Unblocked.

I'm happy to announce that the writer's block that has plagued me for the past year is finally dissipating. There was an interesting turbulence from her recently...

"But my story's not very good!" She yelled. I raised my eyebrows.
     "What's not very good about it?"
She sighed and dunked the teabag in her cup a few times. "It's just not ready. The characters don't have names yet, and there are some major plot flaws."
     "Names are pretty easy," I scoffed, "despite the fact that it's taken all this time to name you. And what plot flaws? Every plot has problems, you just have to work around them when you get there."
     Her hardened brown hands hit the table. "It's not only the plot, and you know it!" She pleaded frustratedly, "It's the whole point of the story that's not developed yet. At the stage it's in, the guardian angel has the importance and reality of a fairy godmother! It isn't ready to start on. You haven't even decided whether it's supposed to make a spiritual point or not."
     I was very annoyed now. Perfection was no fun to have tea with in the morning; she always deterred me from writing. Not only a block, a talking, arguing block at that. I burned a hole in the bottom of my tea cup with my frustration before downing the dregs.
     "Well then," I resolved, "I'll just have to go back to working with the guys who are marooned on the desert island." I eyed Perfection suspiciously, waiting for a comeback. She put on a pouty face.
     "Just try."

Adventures in Retail

Working at Boat, Bath & Beyond (to maintain decency, even though most know who I'm talking about, and if you don't then it's just as well) sometimes just cooks your little grey cells like scrambled eggs. The strain between pleasing the customer and making the company money or just following company protocol is often quite significant. And then sometimes you just get those customers who think they know everything, like the frustrated man who nearly screamed at me the other day, "Doesn't anybody here know anything?!" And the little red dragon on my shoulder said quite complacently, "Well, if YOU knew anything you wouldn't be asking that, now would you?" It all must be taken with a sense of humor and the foreknowledge that the ugly moments will pass, regardless. And that sense of humor goes a long way, especially on those long days that are just slow and we have to get creative.

Like that one day the minutes were just creeping by and my coworker Steve and I were bored to death. We'd done everything possible and more, and there was simply nothing more to be done without customers.

To be continued, because I am typing this on an iPhone at the boat show and I'm tired of the stupid touchscreen because I'm not used to it. Autocorrect is quite nice though because its doing a pretty good job frisking my typing mistakes. I said Pretty Food. Food. Good. Crap.
...
Actually, come to think about it, at the start it wasn't so dead. It was really busy. The printer was out of paper again. I really didn't have time for this as the phone was ringing off the hook and three new customers came in. I ran to the back room for new paper. I just needed these shipment forms to print so I could finish filing the orders form yesterday. Certain people in the backroom often left it like hurricane Sandy matched with writer's block; receipts and forms floating amongst FedEx boxes and water pump rebuild kits.

My coworker Steve was helping an ornery crusty fisherman order some parts we didn't have in the store ("you guys never have the right sizes"), and I slipped by to shove some paper into the printer. The printer made a happy sound and started spitting pages as the crusty fisherman clumped out the door in his brown boots covered in old fish scales. We meet some characters for sure.

"What's up, Krista?" Steve asked as I flipped through the pages.
     "Oh, just shipment forms.... and Sea dragons?" I had come across a picture of the cute kelpy creature from AustralianAnimalsWeekly.com.
"Maybe it's Fred's?" he smirked.
     "I have no idea."
"Are those real?"
     I laughed, "Of course they are!"
Steve looked intently at the photo."He looks happy."
     "Yeah... Hey, the boss isn't working today, is she?"
"Nope, I'm bored... Let's switch name tags again!"

Let me tell you, fish have it easy.

The Creation of Art

It is said broken people make the best art. Perhaps because they understand it the best. After all, art is an expression of humanity that cannot be communicated any other way, and brokenness is only a concept to describe what we barely understand. It is also said we must be broken before we can be renewed.

In retrospect, "good" experiences that make you "happy," give you a natural high, exhilarate your feelings don't necessarily increase your productivity or creativity. When things are good, when you think you've found the best thing in life thus far, what more is there to consider? When the world's at your feet and you think you can see the future, things become so much more expressable - easy to relate. We've all been there, in love, or just on top of the world, like that 60's pop song, or 90's pop song, or that new one... the one with all the same chords.

But when things are hard, when you've hit the rocks and the last splinter has been ground away by the sand, when you're just a piece of glass on the beach being worn away by sun and sea, that is advancement. A piece of seaglass doesn't become smooth from being on a shelf somewhere in someone's bedroom, it's from months, years of turmoil and chaos, storms and tides. It's the hard times that make the beauty shine through. And though there may be the same beauty at the heart of it, it is hardly the same piece that came from the glass blower's. From the outside you wouldn't know.

In some respects, it's possible that is what art must go through before it really becomes worthwhile. Or even gets created. I'm no expert, but there seems an initiation process of sorts before things become great, or great ideas are born. Lately I've been thinking about Dickens and Beethoven. Alot about composing, just the process of creating something. Like the prelude, or the novel.

I'm only stewing ideas. Merely because I'd never written songs before, and now I have. Maybe that's really typical. I don't know. I'd like to think of playing it someday, maybe it being popular in underground circles, in a small way.. and somehow one person will know it was written for them.

This is Terrible!

Well, it happened... I'm published. And quite embarrassed about it, to be frank. After 2years in the process, This is Terrible: The Writer's Lament is in print and available at The Word Shop, or from myself. It's a compilation of works from various writers associated with the Word Shop and particularly the First Tuesday Writers group. My submissions include a ten-minute exercise and a long short-story written at age 14 and edited and rewritten for years afterwards.

The last time I looked at Foul Weather Friends was when I submitted the final draft 2 years ago to the publishing project. Happy to have it finally out of my life, it seems almost foreign to see it in print all of a sudden. With my name on it. Ahhhh crap.

On first perusal, it's actually not too bad. The first thing that struck me was simply this: too many words. Just too many altogether. I wrote things elaborately, thoughtfully, skillfully actually, but they could have been stated much simpler. I definitely was reading O'Brian at that point. He has better command of the wordiness, though.

I suppose if anyone out there was even remotely interested in reading it I've probably turned you off by this point. However, you will be interested to know that the book features many great works by skilled and entertaining writers. Totally worth it even if you skip 6500 words in the middle.

The Enchanting Pacific

I had not been out on the bay in so long. It was fantastic. Heading back into the harbor, the ocean was the most intriguing purple color... it always amazes me how it changes while the sun sets. As you grow up, your perspectives change and you get new dreams and ideas about what you want to do with your life, but when it really comes down to it I think your heart's original intentions come back. There's so much out there, and so many chances to take a fork in the road, but sometimes there's this pull that tells you where you were meant to be.

Tuesday evening was extremely encouraging, and it reminded me "oh yeah, I can write." Sometimes I just dump whatever happens to be on my mind into this page of cyberspace, and don't even think about it. Some of it is good, and a lot of it belongs in the recycle bin. Now that I actually have time, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get back into the habit of writing...

This was my scribble during the 10minute prompt. I honestly have no idea where the scene came from or the characters, for that matter. The prompts were "Despite" and "Trust."

    "Despite the fact that I trust you, I'm still leaving."
    She looked into his eyes as she said this, and saw a piece of his soul shatter. Utter despair replaced his previous look of hopefulness, and he leaned against a post on the station as he caught his breath. He looked at the large station clock. It was 5:53.
     "But what about the commission they offered you? It would only take a couple weeks."
     She lifted her delicate fingers to her veil and laughed. "Like I would want to spend 2 weeks painting that family. Their faces have no symmetry. It's 1907, I have many better opportunities awaiting me in New York."
     There was a quiet confidence in the way she daintily lifted her bag to the train steward and raised her skirts to board the 2nd class car. But she turned around once, the red curls along her temples swished in the light wind. The sun was setting, and he once again was looking hopeful. It was 6 o'clock.
    "Will I see you again?" he asked.
     "Goodbye."

And yes, I invented the phrase "she saw a piece of his soul shatter." It was perhaps the best thing I got out of the whole deal. But it is still a nugget. There are some things I really like about it, and others I absolutely hate. It was completely spontaneous, I've never written about 1907 or had any ideas to. Perhaps someday it'll be useful for something.Till then it will float about in my subconscious ocean of unorganized imaginations.

A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End

That is the name of a book about writing (books), which was talked about at First Tuesday. Nice to be back, and doing some creative writing. I really think we need to work on our process for choosing prompts, we didn't like any of the suggested ones so we ended up with two that weren't objected to... hah. Writers.
Prompts: "Goody" and "Blur(ry)." Here's what I scrawled.

It was a dark and stormy night. Oh wait, it wasn't. On a lonesome island in the Caribbean, it was anything but "dark and stormy." A tall bearded man sat under a palm tree, thinking out loud to himself.
"Hmm, fiction, fact, or exaggerated history? I could write about the moron under the only other palm tree on the other side of the island... But I've only got this one slab of rock to carve on, and a history of his stupidities would fill an encyclopedia."
The memory came to him in a blur - the reason the 2 marooned sailors on a godforsaken strip of sand in the wopwops [Australian slang for "the middle of nowhere"] would be forever enemies.
It was a hot day, and they were arguing over whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday [it was actually Saturday] when this box had washed up on shore. It was an old worn wooden cask, with printing in bold black letters that spelled out, "GOODIES." They proceeded to argue over what language it was, because nobody would be stupid enough to just write "goodies" on a crate that would end up floating in the Caribbean. The argument raged on while they scrounged for shells to pry the box open with...

I actually like it, kinda reminds me of a Garry Larson cartoon. The one where the one guy finds a crate with an ACME Sand Blaster, and is looking sinisterly over at the other guy, who is happily building a sand castle... Anyways, this scrap of creativity interests me enough to want to extend it, maybe even make it into a story (!), what an idea. My only problem is that currently I can't decide on what exactly should be in the box. It can't be empty, I already thought about that... Well I suppose technically it could, but then I'd have to think about some other way to bring a big catastrophe about. Maybe let the little grey cells work on that one...