A Work in Progress

I began reading my novel today. I only tackled a few chapters before I had to put it down and I came to the decision that I need to wait until after the holidays before I continue. There are a few things I can work on between now and then including a continuity chart for this piece of work and the series of short sci-fi pieces that I began in October that will be inter-locking works in much the same way I, Robot is. I always have plans to start submitting at least one off those stories as a stand alone piece. I really need to start building a publishing resume. But the big novel lives too close to my soul to tackle right now with the holidays coming up and work to be done to make our anticipated relocation back to the States this spring a smoother move than it would be without some pre-planning and a bit of elbow grease.

Today I read Stephen King's chaptering on editing in On Writing. He provides a first draft of the story 1408 and the edited version. It follows the Strunk rule of "omit needless words" quite well. I am a needless word person myself but I can be just as ruthless an omitter. I am certain that I can edit my novel but I am equally certain I am not quite up to the task emotionally. It would be a bit like cutting myself literally. That can wait. For a while anyway. But, some stories need to be told and mine has waited, not always patiently, and will only wait a while longer.

On Writing a Novel

I am currently zipping through Stephen King’s book about writing called On Writing. There are two things that make this unusual. The first being that I am zipping through it. Reading anything longer than a news paper article is rare for me these days. If a story runs more than two pages in Oprah:The Magazine, I shudder and steel myself for mental exertion. The second reason my reading of King’s book is unusual is that I generally speaking don’t care how other writers go about the business of writing. Perhaps I should, but I don’t. I write. Sometimes I share it. I like positive feedback. I am annoyed by constructive criticism but once I get past the annoyed part I do take it to heart and use the constructive parts. The reason it annoys me though is because it is rarely information I didn’t already know. I know when my writing isn’t working and having it pointed out to me just makes me crankier than I probably already was. But, I am enjoying the King book. It isn’t really about the process as much as it is about his journey and we all have our own journeys to make as writers. I found what he had to say about the writing of Carrie to be particularly interesting. He said it wasn’t a story that he connected with and that it was hard to write, but he thought it taught him a lot. Among other things it taught him that a writer should quit just because a piece was difficult emotionally or imaginatively. “Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when all it feels like is that you’re managing to shovel shit from a sitting position.” - (p.78 of On Writing by Stephen King).

I kinda feel like that right now with my novel. It has changed direction and style and format to the point where I think I will need to start again. Not toss what I have, but start at the beginning and work my way through to what is passing as the end right now. That is 223 pages worth of reading and revising and thinking and being frustrated. Because I am.

Rob printed off a copy of it for me at his office at work because we don’t have the printer set up in our home office yet. I have been pestering him for a printer since September because I really don’t like having him print things for me at work. Not because I am one of those people who worries overly about things like using the employer’s office supplies for personal business, and I know this makes me a terrible person in some circles, The reason I don’t want Rob printing things is because he will read them, and they are not ready to be read until I say they are ready and even then they might need more work in my opinion. So Rob printed my mess of a novel and asked me where the story was going. Did I know what I wanted to say? Well no actually, thanks for asking. The thing is that I am coming around slowly to the idea that my story is not about Julie the widow but about Julie the woman who watched her husband die. It’s about me in more ways than I am comfortable with and about people I know like family, friends, the men I met online last year in my quest to date again. It’s about chaos. It’s about loneliness. It’s about pain. And it’s about how all these things go on out of sight while people appear to be managing and surviving.

Stephen King is got it about right.

Trains

Why does it seem that the urgency with which one is attempting to get somewhere is directly proportional to the probability that one's way will be blocked by a train at a grade crossing? Today, for instance, I was on my way home at lunch and, having been delayed in a meeting, was a little later than usual. Sure enough, I had to waste more minutes that I didn't really have while a freight train made its lumbering way across the only road I could go.

I work at one of the sites owned by a major chemical manufacturer. Much of the chemical produced on site is shipped via train. And so, the site is virtually criss crossed with railroad tracks. And the more tardy you are in having to be someplace, the greater the likelihood that some train will be drawing across your path, making you even more late.

I hate trains. I understand their significance though. Both from an historical perspective and also in their efficiency for transporting modern day goods, materials and supplies. Yet, it seems that a little more forethought and planning could have been employed in laying out train tracks. It must seem pithy, but it's the little annoyances like this that crop up when one is distracted from the more pressing issues of the day, like global warming, climate change, peak oil, rampant pollution, GMO's, BSE, and the collapse of the world's fisheries.

I live in a little hamlet nestled in one corner of the crossing of two major rural roadways. A CPR track borders the hamlet, bisecting both the east-west and north-south roadways. There are traffic control signals at both crossings. The track at one time served to transport farmers' grain from the grain elevators that used to stand here. Now the trains that move over the track haul primarily the various chemicals and other hydrocarbon derivatives manufactured in the area. These trains go through at all hours of the day and night. The train drivers must blow the engine's whistle at each of the two grade crossings. The more sadistic of train drivers generally start the whistle at one end of town and don't let up until they're through the second crossing at the other end of town. Naturally, this is more likely to occur between the hours of midnight and five am.

I don't where I'm going with this. All I do know for sure is that when we pick out the place to build our next house, it will be a long ways away from any frigging train tracks.

Sesame Street circa 1969

I was probably not quite 6 years old when Sesame Street first aired on PBS. It was created for a specific audience, the inner-city four year old and if you look at the episodes from those first seasons you will notice a decidedly inner city setting, but one that was undoubtedly cleaner and more hopeful than the reality it was pseudo-mimicking. All I remember about the show were muppets and singing and adults who were never too busy or spoke to roughly, so imagine my surprise when I ran across an article today about the recent DVD release of those first episodes and the fact that they carry a warning sticker. Yes, you heard correctly. There is a disclaimer on these Sesame Street DVD’s cautioning parents about allowing their preschoolers to watch it. Apparently the simpler times that so many people refer to lovingly when talking about their childhood eras don’t include the years in which I was actually a child. Late 1960’s and on need not apply for “wonder years’ status after all it seems.

I was not a huge Sesame Street fan as I remember it. I preferred one of the Children’s Television Workshop’s next creations, The Electric Company a lot more. I was a devoted Captain Kangaroo fan. I can still recall the titles of some of the books he read like Mike and the Steam Shovel, Make Way for Ducklings (which I just read my own daughter the other night) and Caps for Sale (which I ran across one day at Barnes and Noble and bought - for myself). Sesame Street’s mission in the earliest days was to expose disadvantaged kids to the idea of life outside the city and instill in them the idea that learning was fun. While the teacher in me cringes at the latter (learning is not always fun but it is necessary), I feel that those early episodes are probably not the politically incorrect minefield of horror and potential psychological trauma that the warning label is meant to invoke. However, I probably won’t rush out and buy it either. Mainly because I doubt that my five year old would sit and watch it for long. She is, unfortunately or not depending on your old world views, like some many of her peers in that she is accustomed to CGIish characters and settings and the frenetic pace of today’s child-oriented productions. In short, she would probably find it boring. I don’t know if this is too bad or not. Bert and Ernie were two unrelated males lived in the basement of a dingy gray concrete building who shared the same bedroom. Cookie Monster was an unrepentant carbohydrate addict. Oscar was mean and morose and in desperate need of medicating and therapy. The grown-ups on the show often approached children who did not know them and offered them food and drink. The montages of rural life didn’t scream warnings about environmental decay via the toxicity of humanity but instead showed rather bland farm scenes that seem antique even for the time period. The running theme of being kind to your neighbors and helpful and learning without the aid of technology runs at odds with today’s neighborhoods of strangers and looking out for yourself and the idea that an education is complete if it isn’t chocked full of relevancy and head-splitting excitement.

On our recent trip to B.C. to visit Rob’s mother, she hauled out a video of old home movies that Rob had transferred from 8mm years ago. They were interesting for several reasons. First they gave me an opportunity to see all the new players in my life, my in-laws, as they were when they were young. It puts much of the current dynamics at work between them into a frame of reference. The tape also allowed me to learn more about Rob. But finally, it made me realize once again how this world is really about adults. It was built by us and for us, and children are, and have always been not much more than flesh and blood versions of vanity plates and the consequences of our adult needs. And I am not saying this makes all of us bad parents or that the majority of us don’t love our children. While I will never be totally convinced that everyone has the right to be a parent (the right, not the physical ability to breed), I think most of us are conscientious about our responsibilities. I do believe though that in our current efforts to child-proof the world, we are forgetting that children today are not more fragile than we ourselves were back in 1969. That glimpse into the inner city probably did me as much good as the pastoral scenes did those tenement dwelling preschoolers. Which is to say, a lot and that allowing our little ones today those same peeks into the past will probably not have much different of an impact.