THE STORY SO FAR: PART 28

From my perspective, one of the great mysteries of writing is that I don’t really know how the process works. You would think I would know after writing most of my adult life, and starting my professional writing career – after various false starts – in 1986 – but I don’t. In fact, I don’t really know where many of my ideas come from. I can trace back certain influences, of course, and the origins of some specific scenes, but much of the rest is a mystery; and I guess that is part of the magic.

You do understand, I trust, that writing really is magic. As to what kind of magic, I guess that depends on what you write.

What I do know is that although I think a great deal about my characters, and what I am going to write, matters really only take off when I physically start to write. In fact, I have now reached the stage where the mere sight of a keyboard makes me want to write. In short, writing begets writing. Putting it another way, even if you don’t know what to write about, start writing anyway, and the thinking will follow.

Yes, I know that sounds bizarre, but it’s true.

I know there are numerous creative writing courses out there, some taught by some truly talented authors, but I remain convinced that the best way to learn to write is to write a great deal; and every day. By so doing you will bridge the gap between your brain and your fingers. In fact, sometimes I think the fingers teach the brain, not the other way round. That is not literally true, of course, but I have no doubt at all that the sheer physicality of writing interacts with one’s mind in ways we don’t fully understand.

I used not to believe in magic. My mother made it clear at a very early age that Santa Claus didn’t exist. I suspect this was part of a campaign to lower my expectations. She was on an allowance from my grandmother and funds were short. If there was no Santa, I could scarcely expect much of a Christmas present. When I told my fellow munchkins at the Sacred Heart Convent in Dublin’s Leeson Street, they all screamed; and their parents wanted to lynch my mother (and possibly me) . 

Now, at least where writing is concerned, I rather think I do believe in magic.

 

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 27

One of the problems of focusing on writing, to the degree that I have learned to do, is that one’s ability to cope with peripheral issues is diminished. I guess one could call this ‘Absent-minded professor syndrome’ or some such. I have tried to think of a more appropriate phrase regarding writers, but haven’t come up with anything stellar as yet.

But wait! Inspiration strikes! How about: ‘Absorbed author fog;’ or ‘The fog of fiction writing.’ Still not quite what I’m after, but you get the idea. My basic point is that focusing on one issue results in fogginess elsewhere.

Bur surely this is the age of multi-tasking? Actually, there is considerable research which indicates that the effectiveness of multi-tasking is an illusion; and that there is no substitute for fully focusing one specific task. Perhaps one can carry our heart surgery and tap dance, but I would prefer my surgeon to concentrate.

Personally, I believe being in the zone is worth the price, because a writer’s productivity, when focused, is enhanced dramatically. Nonetheless, there is a price, and it can be a damn nuisance.

This morning, I cleaned my computer – something I do pretty regularly – and, afterwards, found I could not connect to the internet. This evoked feelings akin to being marooned on a desert island. I now need to be plugged in to function (so much for rugged individualism). The War of The Worlds is over and – at least as far as I am concerned – the technological world has won. I’m not entirely happy with that, but I accept it. It is something of a Faustian bargain, but I currently hold to the view that the advantages, from this writer’s point of view, outweigh the disadvantages. The thought occurs to me that I may revise that opinion; but, so far, it holds.

You are probably ahead of me. Yes, my HP does have a touch key that controls access to the internet; and, yes my cleaning of the machine did turn it into the ‘Off’ position. When ‘On,’ the switch glows blue; when ‘Off’ the switch glows red. You would think I would have noticed such a thing, especially as this issue has occurred before.

Not a bit of it. I was focused entirely on what I was about to write.

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 26

My computer is only three years old, but seems to be dying on me. I feel I should place it in a box, dig a hole, and bury it after a short, tearful service. Or perhaps I should drive to the local crematorium. Personally, I am all in favor of cremation.

Actually, I am being overly dramatic. It’s not much that my computer is dying, but more that I’m outgrowing it. The machine, itself, is working just fine – it’s an HP Pavilion d3, by the way – but it can no longer cope with the way I have taught myself to operate. Simply put, by the time I have loaded up the various programs I interact with, and connect to the cloud in various ways, the darned thing runs out of threads and starts to freeze, scroll jerkily, and otherwise slow me up mightily. And yes, I have tried switching off just about everything I don’t need, and it is still not enough. And yes, I have upgraded my RAM to 8GBs (which seems quite adequate).

I find it ironic that my search for productivity has led me to this pretty pass. There was a time when I felt quite content to have WordPerfect up – just one program – up and running. Now, my list of absolutely vital programs seems to be expanding like Jack’s Beanstalk. Let me list the principle culprits.

• BROWSER – Google Chrome, typically with ten windows open.
• WORD-PROCESSOR – MS Word, typically with several windows open.
• DATABASE – Zotero
• DATABASE – Evernote
• BLOGGING SOFTWARE – Windows Live Writer
• CACHEMAN – So I can monitor resource usage in real time.
• SECURITY SOFTWARE – Norton Security Suite
• BACKUP SOFTWARE – Carbonite
• CLOUD SERVICES – SkyDrive
• HARD DRIVE MONITORING – Sentinel

Why two databases you may ask? Trust me, I have my reasons.

The good news is that I genuinely do work faster this way. Nonetheless, I am now faced with the formidable task of buying another computer, and then transferring all my work.

I’ll miss the HP. It has served me extremely well.

I’ll be getting emotional next.

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 25

Writing about archery recently made me wonder about the extent to which movies devalue skills; and whether this matters. I suspect it does, both because it raises expectations, and because people get put off when they realize how hard an activity, such as shooting a bow, actually is.

If there is one thing I have learned in life, albeit inadequately and a little late, it is that almost anything worth doing takes substantially longer, and requires more effort, than you would think. This is particularly the case when the professional makes the task look easy. ‘Easy,’ in real life, is ‘hard’ – and often extremely hard.

I well recall the first time I tried to throw a javelin. The weapon was well balanced, and felt comfortable in my hand, so I had no doubt at all I could achieve a reasonable distance. In actuality, I achieved about a third of what I had estimated, and my arm felt as if it had been pulled out of its socket.

I have been pondering the whole issue of media’s tendency to devalue demonstrated expertise - as opposed to the excessive respect we seem to give to paper qualifications. Essentially, the consequence has to be a distortion of of our ability to assess a situation, and that is never a good thing.

Does all of this apply to writing? Answering that one really is easy. Yes, it does. ‘Easy,’ in writing terms, is very hard indeed; and finishing is even harder. If you doubt me, go write a book or a screenplay, or even an entertaining letter. Fortunately, the whole process is not so tough on your shoulder sockets.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 24

I was fascinated with archery when I was a kid, probably because of Robin Hood movies. Actually, I can only recall one – starring Errol Flynn – but I know there were a number of medieval movies made, all of whom featured archers. And on top of that, there were historical novels such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s little known The White Company and Sir Nigel which, once again, featured the mighty prowess of Britain’s bowmen. One of Conan Doyle’s favorite themes in these stories was comparing the merits of the longbow and the cross-bow. He was, in fact, very fair to the cross-bow, but his favorite was undoubtedly the longbow.

Needless to say, when small, I made numerous bows – none of which were much good. Later, in my early teens, I tried the real thing, and was truly staggered at how hard it was to even draw the bow, let alone achieve a high degree of accuracy. It gave me a whole new perspective on the many years of hard work that must have gone into training an English archer. I have read that it took at least ten years to achieve the standard of competence one needed in combat, and I can well believe it. In fact, I think it highly likely that one needed a couple of decades, or more, to become really expert.

Sound like writing to me.

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 23

I have never formally learned editing; and perhaps it shows! I hope not. I like to think that that one doesn’t need to be officially credentialed for everything. And I note that having a qualification in writing does not necessarily mean you can write. True, you may know grammar and punctuation, and even have a large vocabulary, but such knowledge does not necessarily mean that you can construct an entertaining paragraph. A credential does not a writer make.

I hold to the view that all writing, even if formal and written for business purposes, needs to be entertaining. Why so? Well, people tune out if the writing is dull. I had better add that more than a few business people think I am utterly wrong in that regard. They think business is far too important to allow such elements as style and humor to get in the way. The military have much the same view.

The U.S. Army holds to the view that the best way to communicate is by way of Powerpoint; and a not insignificant percentage of the senior fighting strength is dedicated to the task of preparing PowerPoint presentations. Many of these are incomprehensible, but since no senior office wants to admit in public that he doesn’t understand, incomprehensibility doesn’t matter.

You probably thing I am exaggerating. Actually, I’m not. Well, only a little. A retired Army colonel friend of mine, who worked directly for the Amy Chief of Staff, used to comment that that many generals understood only the bullet points; bur rarely the contents. He didn’t mean the issues. He literally meant the enlarged dots themselves.

Maybe we shouldn’t go to war so much.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 22

For some weeks now, I have been working ten or more hours a day polishing three manuscripts to get them to publication standard; and I will tell you frankly, I have reached a state of exhaustion. In fact today, Monday, October 1, I am going to spend in recovery mode – because I seem to have abandoned normal life recently. By that I mean that I haven’t carried out my normal chores – except minimally – because I have been so focused on my three manuscripts. I have been alerted to my negligence by nearly running out of clean shirts; and I have a lot of shirts. Being down to one gets my attention.

“Madness!” you will say say, with considerable justification. “You have got to live a balanced life – and working seventy hours a week, particularly at your age, is insane.” I was 68 on May 23 2012, by the way, so I guess I’m in my sixty-ninth year. Should one slow down at such a stage in life? My general feeling is: Not until you have to.

I believe that writing both requires an extraordinary commitment – and rewards it. It is vastly satisfying; and such a phrase doesn’t come close to describing how I feel. Writing enriches, rewards, empowers, and satisfies to a greater degree than I could ever have imagined. I just feel much blessed that it is my vocation. Did I chose it? I prefer my good friend Vaughn Forrest’s phrase: “Work finds the man.”