Resolved

One of the finest martial arts I ever studied was Kali/Eskrima. It's the art Kane uses in Crossroad Blues, though the bit where he talked about it didn't make the final cut of the story. Kali's a Philippine fighting style, and a big component involves taking the other guy's (or guys'-- dealing with multiple attackers is definitely something they work on) machete/knife/broken/etc away from him and making him regret he was ever born.

There's a tendency to push people behind you as you cut their throats. One reason is not to have flailing bodies in the way or blood spray blinding you as you deal with the dead guy's buddies. Another, maybe even more important reason, is so that the fighter doesn't have to actually see the results of the damage they do.

With that in mind, I'm not looking back at 2010. Too much blood on the floor, a lot of it my own.

So what's next for 2011?

Resolved:

I will bring out AT LEAST THREE more novels as e-books. (Since I've already got one *almost* ready to go, this one's not that hard)

I will bring out SERINA Vol. 1 as an e-book. (Graphic novels are an *enormous* pain in the ass to e-book, but it'll be nice to see them again)

I will finish my current WiP (I wanted another easy one-- of course I'm going to finish the latest novel)
and last, but not least...

I will build that online awareness that will help people find my work. (This one's going to be the hardest for me-- I'm happy toiling away at all my various projects, but I suck when it comes time to market them. This year, I'll do whatever it takes!)

That's it. No resolutions about languages or classes, diets or exercise or love or sex. I want more people reading my books.

How about you?

Shaken, Not Stirred

It was still dark when I woke. 4.30 Saturday morning, and someone was shaking my bed.

Except: My bed's enormous and I live alone. Shreds of sleep were still falling away when I knew the truth. I was in an earthquake.

More than one ex-girlfriend has compared me to stone, to wood, to a machine. I've been called cold-blooded, soulless and untouched by human emotion, usually when the women in question were trying to draw me into a shouting match.

Fact is, I'm just not that emotional in a crisis. Clear and decisive, yes, but not in the least emotional.

My bed thumped and jumped across the floor. Furniture rattled. The house shook but did not screech, creak or groan. I thought about the plate glass window behind my head and decided the curtains were protection enough. The power died. In the front of the house, something crashed.

I stayed calm enough not to wake Butler, sleeping beside me.

After the tremor stopped, I got up to check on Midge and Buddy. There were books all over the floor, but nothing major was broken and the cats were well.

I went back to sleep.

Unfortunately I didn't get the rest I needed. There were aftershocks to endure, texts and calls on my cell to send and receive, a bright spring sunrise and yet more aftershocks.

That morning I had coffee with some elderly neighbours. With no power, they boiled water and made toast on a barbeque grill. By then I knew my friends were safe, and vice versa. My neighbours and I had a lovely chat, and it was off to work.

The tattoo shop looked a wreck. Once the lighting fixtures were back in place and a tipped-over sculpture set back upright, it wasn't that bad. Frankie showed up, and together we cleaned up the spilled ink and broken potted plants, set the jewelry cabinet to rights and got the place back together. The room shook and jumped, stopped, shook again. We set the shop up so any further shocks wouldn't break anything and locked up again. That night I went to a friend's birthday party.

We've had over a hundred earthquakes in the last few days. Some of them rattled no more than a large truck passing in the street outside. Others had me scrambling to keep palette, painting and brushes from juddering to the floor. Buildings are falling around town, and some of my favourite restaurants and businesses are gone. We have power back, but will need to boil our water for some time to come.

Meanwhile I've kept the tattoo shop open and running, got the shop's bookkeeping sorted out, done my workouts at the gym (a building too old and tough to crumble) and navigated the rubble downturn to make it to the NZSA's monthly writer's lunch.

I also kept writing. Through all this, I keep drawing, painting, tattooing and piling up pages on my novel.

Way I look at it, life is just as fragile in good times and bad. Love is just as precious. Every life has disasters and crises.

None of that is any excuse. Every single one of us tap dances under a dangling sword. One day the blade will fall, and the only thing that matters worth a damn is the manner of your dance.

Or, as James Lee Burke is so fond of putting it, sometimes you just have to smile and walk through the smoke. :-)

Failing Well

One great secret to success in life: Failure.

More specifically, the ability to fail well. To shrug off your failure and come back just as hard as the first time. It's what makes champion sportsmen, successful inventors and industrialists and every career artist/writer/actor/dancer/musician/creative type you'll ever meet.

Thing is, that's harder than it sounds. Failure is hard on the ego, and failing at something you really, deeply care about can be devastating.

Or not. Thomas Edison failed something like 3000 times before he got a light bulb to work. Walt Disney was turned down by over 100 banks before he was able to finance his first amusement park. Actors get turned down at one heck of a lot of auditions for every part they get, and there isn't a writer alive, no matter how bestselling, without a fair-sized stack of rejection letters behind them.

Failure is how we succeed, *if* we don't let it get the best of us. And how do we do that? How do we take those rejections, those hard knocks, and come right back swinging?

The key is how we explain our failures to ourselves.

The ones who stay down when they fall, or need MUCH more time to get back up, are those who see their failures as Pervasive, Powerful and Permanent. For example, Joe Writer gets a rejection letter. He thinks, "I suck at everything (Pervasive), this letter proves it (Powerful). I'll *never* be any good as a writer (Permanent)." It takes him a week to work up the nerve to send the next submission, if he doesn't just stick his manuscript in a drawer and give up. After all, he's no good, right?

Those who bounce back do it first in their heads. The better they see their failures as Isolated, Weak and Temporary, the better they do on their next performance. Jane Scribbler gets her rejection letter too, but she is able to think, "It's only one letter (Isolated), and just one market (Weak). Somebody's bound to say 'yes'."

I know, this perspective is easier to say than to do, especially when your latest setback has you feeling like you've been kicked in the guts. But, if you want to succeed, learning to fail well is vital.

###

One side point: Denial, Distortion and Projection are also effective ways to deal with failure. Effective, but not exactly healthy. Refusing to allow that failure into your mental landscape (Denial), reshaping reality to meet our mental needs (Distortion) and pushing the causes of our failures outside ourselves (Projection-- often persecutory in nature), these are elemental ways our ego protects itself from damaging information.

Thing is, what protects our ego often blights our character. Blocking failure robs us of the opportunity to correct the causes of our failure and eventually succeed. Nothing good can come of this...

Big Rocks First

I could swear I saw this done in the 80's, but my Google-search seems to attribute this anecdote (mostly) to Stephen Covey. Either way, it's a good lesson.

In First Things First, Stephen Covey tells a story that one of his associates heard at a seminar. The seminar presenter pulled out a wide-mouth gallon jar and placed it next to a pile of fist-sized rocks. After filling the jar to the top with rocks, he asked, "Is the jar full?"

The group replied, "Yes."

He then got some gravel from under the table and added it to the jar. The speaker jiggled the jar until the gravel filled the spaces between the rocks. Again, he asked, "Is the jar full?"

This time, the group replied, "Probably not."

The speaker then added some sand and asked, "Is the jar full?"

"No!" shouted the group.

Finally, the speaker filled the jar to the brim with water and asked the group the point of this illustration.

Someone replied that you could always fit more things into your life if "you really work at it."

"No," countered the speaker. The point is, if you don't put the big rocks in first, " . . . would you ever have gotten any of them in?"

As you start the new year, think of the "big rocks" in your life as the things you can do to make this a healthier and happier year for yourself and others. When making decisions during the moments, days and months of the year ahead, ask: "Is this a big rock?"

Say "yes" to your "big rocks" first. Don't feel you need to explain each "no" when the smaller gravel and sand try to fill your time. "No" can be a complete sentence!

I get a fair amount done every week. And that includes a fair amount of that slack, do-nothing, hang-out-together time that the Dynamo and I enjoy together. I don't tightly schedule *anything*, but I do keep my Big Rocks few, and make them my priority.

1000 words a day on the novel.

Say something sweet to, do something sweet for and generally enjoy the Tiny Dynamo.

Read an hour or two a night.

Work enough to keep the doors open.

That's it, really. Just those few things. The smaller stuff, the gravel, fits in easy enough: surfing the net, painting for fun, writing the odd blog post, drinks with friends, etc. Like sand and water, the *really* small stuff has to fit in where it can. I don't sweat it.

I know some of you are thinking about your bigger job commitements, the time that children eat up, that sort of thing. Cool. Those are your Big Rocks, and they do deserve your time. And if your job is a Bigger Rock for you than your writing, expect the appropriate results.
You'll need to go slower, or to push some sand out of the way.

Right now, CS Harris is writing despite some serious, and unavoidable, upheavals. I have faith in her. After all, this is the same woman who wrote Why Mermaids Sing in the middle of Katrina. Now me, I tend to think, "Oh no, XYZ popped up and I won't get what I need to done." Then I think of Candy and feel inspired. I drop some other, smaller rock and get back to work.

I'll offer three important tips:

1. Get the must-do stuff done first. Little fires ignite all day long. If nothing else, they're going to take some energy to put out. It's easy to end up too tired at day's end to do your best. Some folks are exceptions to this, your mileage may vary.

2. Clarity. Be clear and honest with yourself about the size of those Big Rocks. Sometimes, the answers may be a little painful, but in my book a little pain's better than decades of lingering hollow misery and nagging doubt caused by living an untrue life.

3. Focus. The fewer Big Rocks you have, the easier it is to focus on them. A person with only ONE priority in life is (yes, likely to appear slightly deranged, but also) virtually unstoppable. A person with five #1 issues is a fool.

As always, take what you like and leave the rest.

And let's see, on Day... hm, Day 38 (had to take off my shoes to count that one), the Full Throttle Daily Wordcount-O-Meter stands at 40,900 words. And I'm one scene away from my Great Big Tentpole Plot Development. Fun!

Ozymandias
by Percy Shelly

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

A confluence of events:

The third anniversary of Katrina.

My own halting efforts to finish the Serina trilogy are resumed.

A hurricane once again threatens New Orleans.

Any of these would be enough to get me thinking. All of them force me to acknowledge that while a city of New Orleans still stands, and will stand (and will rebuild again if necessary-- we're a damned stubborn species, and I love us for it), but that the city I loved, home for a powerful and seminal period of my personal history, is gone.

Likely, that particular city was gone before the storm. Much of the Minnesota I knew vanished under bulldozers, name changes and the cupidity of minor officials. Things change, life moves on.

I've lived in constant motion for a long time now. Full throttle, as it were. And I've had to accept the places and people I've loved being lost behind me. Fuck it.

My generation may well live to 120. Some of the more optimistic gerontologists put our life expectancy at 300 years or more.

It occurs to me that I will live to see a great deal more vanish beneath waves and sand.

Next post, I'll write about writing again. And of course, the work continues.

On Day 24 the trusty Wordcount-O-Meter stands at 25,200 words.
Full throttle and... you know the rest.

Write Your Last Novel

My painting teacher was asked once how he planned the stages in a multi-session painting. His reply, "I try to get to a point where, if I died before I came back to it, you'd kind of wish I'd finished."

My skin chilled. I knew I had just found an important life lesson.

In theater circles they say Dance your last dance or Act your last scene.

Walk the Line dramatised this nicely. Maybe the most powerful scene in the movie is where a young Johnny Cash stands in front of Sam Phillips. Sam doesn't want to hear the same old derivative Gospel music, he wants to hear something that Johnny, and only Johnny, has to offer.

Sam puts it beautifully: Imagine you've just been in a car wreck, your body lying broken on the ground. You got just two minutes to sing one last song, something to make the world give a damn that you ever lived.

Or words to that effect. Johnny sings Folsom Prison Blues (In real life it was either the bouncy Hey Porter or the even bouncier Get Rhythm, but that's not good drama), and a legend is born.

Joaqim Phoenix does a fine job of showing the fear and hesitation in Johnny's face at the start. He's utterly convincing as he gradually finds his voice, his assurance, his pure and burning purpose, in that moment of song.

I'm willing to bet that Mr. Phoenix acted that scene like it was the last thing he might ever do.

Because that's the key to success in your art: total committment. Blind, unreasoning, insane committment to let the work be what it must. No holding back.

Money. Fame. Attention. These are not success. These are possible side effects. Success is a piece of work that you wouldn't mind leaving behind when you die.

The only way to do that is to let your work be itself. Let go of all the crap and all the worry and do your best to let the work come through. Quit caring about what people might say, or how silly you'll look. People *will* talk. And you *will* look silly, at least to some. For your art, that's the price you pay.

Some days, the work is crap. It just sucks. Just make sure it's the best you can do, and that it's honest. And come back tomorrow (should you be so lucky) and try again.

Make every novel, every story, every day's session worthy of being your last.

ROAR

A couple of weeks ago, the lovely and talented Shauna Roberts put my name up for the Roar for Powerful Words. I have to list, in my opinion, the three most important essentials for powerful and effective writing.

I may have taken the task too seriously. This blog is full of tools large and small, but three essentials demands getting down to first principles. Almost two weeks later, I'm finally ready to answer.

3. Practice: None of us is born perfect and at the height of our powers. Even the greatest talent is nothing more than potential. Learning to write, play the cello or do a backflip takes work: practice, development, practice, examination of the greats and the not-so-greats, and practice.

Sports authorities say it takes ten thousand hours to become good. John D MacDonald said it was one million words. No matter how you look at it, it's a long road...

2. Craft: James Joyce or James Ellroy, craft is at the heart of what we do. It's the lens through which your story is viewed.

You may use words to weave gossamer strands of lyric beauty or to craft razor-sharp icepicks. Either way, you should know exactly why you use every single word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, scene and chapter in your work.

I sometimes meet aspiring writers who assume their basic literacy is all they need to tell their stories. Vocabulary and grammar are fundamental and basic tools, but your tools need to be exceedingly sharp if they're to cut to your reader's heart.

And the number one essential to pwerful and effective writing....

1. Love: Ten thousand hours is a long damn time. One million words is roughly ten novels.

There are some gorgeous, gratifying moments on that road, but also plenty of despair. And even if you walk those long miles and use every step to become the very, very best that you can be, there's no guarantee your best will be good enough. I once knew a fencer like that: very dedicated and very, very bad.

Fate is fickle, rewards uncertain. Money and fame may find you, but they just as easily may not. In the end, the only reason to walk this road is love.

I May Be Some Time

I'm just going outside and may be some time. Though hopefully not as long as that nice Titus Oates...

I've got a week left til my birthday. The novel's current incarnation is on 41,500 words. From what I can see of the road ahead, I expect to come in around 80-90,000.

Like that kid on the left there, I've got a daunting task. But hey, slugging out of my weight is practically second nature.

I've also got some kind of summer cold/virus. Given that I thought I saw a white horse in the back yard just now, I may have a bit of a fever as well...

At any rate, my only prayer of finishing this beast involves unplugging the modem. I do promise to check back in on the 3rd and let you all know how everything went.

Meantime, here's a painting by Robert Bailey with a title close to my heart!

Rest assured that this week will indeed be spent at full throttle!

It Begins.... AGAIN!!!

Kate's making a big push on her WIP and thought a team effort would help her along. Anything to help out a blogbuddy! :-)

So in the interests of Science and Friendship, the old Daily Word Count-o-Meter is once again out of mothballs!

Day One: we'll start with the clock set at 'zero'. Handy for me, since I've *no* idea how much I've already written will go into the torturous Work in Progress. (Anybody like my Dickensian use of Capitals? I do promise to Stop, soon. Probably.)

So...

Official 30 day Word-o-Meter Word Count: 0

There, that wasn't so hard. but wait, there's more.

Actually, we're on Day 3, and I only just got the news. So.... (brief pause while I tally up three days' progress. Feel free to play your favorite music while on hold... still holding.... there!) we jump ahead to ....

Official 30 day Word-o-Meter Word Count: 3511

Staying on track, I guess. I might've done more, but yesterday was spent wrestling my lawn. Right now I plan to post about it on my other blog.

All right, back to work...

From Strength to Strength

Second draft of my latest 'head shot'. The final polish is over there in the right-hand column.

It's actually germaine to My Five Strengths as a Writer!

1. One Thousand Things: Two decades in the visual arts have taught me about faith, fortitude and the art of the telling detail. About creativity, discipline and the vagaries of that area where money meets art.

As the Zen proverb goes, "From one thing, learn one thousand things." My work in comics, tattoos, painting, etc. have all made me a better writer.

2. Sympathy for the Devil: I'm good at getting into my villains' heads, and those of the supporting characters too. This means they act and react intelligently.

Not only would my Mad Scientist *not* put a self-destruct button(!) on his giant laser, he'd just shoot that pesky, interfering hero.

3. Full Throttle: Life is precious. I'm not going to waste a minute of it on half-measures. Anything I want, anything that seems worthwhile, I go for it with everything I've got. Writing is worthwhile; it gets what it deserves: my best.

4. Caaauuuse It's a Thrilllller, a Thrill-ler Night: I'm good with suspense. Nature or nurture, I'm good at ratcheting up the tension.

5. The Tiny Dynamo: I've been blessed with a *very* supportive partner -- something not to be underestimated. This thing of ours is not for the faint of heart. The Dynamo puts up with my moodiness, solitary habits and financial instability, all for the dubious advantage of being the first to read a couple of novels a year! It doesn't hurt, either, that my particular partner has an eagle-eye for plot holes and bad writing. Knowing she'll read my work forces me to go beyond my own limitations...

A Lil Rudyard For Ya

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

(Steve here:) This poem found me at a formative time in my life, twelve years old and desperately trying to figure out how to be 'a man'. Time like that, these words went straight to the bone.

Looking back, I could have done a lot worse. This poem's done all right by me.

Once More into the Breach

(80,000 words)

I've spent this last week or two getting rid of the stuff that didn't belong. They're scratching weakly at their file right now, their pitiful screams too faint to trouble me.

I'm also writing fresh material for the stuff I skipped over. That first draft, I was sticking to the action, the high points of character development, etc. By the time I was finished, I could see some of the places where I needed to go deeper, or build slower, or just plain give the reader a rest for a minute.

The actual, -sit-down-and-read-it-with-a-blue-pencil first read won't happen for a while yet. I need time enough to come at the work fresh. These new scenes are going in now, before the characters themselves start to see foreign to me. Later, when they do seem like they were written by someone else, I'll have a third persepective about what they need.

Some writers (Tom Robbins and Donna Tartt are two of my favorites) agonize over every word, trying to craft a work a complete and perfect beauty on the first pass. I have to wade right in with both fists flying and see what I've done when the dust settles.

Hoping to have all the new writing done in the next few days or so. We're off to OZ on holiday, and I'd like to actually holiday instead of writing.

For this reason, I'm also VERY much hoping to put off starting the next book until the end of the month. The new story's pulling at me, trying to claw its way out of my skin, polluting my dreams with its foul breath and whispering in my ears in those quiet moments.

Like that dead girl in Stir of Echoes, the stories I gotta write get more and more insistent. All I can say is, "Not yet. Please, not yet."

But it itches so...

Quite the Service You Got Here

Happy Happy Joy Joy

According to this article, authors, painter and sculptors are some of the happiest people. Bartenders, cashiers and waiters are among the least.

Clergy are happiest overall (no creative blocks, since the text is written for them?), while roofers are the least. Poor damn roofers.

The article cites the satisfaction of serving others as the source of a lot of that personal and professional happiness. It's certainly what gets me up in the morning. It never ceases to touch me that people find it worthwhile to part with their hard-earned cash for my offerings.

Used to seem to me, everybody needs to eat, but nobody *needs* a painting, tattoo, drawing, or a story. Now I'm not so sure. Art and stories, beauty and entertainment, all fill a need deeper than any can of pork and beans can touch.

It's just harder to put a finger on the needs those things fill. But there's no mistaking the charge of knowing you've touched another person's life.

I credit that feeling of service to others to my own happiness. And my happiness to my continuing and unnatural youth...

That Twisting Urge

95,000 words

Good Friday with Clan Dynamo was much fun. Jotted 1000 words-ish in a note pad at odd moments. It did occur to me that my tennis game would probably improve if I didn't stop in the middle of the action to get down a couple lines of dialogue.

I have a real urge to tell stories. Probably no surprise given I'm writing a first draft in three months, but there you are. Although I've only been 'writing' a couple of years, that urge has been there all along.

Waaaaaaaaaaayyyyy back in my sidetracked twenties, I was the World's Greatest Dinner Guest. My jokes and stories were in great demand (great advice for any starving artist: make people want to feed you), as my various hosts knew that they would laugh, cry, tremble in terror, laugh until they cried, tremble until they laughed, whatever. I made it all up on the spot, or took bits out of my life and put the appropriate spin on them as the mood demanded. It was all about moving my audience in the moment. I was That Guy.

Back then of course, I didn't write. I was tattooing and painting and living as fast as I could (Full Throttle and Fuck It is more than just a writing style...), and those dinners (and picnics, pub nights, bong sessions, coffees, etc.) were the only way that urge could claw its way out of my skin.

I gradually realized I wasn't getting any younger, and the urge twisted. I got serious about my comics, and as is the way with me, turned the machine all the way up to eleven and snapped off the lever.

And completely lost the ability to tell a decent story. Old friends would meet me for dinner and say, "Tell the one about the vomiting Egyptian," or "What about that guy who took off his pants." Half the time, I couldn't even remember how they went. I'd fall back on a joke about two nuns and a cheese grater instead.

Then maybe three years ago or so, I was doing so much comics illustration that I didn't have the time to write comics anymore. Drawing a page, mine or anyone else's, takes maybe six or eight hours. Easy to see why I couldn't do both.

The urge twisted again.

I started writing fiction. Just a little, in a notebook. Then a novel on a typewriter. THen another on a laptop. Then--

Well, I can't tell a joke now to save my life. That storytelling urge is so used up in my work that I fuck up punchlines, stumble over the order of events, you name it.

I've become This Guy: "And these two guys, wait, I forgot. They're not guys, they're girls, and, um, I think, yeah,, that's right, they're nuns..."

Train wrecks, every one. These days people still laugh, but we all know it's at how badly I tell the joke, not the joke itself.

Back in the sidetracked days I used to be with a junkie stripper who fancied herself a writer. Except that she always had a thousand excuses why she couldn't write just at the moment. She could only write on a computer, she said. She wanted to get a bit more life experience, she said. Work took too much out of her, she said.

When she overdosed, she didn't even leave behind a diary. All our friends were puzzled, but I wasn't surprised. She was so afraid of herself and the pain she carried that she'd rather go numb than face it and let the stories come.

Me, I figure my stories would want out if all I had was a circle of faces around a campfire. A medium (printed word) that brings a wider audience? Icing on the cake.