- everything I'd lacked, and for so long that I didn't even realize they were missing.

Unfortunately, that employer made some restructuring decisions within my new team, and not wanting to be caught off-guard twice in under a year, I built on the experience of the five-month misery and chose my own path this time. I left the new job, and started a new-new job. For someone that agonizes for  months over how to use gift certificates, finding, applying, and accepting a new position like this is positively breakneck. Don't tell anyone, but after literally decades of resistance, I might be learning to accept change and even uncertainty into my day, even when it means tamping down my natural introversion and general unease around humans. Amazing times indeed!

A post shared by Michael P. Clemens (@mpclemens) on Sep 30, 2017 at 10:07am PDT

One constant in all this flux, though, is the advancing of the year and the inevitability of November and NaNoWriMo. But this year, I'm even looking to shake up that routine a little bit. This year, I'm looking to break out of my self-imposed writing bubble. I'm banging the Nano drum at work, for example, saying "join me" instead of "please ignore the odd typing sounds." And I'm looking to attend the Night of Writing Dangerously this year, the fundraising write-a-thon held around the middle of the month by the NaNo organization. Logisitics and my own stick-in-the-mud-ness have always been my excuse, but I've outgrown the excuses. Actions are serving me better.

The other half of the attendance equation, of course, is the /raising funds/ portion, and I've even worked on my natural Midwestern resistance to asking for help to… ask for help. Or specifically, to ask for donations to NaNoWriMo, in the form of sponsoring me + rhino to attend. Here's my page for the event:

https://www.classy.org/fundraise?fcid=1128521

I have a lot of respect for the team behind NaNoWriMo, shaping what started as a kind of collective distributed flashmob and transforming it into a respected non-profit devoted to fostering writing and creativity, and teaching that Big Crazy Dreams aren't that unattainable after all. I truly do credit my years of participation for giving me the courage to change how I look at huge projects and to give me a mental mindset for chipping away at big problems. And I have made it a point to donate every year after that first wild ride. Is it coincidence that my donation years perfectly align with my Typewriter Brigade years? Of course not! Typing makes us kinder, more thoughtful, and (hopefully) more giving people. And that's a kind of change I have no trouble adapting to.

Unwrapping Ire, A Resolution for 2017

I always have trouble sleeping at this time of year. My long-suffering wife blames it on the very true fact that mentally I turn into a raving seven-year-old during the Christmas season (actual quote from me yesterday: "Why is there no Christmas music playing [in the living room]? How will Santa know we're ready for him?") It's anticipatory now, knowing what's waiting for my family under the tree and looking forward to the surprise, the laughter, and the inevitable meltdowns as we try to take our family through the motions one more time: the 6:00AM sharp commencement of activities enforced by the youngest child, the mandatory extra coffee and fresh cinnamon rolls required by the adults. This is life in a normal year.

Of course, 2016 has been far from a normal year.

With dread and anxiety, we're all hoping we can just make it through the few days we have left without some new bleak piece of news. I won't rehash all the terrible events of the year. I'm already sleepless, and there's no reason to get miserable before the sun has even risen. I'm sure you have no shortage of reasons to want to see the memory of 2016 dropped in a hole and buried as soon as possible. My more faithful friends say that this has been a year that Tests each of us, and I would not be surprised if that's the tone and tenor of the Christmas Eve service we'll be attending later today. But even they are struggling with the ongoing drumbeat of terrible things that happened this year, and which continue to happen. The horrible news and pictures from Aleppo leave us all haunted and feeling powerless, for example. Any cheer and seasonal joy we muster feels artificial and fruitless, honestly. This is the legacy of 2016 -- one ass-kicking after another, for those of us left who can still stand.

And here this gets political, especially United States-political. If you have the stomach for it, hear me out. Have some coffee and a cookie if it helps. I'll wait.

The political pendulum swings as always, and for a large number of American voters, we feel that we're now swinging in a very bad place, dangling over the very swamp infested with the worst sort of creatures. It's just One More Thing, and it's haunting and demoralizing. Social media drains directly into that swamp. The water's turned foul, and just keeps pouring in. It's easy to feel like you're doing something when you're fighting the current all day, and the echo chamber of outrage, dismay, and anxiety grows in sound and fury, if not significance. It's no accident that my nation chose a President-elect that can think only in easily digestable and resharable word-bites. This is where discourse has landed now. That haunted and powerless feeling is here at home, too. And this is what woke me up this morning. Not the promise of excitement in the next 24 hours, nor joy, nor breakfast with my loved ones -- the fear that we've all slipped into a place where everyone is yelling, and nothing is changing.

And then I realized the True Meaning of 2016. 2016 existed to Piss Us Off.

2016 showed us the frailty of life, the horror that man is still capable of in the name of "peace" and the throwback ugliness that still lies beneath the surface of voting populations of the world. And we have a choice, here, with about a week to go in the year. We can look to the turning of the calendar and pretend that all the terribleness is behind us and that 2017 cannot possibly be as terrible as 2016 -- and I admit, that's a high bar -- or we can be realistic, and realize that 2016 may have just been a warm-up for tough times ahead. Much as I'd like to believe it's the former, I'm steeling myself for the latter. I'm tapping into the despair of 2016 and planning to punch back in 2017, and I want to encourage you all to do the same.

IN 2017 I PLEDGE:

* To become a better-informed citizen by following local, state, and federal legislative activity
* To post my elected representatives numbers by every phone and to call, regularly
* To do the same with the office of the President
* Not to confuse "shares" and "likes" and "retweets" with direct action
* To donate blood as often as I can, and encourage others to do so

This year was terrible. Next year will probably be terrible, too. But I'm kicking back.

What do you pledge?

Pieces

So, my tenth Nano come and gone -- and quite a year it was, too. It reaffirmed my need to be team planner versus team pantser as I struggled to bring the two complementary story lines I had in my head together for a dance. But all was not lost, not at all: I uncovered details and backstory that had not even been hoped for in my pre-writing process, and amid all the rambling dialogue and word-padding, I've uncovered some potential bones for future work. I don't have a novel to show for the month, but I've got over 50,000 words spread across scenes and dialog that will be seeds for something bigger and better to come.

Now December's here, and I'm looking forward to really-and-truly having written every day of 2016. I'd like to say it's been easier as the year has gone on, but this has been a hell of a year to face with creativity. It's been anchoring and grounding, and more than a little therapeutic at times. And I've been doing it enough that the thought of "getting in my daily" is a sense of something I need to do instead of something I ought to do. It's become a vital piece in my life now, and I'm glad for the addition. Even if the output doesn't amount to anything, it's been good for me to work through. Fitting this year together has been like working a massive, at times frustrating jigsaw puzzle, and there have been points where I was afraid to look up to see all the work yet to do.

As always, I'm grateful for the madness that is the NaNoWriMo Typewriter Brigade, the collective crazies that insist on banging out their own creative pieces year after year, on manuals, electrics, wedges, or (shhh) AlphaSmarts. Literacy and creativity and the joy of making feels like it's in short supply this year, in a season of political divides, fear and doubt, accusations and blame. And more than a few creative minds were taken this year, and left holes in many of our hearts. It's been tough to spackle over all those cracks. Seeing the Brigade reform against all common sense is heartening.

I'm also glad for the relative normalcy of the typosphere, and its doged determination to keep growing despite all my shameful neglect. Social media seems to have turned largely into Antisocial Morass this year, so a cheery picture of a custom-painted Lettera or gleaming typebars or some truly dazzling typewriter art is a welcome smile. I'm glad we can all celebrate the little positive pieces of our lives, too. Thanks for being here, Typosphere, and if you're a Brigadier, too, thanks for jumping into the annual fray!

Time Lowers all Bars

By the anticipatory vibratings of my youngest child, I can only assume that Halloween is nigh, a night promising sugary riches in exchange for minor scares and occasional suburban mirages. (One year: a horse dressed as Pegasus being walked on a lead.) Finishing touches on costumes are being applied, reworked, and revamped. Pumpkins have been agonizingly rejected and selected, sliced and scooped, carved and positioned. Careful attention is being paid to playlists: blood-curdling sound effects before or after the Disneyland Haunted Mansion music, and how much Danny Elfman is too much? It's more logistics than most military manuevers. As a parent, I'm obligated to carry bags and flashlights and hoods when they get itchy, and masks when they are too hard to see through, and (very likely) tote umbrellas, too. My rate is one Reese's cup or mini Baby Ruth per block walked, payable at the stop sign at the corner. I think this is being more than reasonable. And sometime after we've all walked about two blocks too far, and the kids are cranky, and the parents' arms are tired, and at least half of the group needs a bathroom stop and/or coffee, we call it a night, say farewell, and close our eyes on October.

And wake to November.

Of course I'm NaNoing again this year, marking a decade of dubious novel-writing (or the writing of dubious novels.) I "planned" my first year on Halloween night, set off into November with high hopes, and came thisclose to a full crash and burn before the end of the month. I had high hopes and grand plans and good intentions, which was all but inviting Disaster and Doubt onto my laptop for thirty days. I had not then had the experience I have now: the knowledge of just how "rough" a rough draft can be, of the power of free writing, of both the pain and the pride of a good edit. Our family grew by a child, faced all the usual things young growing families face in a ten-year span, plus the outliers. I've learned to be more flexible in my personal life, less self-critical, more outgoing. I've tried to get back in touch with my creative side, and take better care of my professional side, too. And I don't know if I can lay all of that at NaNo's feet, but I put a lot of it there, for certain.

Facing a Big Scary Thing once a year has been like a booster shot for life. My family and I have faced Big Scary Things together in these ten years, things that we anticipated and things that we did not. I'm reminded of these when we pull the big costume bin out of storage every year and remember the Octobers past, the people our kids have been, and look to who they've become. I think about all our annual rituals and how they anchor us even when we're being tossed around, and I can appreciate the importance of keeping those rituals alive even when we'd Rather Not This Year. And this year especially, we've recited our mantra of This Too Shall Pass to help us keep perspective on what matters, and what we need to do to get by. Rarely will we ever get anything right on the first try, and rarely do we need to. A best effort is better than no effort at all, and it's possible to get through even the most overwhelming task if you sit down a little every day.

I'm way off on my usual planning routine this year, a fact I've bemoaned in the NaNo forums. Ten years ago I didn't think I needed to plan. Ten years later I believe it. The bar to winning NaNo is set very, very low if you think about it. It's just words, one after the other. It's not life. It's not even a walk down the block in the rain. But you can bet there's going to be candy waiting at the end.

Drafting Adrift

Just surfacing for air again, meeting my daily chore of writing, and feeling seven kinds of smug because despite having a very bad day yesterday -- or perhaps because of it -- I buckled down and reached the end of my 2011 NaNoWriMo draft: a long meandering through middle age, video games, love, life, death, religion, Las Vegas, and funnel cakes. It's kind of complex. It's also (surprise) kind of wordy, and it took me over a year and a quarter to finally get it into digital form, and another six months to get through that. That's the six months I just finished, and in that time there's been a few personal dramas and life changes. And maybe it's the old from-adversity-comes-strength maxim, but I still believe that some of this writing is the best I've done, at least on a micro scale. There's some turns of phrase in there that I like. I'm worried, though, that the entire mass is maybe less-than-readable. So that's the next draft. Get it all together in a file, and print/read/scrawl upon it, and try to get it in a steady state where I can ride out November.

November! It's closing in fast. I usually give up October to my pre-planning over-thinking super-outlining frenzy so NaNoWriMo can happen relatively smoothly -- thirty days of assignments, in essence, with the option to pop the chute and write randomness if I start feeling rangy, or heed the Master Plan if I feel at sea. I want to get this draft in before the next draft blows through and is added to the stack. I'm not worried about it, though. Right now I'm cruising along on the high of semi-completion, riding in the wake of a lot of hard work. I've made the pledge to myself to Rhino Every Day, and that has been an anchor in these turbulent weeks. There have been days when I found very little encouraging to look forward to, but knowing that the writing was waiting -- that I owe myself that time -- at least put a consistent button on the days. Life has been blowing around pretty hard this summer, so it's been good to have a tether, even if the other end is fastened to funnel cakes and video games.

I'm also finding out what sort of writer I am, by at least better-defining what sort of writer I am not. There's a pretty good chance that this November's draft is going to veer sharply away from the magical realism underpinnings of this novel. I'm not sure I have enough imagination to keep up with everything that Real Life can dish out. I'm looking forward to it, even though I don't quite know the hows-and-whens of my writing schedule this year, or even if I'll be able to Brigade it. The social acceptability of a typewriter on a commuter train seems unlikely. But the Rhino doesn't care about Real Life, just the Writing Life. Real Life can go blow on the wind, carried away on endless drafts.

In Which Change is Experienced, Resisted, and Begrudgingly Embraced

SO...

This has been an interesting month, as in the old proverbial curse "may you live in interesting times."

Our family dynamic is shifting around, as my firstborn is now attending college, a reality that seems unreal, as it can't have been long since I graduated college and (mumble mumble counts on fingers) ah, yes. Well, it's a change, anyway. And I have explained this to my children endlessly in true Expository Dad Fashion, that as a parent, it is very difficult for me to separate the reality of the child/teenager/adult standing before me with the memories of this same person as a smaller child/toddler/newborn. It's as if all that time is compressed on top of their being, and I am unable to stop the temporal disconnect when I look at them (to wit: "where has the time gone," "I remember your first day of school like it was yesterday," etc.) This mental timehop is the reason that I call the children by the wrong name. That excuse is less believable when I call them by the dog's name.

And so that's changing. Letting go of the oldest one as he does his best to push away and define himself, while I unhelpfully respond by clinging all the harder. Why can't we stuff all those reality-genii back into the bottle? I demand a do-over! We're adapting to this change in our own ways (I choose denial.)

Personally, the bigger change for me is that I am right now between employers. This is a situation I haven't been in since... well, since the older one was starting school, over a decade ago. I've been feeling untethered and buffeted in these weeks, a balloon come undone into a stormy sky. There's more people depending on me, and the world has changed, and my field has changed, and old Mr. Imposter Syndrome comes a-whisperin' in my ear his little hurtful lies, like: the only thing that hasn't changed is me. Tiny stinging lies are the specialty of Mr. I.S., and they are extra sharp when you're already a little raw watching some young adult stride off to college with a small backpack while you're also seeing him skip off to kindergarten with a giant one.

Parents of school-age children, be warned: the school-Feels are deep and poignant. After their twelve-year slumber, they emerge like soppy emotional cicadas right up on your face. #UglyCry

I am not a believer of signs and portents, though numerous found pennies have crossed my path, and inspiring and courageous words are popping up right when I needed them most. Maybe I'm just more attuned now. Like our sleepy cicadas, I also feel that I've been dozing for years, and now I get to shed the skin and start over. It's a messy process, and I have to confess that more than once I've thought about retreating to the same familiar hole I've just come out of. But holes are dark and close and hard to move in. I'm out in the sun now, flexing my limbs and hardening my skin and even singing my own song. There's a new melody to it, one that I didn't realize it had before. It's louder than stinging lies.

And through all this change, I've found support in the likeliest place, though not the first place I would have turned. My son was there, though he's dealing with his own life changes, his own new job, and the scattering of his friends to all points. He was there for me, backing me up, and is seeing me off to my own new adventure.

So thanks, buddy, for everything you did, for everything you do. For the kid you were and the man you've become. And I'm sorry I keep calling you the dog's name.

Some things never change.

Recharging

Just got back from a week's "staycation" to celebrate my eldest child's graduation, mark a milestone wedding anniversary, and spend many days loafing, swimming, and not shaving. I highly recommend all of these activities whenever summer comes your way.



Editing continues, with only a day or two off now and again to scribble in a notebook or blog post to keep up the wave of daily writings. Things are about to get bad -- and then better -- for my characters, and at the moment they're struggling their way across the plains of the U.S., a long flat land and a high mountain range between them and their goals.



Last year at this time, I pledged I'd be rewriting, and I was. I took up AlphaSmart and pen and headphones and hid in the bedroom every evening and finally, finally typed the damnable thing in. I've been running through all that re-typing since February, even powering through in the evenings when I was too tired from celebrating or swimming, even when I should have been working instead of loafing (but loafing is key, too.)



Now I'm free again, free to enjoy my early summer mornings with a brisk walk before the heat, and before I go to work and simply dream of swimming and loafing. The book is about to get into a whole, weird, not-real sort of place, and as I've been taking and posting photos taken during these walks, the tone is getting more abstract and askew and orthogonal to reality. It's the state of mind I'm in right now. Charged up and heading places, looking for the mountains and to get to the other side.

Guilty Pleasure: The Casual Extermination of Mankind

I was, of course, an odd child, the kind that would be more likely to bring a book to a swimming pool in the summer than actual swimwear. (True story from when I happily sat under a tree devouring Robinson Crusoe while my siblings splashed and sunburned.) So maybe I was marked from the start to love H.G. Wells' classic The War of the Worlds. I've owned a couple of copies over the years, and read them until the literally fell to pieces -- one of them had particularly haunting line-illustrations of the infamous Martian war-tripods lighting a terrorized crowd aflame.

Good times.

I still have one copy, a cherished anthology given to me around age 11 or 12, a hardback edition bound in green leatherette with gilt-edged pages, collecting some of Wells' more famous stories, all of which were poor seconds to my favorite of the bunch. I read and re-read that story, which held the honor of coming very last in the volume. I'd make myself try to get through the other tales first, like suffering through over cooked broccoli to make the eventual dessert all the more sweet.

I don't know what it is about the story that triggered such admiration. (And here be spoilers, if it's possible to spoil a century-old tale.) Wells wasn't afraid to be lurid in his descriptions or brutal in his apocalyptic vision for the fate of mankind, and he certainly showed a wry understanding of the power of a twist ending long before The Twilight Zone made it fashionable. Wells was the master of the Gotcha ending before it became cool. I'm sure, as a boy, I enjoyed the visions of the wild marauding tripods ravaging over field and village, unleashing destruction at ever turn. Humans are merely fodder and food, obstacles to be eliminated, and its not through any heroism or brave deeds that mankind ultimately survives. It's not a story of bravery, or cleverness, or heroism coming to save the day. It's more a study of man at his worst, and how much luck is part of his survival. At least I hope it is.

Because honestly, I haven't picked up the story in ages. I still have that green-bound volume in place of honor on our "classics" bookshelf, wedged in among Alice and Frodo. The gilt edges are lost from the pages, and the bottoms are slightly waterlogged from being propped up on my stomach: poolside, of course. I'm a little afraid that it won't hold up. Another beloved childhood book did not, upon a recent re-read. Jules Verne's Mysterious Island also hit a sweet spot in my consciousness at the same time, and I read and re-read it many times. I remember being genuinely excited when both it and The Hobbit were handed to us as texts for a class. Both were favorites, but unlike Tolkien, Verne did not stand the test of time. I've since found Island to be rather fawning, aggravating, and generally dull. It's the opposite of War, as Clever Men solve Interesting Problems in a Clever Fashion. Rereading it as an adult was not time well-spent.

So, I'm hesitant. I'm nearing the end of my every-now-and-then re-read of The Lord of the Rings (yes, even the Appendices, because envy.) And there on the shelf, in the gap sits Mr. Wells. And for my birthday, I did treat myself to the Jeff Wayne musical version of War, which has all the earnestness, schmaltz, and disco guitars one should expect from a late 1970's concept album. I've been listening to it a lot, lately. Quite a lot. Enough that my co-workersare surely dreading the opening string-section chords, right before the wocka-chicka disco bassline kicks in. (And the chords are good. Made them my ringtone. I'm still an odd child at heart.) The bones of the story are present in the musical, and as an adult, I can see a lot of themes that either Wells or Wayne are throwing in there: colonialism, fear of the machine age, the mechanization and dehumanization of war. Descriptions of Londoners fleeing the invasion especially feels poignant as we see Syrian refugees fleeing their own horrors (and it is all side that are dropping the "cylinders.") It may have been a gripping and exciting poolside read as a child. Under the guitar solos and the Big Pop Song Number of the Wayne musical, it's still a dark and frightening story.

So there's my confession for tonight. Strange, pasty child with an overlarge book on his lap, both cheering and fearing the Martians, and wondering as a strange, pasty adult if they will still hold the same thrill. I listened to the musical yet again this morning as I worked my required co-op hours. At the pool.

Square

Like many social media spots, I'm hanging out as @mpclemens on Instagram if you long to see random abstract blown-out tilt-shift carefully staged snaps of my breakfast cereal, or whatever one is supposed to Instragramify.

Frog It

For reasons largely chemical -- having my pupils dilated for an eye exam -- I'm unable to tackle my nightly writing assignment, since I'm unable to handle any sort of related reading. So far, I have managed to be a nuisance around the house by badly loading the dishwasher and not being trusted to cook dinner for the kids, since I can't actually read the controls on the oven, and thus I've been banished to the far reaches of the house where I can sit in semi-darkness and not harm myself or others or pose a fire hazard to anyone.

So I'm going to ramble here, and talk about knitting.

I learned around fifteen years ago or so, when my then-only child was in preschool: I vaguely remember one of my very first projects was a slightly lumpen and uneven toy bear for one of his classmates who was about to become a big brother. My wife taught me to knit, and I love her dearly, but she and I are of very different mindsets to life, and knitting is one of those things that, if you must be taught by someone, should be taught by someone who thinks like you do, or who you have the proper amount of respect/fear for (a dear old grandmother is perfect.) My wife's lessons, no matter how often she repeated them, did not take, leaving me to my own devices in the pre YouTube days to puzzle it through from diagrams and books, and to finally wind up getting it right in the "Continental" style. Did you know there's more than one style? I didn't, but I learned it the opposite way that I was taught. She knits "English," which basically means that she uses one hand to manage the loose yarn and I use the opposite hand. Luckily, we're both right-handed, or chances are I'd still be learning. Continental is, from personal experience, unusual among the few knitters I've met in my area, and a male knitting is even rarer still, though I did strike up a very pleasant conversation with a gentleman about how he and his siblings had all learned as children, and were put to work by their mother making socks for themselves during the winter months. Having children of my own who tend to come undone during winter, I see this as exceptionally good parenting. Anyhow, those first few attempts at making anything other than odd lumpen animals, or slightly crooked socks (I tried) or overlarge hats were not wild successes. And although it's not really any more difficult than tying a shoe -- it's practically the same motion, in fact -- you're still doing it with a pair of sharp pointy tools and about a million times in a row.

There's three aspects of knitting that make it pleasant, though, and more pleasant than tying endless shoes. First is setting the expectations appropriately. I have little desire to make myself a nice complicated anything, and certainly less desire to impose such a project on another person. Sweaters are involved. Even proper socks are a hassle -- turning the heel, ugh ugh ugh -- but scarves are super easy, and baby blankets are just scarves without boundaries. I do a pretty brisk business in churning out baby shower gifts for my coworkers thanks to the innate simplicity of the rectangular form.

Second, it's very soothing. Once you get past the agony of actually learning the motions and the silly mnemonic rhymes to do them in the right order ("through the fence, catch the sheep, back we go, off you leap") and you learn your knits from your purls, it's possible to become a veritable fibre-slinging machine. When I had a longer commute, I'd work on the train, and provided that someone in my office is expecting, I can be seen hauling a black bag (manly) of fuzzy pink yarn (less manly) to my kids' soccer games, or pulling it out in front of our nightly murder-mystery TV, or whenever. It's easy, almost enough that you don't need to look at your work after a while. You can feel it -- you learn to know when you've placed the needle wrong and can fix it nearly automatically. I doubt I would have believed this all those years ago when my wife was patiently and fruitlessly trying to teach me how to Catch The Sheep. It's meditative, clicking the needles and handling the yarn and feeling the piece grow beneath your fingers. I've heard it releases serotonin even, one of the brain's built in "happy chemicals." I can believe it. The temptation to stay up late to knit just One More Row... well, it's kind of a buzz, actually. A socially-acceptable grandmotherly buzz, but a buzz nonetheless.

Third and finally, though, is overcoming one's fear of frogs. Or of "frogging" one's work by ripping it out when it's beyond repair or just not working. Frogging a piece can be traumatic, especially if you're really invested in it -- like a sweater or some infernally complex sock, and you may be tempted to just forge on ahead, or bargain with yourself to rip back just a little bit, just a few rows. Since I'm in the realm of rectangles, ripping out is not such a big deal. When you take as much pleasure in the pulling-apart of bad piece as you do in the putting-together of a good one -- well, that's supposedly when you've Leveled Up at knitting. That you can embrace the creation and destruction as integral parts of the piece... or something. It can be an infernal pain (pro tip: never attempt to rip out boucle) but it is a literal unwinding and remaking, too. A fresh start, with lessons learned from the last attempt. Taking a new approach to the summit. Insert your own metaphor here -- it's a do-over, and with the added benefit of wallowing in more happybrain chemistry.

So I'm in the middle of a piece now, a pen wrap for myself, and I just ripped it out for the fifth time in a row. I'm working without a pattern, without a plan, just a picture in my head of what the end product should look like and feel like, and I'm far too lazy to make a small sample swatch and do all the math and figure out how it should count out. I'm leaping in, something sharp and poky in both hands. It's taking shape again, and I think it might be right this time. And like the other creative endeavors I've worked on over the last fifteen plus years, it's teaching me more about making mistakes, and trusting instincts, and being brutal about editing (and starting over) and working through process along the way to a finished product.

I'm a computer programmer by hobby originally and by trade later, and there's very much an immediacy and a correctness to that sort of creation -- errors are reported quickly, and results are true/false without a lot of unpleasant nebulousness in the middle. Knitting -- and writing, and typing, and music, and carpentry -- is not like that, thank goodness, and although I'm not sure I'm good at it, I'm not terrible, either. And when I am, I'm happy to haul it off to the frog pond and rip it, rip it, rip it.

Focus

The problem with long-languishing projects left on the shelf is that eventually you need to face them. Lately I've gotten the notion to return to the old Kodak Autographic camera I picked up ages and ages ago, with the grand ambition of resurrecting it somehow. Here it is, sans bellows (see below) and with the lens board retracted.



Refitting it to take modern 120 film, for example, instead of the long-defunct 122 roll film format. Replace the disintegrating bellows. And, like so many of my good intentions, the scope of the work staggered me. The "to do" list looks like:

1. Remove lens and clean shutter
2. Remove and replace bellows
3. Acquire old 122 spools, somehow fit to 120 spools
4. Hope to the spirit of George Eastman that the camera is still light-tight
5. Take photos!

1. Remove lens and clean shutter

Doable enough, thanks to directions from the Net. Hey presto!




And you may remember "clean shutter" from a long-ago post. Here's the insides, if you want to marvel at it like I do:



Progress: COMPLETED

2. Remove and replace bellows

Removal, check:



Not surprisingly, Kodak didn't want you to remove the bellows from these cameras. Think iPhone battery, but in the 1920s.

These are were riveted into a metal plate around the lens, and are were held in place near the film by a set of menacing looking metal tabs. Oh, and they're so old and dry that they are literally crumbling.

Replacement is simple! First, build a time machine...

The collective wisdom of the Net shows DIY bellows made from leather, or light-blocking curtain fabric, or black Bristol board and duct tape. There's a lot of measuring, evidently. And creasing. And folding. And maybe even a bit of math.

Progress: FULL OF GOOD INTENTIONS IF NOT ACTUAL PROGRESS

3. Acquire old 122 spools, somehow fit to 120 spools

One of the Typosphere's own solved this problem years ago, and far more elegantly than I would have. A trip to eBay for spools and the dollar store for some sacrificial screwdrivers would do it.

Progress: SHAMELESSLY COPY, BEING SURE TO CALL IT A "TRIBUTE"

4. Hope to the spirit of George Eastman that the camera is still light-tight

[Cue sound of needle scratching across a record]

Yeah, about that.

So, aside from the century(?) old bellows having seen far better days, some previous owner mishandled this camera and dropped it right on the front corner. Part of the carriage that slides the lens forward and back is simply gone. And the rangefinder mirrors are cracked and bent. And that's only what I can see.

Replacing the bellows properly looks like a project unto itself. And for a camera that's been traumatized already, that will resist my "upgrades"... well, you can see why this got shelved.

Progress: SHIFT TO PLAN "B"

---

Enter Plan B

Two things have me pulling the old Kodak and its part of the shelf again, working the shutter on the lens, looking at Bristol board, and pricing black cloth tape...

First, various people shooting by bodging antique or vintage camera lenses onto the front of their DSLR cameras. The results are rather dreamy and lovely to look at, and although the integrated shutter in this lens makes it far from suitable for re-use that way, it got me thinking about the marriage of old versus new.

Second, there's (no surprise) a very vibrant DIY camera movement out there. Joe Van Cleave's examples are lovely pieces of engineering and camera-making, especially his recent box/pinhole model, which got me thinking about old view cameras, to the point where I checked out a monster coffee table book from the library just to get more inspiration. And the one that's currently giving me the most hope, as in "hey I have all that stuff at home" is this Lego-and-paper-and-tape creation.

All of these examples are helping me attain something I so badly need: focus. Not getting bogged in particulars, and remembering that it doesn't take a ton of engineering to make an image.

So, the lens is off, the bellows are destined for the trash bin, and maybe, just maybe, one project will come off the shelf.

Every Day, Carried

Yes, this again. 'Tis the season to recycle.
NaNoWriMo 2015 is now officially a Fond Memory, despite a kind of struggling finish. This year's writing basically depleted the last major deposit of story ideas in the infamous brain dump box, started so many moons ago. I suspect the plot wasn't entirely ripe yet, despite all the planning and pre-planning and post-pre-planning that went into it. Frankly, it left me a bit wrung out, but come December 1st, I kept to the vow that I made way back this summer. I've been scribbling a bit each day, refilling the notebooks if not filling up index cards, and trying to get my brain back into the low-volume-but-not-no-volume mode of being creative. My fingers are starting to itch for a return to The Ballad of Congo Willy, my oft-started, oftener-aborted NaNo 2011 win that i was working on up through September. Maybe I'll have it done by the end of the year. That would be a good thing!

The daily writing is, quite frankly, harder than I thought. Fine with the collective noise and mayhem of November, but more difficult to manage in a solo setting -- sneaking in a page or two in the evening between dinner and the kids going to bed. But a funny thing happened sometime last week: hard as it is, the writing, once started, is getting easier. And more interestingly, I think, is that I'm finding myself thinking back, way back to my first Typewriter Brigade-fueled November. That novel may be ripe for a rewrite, too. Perhaps 2016 will be the year of the rewrite? That remains to be seen.

It will be seen largely offline, though, as I am slipping towards my end-of-year holidays, time with the kids and away from the computer, time to play with pens and paper and to keep the rhino fed through the rest of the year, and, muse-willing, into the next year, too.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays, everyone!

Easily Suede

Aside from the obnoxious wrinkle in the paper, I think it looks pretty good.



And it certainly cushioned the blows, too. And no punch-outs on my paper, either. Now we see how it does in the face of a 30-day marathon typing extravaganza.

Join the Club

In a way, I'm a bit sad.

I've been sticking with the Don't Break the Chain approach to revising one of my old drafts -- a book that optimistically combines love, sex, religion, drugs, death, magic, biodiesel and video games under the unlikely title of The Ballad of Congo Willy.[1] This was the product of NaNoWriMo for me in 2011, and I have attempted rewrites and restarts every few months since the keys cooled from the original draft, always fizzling out for one reason or another.[2] But I'm actually almost nearing the end of it now, three months into making myself spend some time with it every night. I can't say that it's actually good, but I know at least that it's improved from its previous form, shoved in a box on a shelf being ignored.

Inspiration was hard to come by for this one, and instead of getting itchy fingers at the approach of November this year -- time for a carnival o' writing! -- I'm feeling kind of... dry. Empty. Not used up, necessarily, but not as eager as in years past. A bit sad, even, because there's no way I'm not doing NaNo this November, and more than I'll allow myself a night away from C.W.. Writing even terrible fiction is such a sea change from my day job mucking around with databases and code,[3] and I enjoy the oddball camaraderie of the Typewriter Brigade and the general festival nature of NaNo. For someone who slips into his habits easily and stubbornly refuses to get out, a month of creative chaos is a welcome and necessary part of my life now.

But what to write about?

I know that I'm not a (seat of the) Pantser come November. I don't just sit down at the typewriter and bleed. I need at least a sketch of a character or two, and a situation to toss them into: the basics of an outline, which I adhere to or drift from over the course of the thirty days. This flawed exercise is my capital-p Process, such as it is. And usually I am coming into October with just exactly these basics, having scrawled them down in notebooks and index cards during the summer. But I've spent all that time this year rewriting and revising, not sowing. So just as I'm forcing myself to Get Creative Daily, Dammit, I'm going to cutover into Full Bore Planning Mode in October.

The Internet[4] attributes this quote to Jack London:

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

After three months of enforced hill-climbing, I completely agree. There are days when rewriting C.W. was mental agony, and days when I couldn't get out of the way of my fingers fast enough. And I know that book is far better[5] overall for the attention it's been paid this summer, especially when the going got tough. And now I'm looking at the hill that is November, and realizing that I need to climb this thing yet again, and the only way to do this is to grab hold of both sets of bootstraps[6] and go.

But it's friendlier with more.

So here's a challenge to you, dear reader. Who's with me? Who's willing to head out and club up some inspiration? Who needs to break out of their daily rut a bit and write four weeks of bad prose? "I have nothing to write about" isn't an excuse.

Who's going to join the club?

---

[1] I did say I was being optimistic.

[2] Just one reason: pure unadulterated slacking off. I've tapped a vein of the stuff and mine it all day long.

[3] All of which is flawless, of course.

[4] "The Internet is always right." -- Abraham Lincoln

[5] And much, much weirder. I'm happy with that, too.

[6] Not sure this is physically possible. Not worrying about that, either.

Two In, Two Out

The daily beast is getting fed. This is a good thing, generally. Two months of daily writing down, a scant two more months to go before NaNoWriMo begins. Muse willing, I hope to actually have a second draft done by then, fully digital, and ready for an editing pass and then farming out to beta readers. Even with school happening now with the kids, I'm able to at least hide for 15-30 minutes and keep my toes in, creatively-speaking.



November will happen regardless. There's no avoiding November.

The Chain Unbroken: Feeding the Daily Beast

So, it's been a month. How's it been going?

The daily writing is definitely a thing that's happening. Like NaNo, the first week was exhilarating, the second was suck-laden, and the third and final weeks have been feeling more downhill-ish. This is probably a good thing. I'm rewriting my 2011 NaNo draft, an effort that I've started and abandoned many times before. I've dug out the draft and have it standing by, but so far have not needed to refer to it. Somewhere along the trail of aborted rewrites, Things Changed Direction, and now the typescript is more of a ghost of Once Was than a skeleton of What Will Be. But it's still comforting to have around, totemic in a way, and of comforting heft.



So I'm not exactly at the top yet. In fact, I'm not sure I'm quite halfway. But I'm happy with one of the big decisions -- putting most of the book in first-person present tense -- and have come up with other things that I want to incorporate when this is finally in digital form, for at the moment, it exists on paper, in my head, and in various iterations of Chapters 1-Through-3 sprinkled across my hard drive and my email folders. The Inner Critic is loose, alas, since he only gets chained up during November, so he keeps whispering in my ear that This Is All Boring Tripe and What Gives You The Right and so on. I'm trying to rise above, mainly by putting my main characters through hell and/or making them more mentally unbalanced than originally drafted. I don't know if this is a healthy approach to deafening the self-criticism. It feels a bit sadistic. I'm not sure that I'm supposed to be enjoying that.

At the start of the month, I ran off a simple* 6-month calendar for myself to cross out. For July it looks like this:

     July 2015
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          X  X  X  X
 X  X  X  X  X  X  X
 X  X  X  X  X  X  X
 X  X  X  X  X  X  X
 X  X  X  X  X 31

The chain remains unbroken, but there's many more links to forge. Time to grab the AlphaSmart and a quiet corner** and hammer on some words.

---

* Thanks to the excellent cal program built-in to Linux and Mac OS X: cal 2015

** Ha ha three kids ha ha "quiet corner" ha ha ha

Short Ride

Spring sports are winding down, and I've decided to draw my own volunteer involvement to a close and let someone else take the reigns of this particular tornado. Events of last fall have given me a new desire to better enjoy the time I have, doing things that I like to do. That means parenting, of course, but also trying to get back into the creative mode, and shake off the stresses and self-made obligations that take away from that.

Life is a short ride on a fast machine... and like last year at this time, John Adams' compositions seem to be particularly apt to my frame of mind. This one is perhaps more joyful than the other work, and feels more like a conclusion that a collision. Enjoy, and I look forward to returning soon.

Pocket Pen Showdown: Space versus Sport

I've taken to carrying a few index cards and a small pen around all the time, to jot down the million or so to-do items, shopping lists, and "remember to talk to ..." reminders that flit across my brain at this time of year, at the confluence of youth sport and big-projects-at-work seasons. I am still deftly refusing to go the smart phone route, opting for the dumb-slab approach to keeping on track. Here's my dumb-slab:



An inexpensive "index card briefcase" that someone gave to me a few years ago, and a pair of pens: the blue one is a bullet-style Fisher Space Pen that I've had long enough that, by eBay convention, now gets to be called "vintage," and a gift-to-myself Kaweco Sport fountain pen. A few thoughts on each, with each. The scanner did a hash of the Space Pen with its boring black ink. It's actually far clearer in real life than this would indicate:



With the sports team, I've been doing a lot of check-writing and invoice-signing and general scribbling around, and for that, the Space Pen is unequaled. It's tiny, so I can stow it in my shirt pocket, and because of the pressurized ink cartridge and the magic ink, it's always ready. As a regular fountain pen user, I forget about the obligatory get-the-ink-flowing scribble that one must do with cheap stick ball pens (and not-so-cheap ones, too.) The Space Pen is always ready. I don't need to write upside down, or under water, or in space, but I do need to write things quickly, and in limited space, and on-the-go. Try filling out track meet paperwork with a fussy pen while escorting a line of 8-year-olds. NOT A GOOD IDEA.



The Kaweco was more of an indulgence buy, using a holiday gift card given to me for the always-dangerous enablers at Jet Pens. It was more of a "rounding-out-the-order" buy than filling a specific need, but it's proven itself a fine contender when I have a little more control over my writing environment. I'm still a pen snob, proudly so, and I have no issues fussing with nibs and inks and the whole post-versus-non-post agony. For the record: I'm on #TeamNonPost. Like the Space Pen, the sport is small enough to live in the bottom of a pocket, with no clip to snag. It's not so precious that you feel bad letting it knock around with your keys and wallet, and it's got little touches that make it a fine choice. Swappable nibs, for example, a twist-off cap cap with faceted sides to prevent it from rolling around. I'm a sucker for demonstrator pens, too. ("Look at the ink!")

No pen is perfect, though. The Space Pen -- or correctly, the knock-off refill I am using -- is prone to "ink boogers" around the ball after a period of disuse. I suspect this could be related to the heat of riding in a pants pocket, too. The Space Pen is always easily lost, given its slippery-fish finish. My own example went missing literally in two seconds -- I had it, and then suddenly I didn't. (My wife found it at last, as all excellent wives do for their klutzy husbands.) So upset was I that I finally bought another. Evidently Fisher has started putting a little grip section on the pen, and... I don't like it. Try looking at product shots on Jet Pens. I don't think of myself as sensitive to that sort of thing, but after growing used to the smooth grip of "my" pen, I found it hard to adjust. The new one is my daughter's now, and we'll she what she says.

The Sport I've found to be something of a dry-starter. It writes fine and fast once the ink gets moving, but there's a little refill-squeezing to get the ink down into the feed and the nib. I'm not sure what's going on here, as I'm using the refill that came with the pen. Luckily, ink mysteries are one of the things that fountain pen users secretly love to fuss over, so I'm not too bothered by it, not really. The cap doesn't have any air holes in it, so it's not drying out that I can notice. Kept on its side, it starts right away, but I can't guarantee that sort of storage, bouncing in a pocket or rubber-banded to a journal in a bag.

Finally, nether pen is a very graceful poster -- that is, sticking the cap on the non-writing end. The Space Pen is really so very tiny that you almost need to post the cap, unless you're gripping it in your fingertips, like starting a fire with a match. Which, incidentally, is pretty much how I write with it, keeping the cap in one hand and scribbling with my claw-fingers perched on the barrel. Apologies to all past teachers who tried to show me the One True Light of penmanship: it didn't take. On my Space pen, and on the new variant now in my daughter's care, the posted cap want to work itself off the end a bit, unless you really jam it on. And it's a polished surface trying to grip a polished brass (?) inner ring... so no dice. It tends to work loose no matter what I try. The Space Pen has a small rubber O-ring sealing off the halves of the main pen and helping the cap stay on a bit with friction. Something like that is needed when writing, in my opinion, though I don't know how it would be engineered.

The Sport has the advantage in the posting-the-cap department, I think. The facets bring the overall posted diameter up to something like a "real" pen, and I would imagine that the aluminum models (the "AL Sport") also get a bit of weight balance with the cap hanging out there. I personally think it looks like the skinny barrel is being swallowed whole by some large green worm, and just keep the cap gripped in my non-writing hand as well. Pro tip: keeping the cap is is a good way to get your pen back when it's borrowed briefly. I would not say "no" to a donated AL Sport just to make the comparison complete. Are you listening, Kaweco/Jet Pens? I can be bought, so very, very cheaply.

So, which pen is the winner? Currently, I'm giving the edge to the Space Pen. I was very distraught to lose it, in part because it was a gift, and in part because it's becoming my always-got-it pen, ready for any mundane job. The Sport is seeing less activity right now, but it's got a place in my writing arsenal, and certainly has a greater range of ink choices... and no boogers.

Full-On Loafing

I'm on vacation, enjoying the final hours of 2014, and being surprised that we're in the final hours of 2014. There's no Christmas quite like one spent with a young child in the house, and there's no holiday quite like one spent after a rather stressful and anxious year. This was the year of gaining perspective. Next year: a new outlook on life. I'll write more about that in the months to come.

Now I'm loafing around the house like a complete champion, wrapped in blankets, watching too much TV and eating too many cookies, playing Small World and only occasionally being productive by pulling out my AlphaSmart due to persistent goading from certain nameless parties. I'll be back in adult society next week and slumping around online again and generally making a nuisance of myself.

Stay comfy, Typosphere, according to the meteorological dictates of your hemisphere. Put your feet up and enjoy a refreshing warm or cold beverage of your choosing. Say farewell to 2014, and I'll see you in the new year.

One Third

We're one third of the way into November, and the dreaded "week two Sucks" of NaNoWriMoare chipping away at the Typewriter Brigade. It's hard enough to stay motivated to write every day, but week two is when the realization hits home of just how bad a fast-written first draft can be. I've reached the point where I drop missing words into sentences after the fact, and then re-start the sentence again. Pessimistically, I'd say my word count is over-inflated by a third. Edits are going to be brutal.

In a more coherent time (i.e., October) I got contacted by the NaNo organizers about the Typewriter Brigade. I'm quick to point out that unleashing this thing on the world was not my doing -- blame is still laid at the feet of the one they call "Duffy Moon." But I have wheedled myself into being an annoying cheerleader of sorts, in this great beast-without-a-head that is the annual running of the Brigade.

I have a slight problem with self-editing, and the NaNo blog had limited space (I guess? It's a tumblr, so... bit conservation.) Here's the hit piece as published on their blog and below follows the original replies I sent them, less one "secret" question for the next interviewee, and with some answers I cut down for space before submission.

Despite being largely camera-shy, I am happy with the way the lead photo came out -- a selfie, no less, with everybody's favorite tiny rhino pal. Black and white photos really accentuate gray hairs, don't they? Hmm. Added bonus: the uncropped photo of my writing space, which shows the utter blandness and mild grubbiness of our coat closet. Enjoy.

# # #




1. Tell us a little bit about the Typewriter Brigade and what makes it great. Tout it like crazy.

The Typewriter Brigade is a worldwide group of typewriter enthusiasts, smooshed together into a moderately dysfunctional noveling family. We offer advice on machine repairs and restoration, encourage impulse machine buying, and try to slog through a high-velocity month in low-technology style.

Occasionally we even get writing done.

2. What do you think is the best thing about noveling on a typewriter?

There are a lot of benefits, but the biggest one is no distractions. It's simply not possible for me to waste my writing time by fooling around on Twitter or the forums when I'm typing, and thank goodness. I have the attention span of a gnat.

Having no "Delete" key is a huge benefit, too, and because I'm such a poor typist, every typo equals a free word. The end-of-line bell is a wordcount cheerleader, and I've never managed to crash a typewriter or run low on battery.

3. What is your favorite typewriter model? Geek out a bit; we don't mind. We encourage it, in fact.

My personal favorite is the Olympia SM3, which is a portable typewriter from Germany built in the 1950s. It's built like a clock crossed with a tank, came in many colors, and is very stylish with lots of chrome. I own a few of these. My wife wishes I collected something smaller. For write-ins, I take a Smith-Corona Skyriter., which was designed to be portable enough to take with you on an airplane or use on your lap.

My main NaNoWriMo machine is a battleship-grey 1952 Royal KMG typewriter I call "the Beast." It's more work than using a computer keyboard, but I find it very satisfying, and once I find my typing rhythm, the words really flow. Since there's no delete key, every typo becomes a wordcount boost. This is a secret Brigade bonus.




4. Tell us a bit about where you, specifically, are writing from this year.

I'm in Pleasant Hill, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, just over the hills from the OLL. Go team East Bay!

The Beast and I set up in the family room, wedged behind the sofa and facing the coat closet. It's the most boring part of the house, and as far from the bedrooms as possible so I can get my writing in before the kids wake up and start demanding breakfast and rides to school and other selfishness.

5. Tell us about the novel you're writing this year, if you're writing one at all, in six words.

"Plucky orphans, nefarious villains, airship racing."

6. Introduce us to the NaNo Rhino!

He appeared one day when I said "NaNoWriMo" into speech-to-text software and the computer heard "Nano Rhino." He keeps hanging around, living in the typewriter, making plot suggestions and demanding strong coffee in tiny cups, gourmet chocolates, and frequent belly rubs.

Shockingly, many other Brigadiers have discovered Rhinos living in their typewriters, and pictures of them often show up in the forum. The Rhino is a combination good luck charm and grumpy muse. Nano Rhinos grow wings when their Wrimo caretaker reaches 50,000 words. They molt and come swaggering back every November wingless and demanding snacks.

7. What is the best piece of writing advice you've ever received?

It wasn't directed at me personally, but Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is one of the best books on writing that I've read. The essays on getting started and on first drafts are on my pre-NaNo reading list each year.

In general, I like reading advice from writers who sound a little neurotic and not entirely in control. This is the kind of help I can relate to.

8. What is one piece of advice you would give to a nervous novelist who may or may not be reading this post?

If you're not reading this post, go back and read this post! It's full of excellent words arranged in an entertaining manner.

If you are reading this post, my advice is: don't delete during November.

If you are unfortunately forced to use a computer for NaNoWriMo, remove the Delete key or glue a tack to it or do whatever it takes to not remove anything from your draft. Turn off the spell check and the grammar check and the Internet. Keep every sentence, especially the ones that you are sure are boring and useless and pointless.

I am often surprised to discover that the horrible, awful, terrible pages I wrote in November got much better when I was brave enough to read them again in December. You're too close to make good decisions in November: keep it all and revise later.

9. What is your weirdest writing experience?

I am usually a big planner, with outlines and index cards and plot figured out in advance. The weirdest moment for me -- and this happens every year -- is when my characters ignore all that hard work and do whatever they want to do, and change the story around. To a hardcore planner, this was very upsetting the first time it happened. What about the plan?! The outline?! Guys! Come back!

Now I've learned that this is normal, in a kind of hearing-voices-in-your-head way. It's a great feeling when the characters run things and I just copy it down. It's still weird, though, having them take over my brain.