Comic: 20,000 Leagues In Five Panels

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Extra: How to Make a CD: The Lost Rulebook

Photo courtesy of http://unsplash.com/

Okay, so you ignored my advice, you just want to know the secret to making the perfect mix CD.  Maybe you're new at this, maybe you'e in a hurry, maybe you want to read it so you can tell me this is never in a million years what Rob Gordon would actually have said if he'd finished the scene (Did anyone else notice that he interrupts himself because he realizes he's making the mix for horrible reasons?  No?  Oh well).

Whatever it is brought you here, I will now proceed to lay it on the line.

This, the result of many many years of hard labor and careful thought, is the extrapolation of the rules of how to make the perfect mix CD.  Finding which tracks suit this mold is, of course, up to you.

START

1.    Killer - Grabs attention.  Energy, familiarity, forward momentum is key.  Get them on their feet.

2.    Topper - Turns all good aspects of the first track up to 11, most often the hardest track on the CD to really nail

3.    Cool-off - Light without losing momentum, mellow but not melancholy.  Instrumentals or soundtracks good

4.    Renewed Interest - Solid track, not as important or keyed-up as track 1, but gets attention.  Easy to pick one.

5.    Genuine Interest - Permission to use “key track” here, the one you wanted them to hear if they haven’t.

6.    Down Turn - Just as much forward momentum as preceding track, but moody or minor-key feel

7.    Underside - Outright moody or bad-mood music, preferably with energy still

8.    Redemption Song - Rare kind of song, but we all have favorites: song that can take sad and make it happy, take slow make fast

9.    Contemplative Grab - Has hooks but slow pace, calmer tone, not lengthy

10.    Contemplative Solid - Mid or long length track, introspective mood, easy listening.  Better or best to use familiar and loved songs here

Nota Benne: The trick to a song being contemplative:  The more it sounds like itself over and over and over again, the more it lulls the listener into expecting to hear more and more of the same.  Doesn't have to be quiet or melancholy, just has to have a longish, even texture.

11.    Contemplative Climax - Put a song here that seems to add up to something, has a long fade-out.  Good place to put new stuff.

12.    Wake-up - Sharp start.  Essentially another killer, big tempo and energy boost.  Snap back to life

13.    Bottle Song - Somehow (sound, theme, lyrics? etc.) related to next track, but otherwise take your pick, as in track 4 above

14.    Message Song - Somehow related to preceding track – if you want to “say something” with your mix, say it here

15.    Unexpected - Play something here they would not have thought of from the preceding tracks.  Good place for inside joke.

16.    Wind Down - Another cool-down like track 3, keep up the pace, but feels like ending is coming

17.    Go to Church - A song that feels reverent, deep, important somehow, no one would want to mock it.  Instrumental?

18.    Parting Shot - Put whatever you want at the end, I like something light and tongue-in-cheek, wink at the end of the show.

Nota Benne: Bonus points for making it sound or feel like first track.                                  

PRESS REPEAT.

You're welcome.  

Follow this to the letter, add extras, take away, reverse the order, scramble it and start over.  Do whatever works!  But here's where I sometimes wind up, and other times where I start and leave.

To all my friends and family who have received CDs on this pattern before, well, there it is.

Creativity cannot be formulaic for me and still be truly from the heart: if anything, this is a pattern or ideal I strive for in terms of emotional function, but surprises in the material always lead me astray.

Besides, now that it's published here, I will never use it again.  Probably.  Maybe.

Story: Treasure (part 2)

(shortcut to part one)

Did she suspect us?  She was looking out the window, her expression either serenely unhappy or simply still.

"It is my house," she said after a moment.  "It's my home now, but we used to live in a big house, up in the hills.  I moved down here after he left."

Something told me not to ask when that was, or whether she meant that he had literally moved away, or the other meaning.

"I didn't know that," I said, just to be saying something.

"You don't know me," she said flatly, and I felt odd again.  The impression I had of her being somehow more in focus was stronger than ever.  Although I barely noticed it, I made a sudden decision then to talk to her like she was a normal person, and not like vacant old Mrs. Turningham, like I always had.

"That's true," I conceded.  I thought for a second.  "Were there many flowers, I mean, at your old house?"

"We had gardens and gardens," she said.  "But we could only ever name a few, it takes a long time to learn something's right name."

"May I see it?" I asked, gesturing to the little book.

"Certainly," she said, holding it out.

I took it, a small flexible journal, unlined pages, bound in cloth the color of a grocery bag.  There were faint etches and colors along the edges of the pages.  I folded it open.

It was easy to see where the colors came from; on every other page were delicate, minutely detailed and painted illustrations of flowers.  On the facing pages of the illustrations there were short paragraphs of words printed in clean, old-fashioned handwriting. I turned over page after page after page, all were different, although many were of the same kind of flower.

"It's beautiful," I said, pausing on one to read the words.  "Are these poems?"

"It's partly poetry," she said, "partly story.  They're the names of each flower, even though they're a little long for names.  Mr. Turningham tried to shorten them as much as he could; that was more than half the time he worked, finding the shortest way to write what the flower had to say of its own story."

"He did the writing then?" I asked. 

She nodded.  "He did the hard part, I just did the drawings.  We would walk in the garden, and find a flower, and spend a few days with it, getting down its little life and its story, then he'd try to find the shortest and clearest way to put it.  And that was its name, and every name was different."  She was looking out the window again.

I paused in my page-turning and read one.  I won't recall the words precisely here, but they're not mine, but it was in essence a declaration of life from the point of view of the flower.  Where it grew, and what time of day belonged to it, and why it had the shape it did.  To be honest, I remember the watercolor painting that went with it better; it was mostly green and white, later I found out it was a snapdragon.

"It's very beautiful," I said.  "Thank you for showing me."

I held the book back out to her.  She held up her hand.

"I want you to have it," she said.

I half-smiled.  "Thanks Mrs. Turningham, but I won't take it," I said.

"Please," she said, turning her large and shining eyes on me.  "I can't find it when I want it anymore.  I look for it some days and I can't remember where it is at all.  Even days like today, the best days, I have to look and look before I remember where it is.  I can't take care of it anymore, I need you to."

"Why don't we keep it here," I said, "and we can look at when--" I hesitated, feeling small at the thought, "when I come back to visit."

She shook her head.  "You boys won't be back to visit anymore after today," she said.

I resisted the urge to flinch and stand upright.  Instead my spine went rigid and cold.  She's turning us in, I thought.  She knows.

"Why's that?" I managed to say in what I hoped sounded like a casual way of speaking.

"Because I won't be here after this week," she said.  "My daughter was here yesterday, or the day before.  They're coming to take me this weekend."

"Take you?" I said.

"To put me in the hospital, with all the other old folks," she said.  "It's been a long time coming, but my time's up I think."

"The hospital?" I said.  "You mean a nursing home?"

"You sleep in a hospital bed," she said.  "You eat hospital food.  You make hospital conversation.  It's not a home, it's a big waiting room.  But yes, that's where I'm going.  It's sad, but I can't stay here anymore.  I don't have many good days."

She trailed off, and for a moment I didn't speak.

"Well then," I said, "I'm certainly not going to take the book," and I held it back out again.

"I need you to take it," she said, raising her hand again.

"You should keep it with you when you go," I said.  "It's important to you."

"It's important to me," she said, "that I leave it here, or give it away.  If I leave it here, my daughter will toss it out."

"Jerry's Mom?" I asked.

"No, not Linda," said Mrs. Turningham.  "My other daughter Elsie.  She's the ringleader, anyway," she said, leaning over and using her co-conspirator voice again.  "Linda probably knows, but she hasn't called."

"You should give it to Jerry," I said.

"No," she said, as flatly as she'd denied the possibility of rain later that day.

"Or Jimmy?" I said.

She made a little face.  "He's a sweet boy," she said, "but he'd forget it, and lose it.  I know you enough, I know you'll keep it safe."

I Felt a weight settling on me.  I made to get up, and she put a hand gently on my knee.

"Please," she said.

"It's none of my business," I said awkwardly.  "Please Mrs. Turningham."

"I'm making it your business," she said.  "All I'm asking is that you take it, and read it once in a while.  Just read it, so that someone will.  So it will be read.  That's all."

I looked at the little book in my hands.

"All I ever do anymore is wait," she said.  "Wait to go to the grocery store with Linda, wait for a show to come on the television.  Wait to cook the next meal."

I still looked at the book.

"It's more than loneliness," she said.  "It's having no purpose, no use.  My time is up, and everyone's embarrassed that I'm still here."

Her voice was gentle, and without emotion, unless it was a little uncertainty, as if she were thinking this through even now.

I was still looking at the book.

"I just don't want to take this part of me," she said, "into that last place.  Here, it feels like my waiting itself is useful somehow, because it's a place I know and can keep up.  But I can't keep it up anymore."

There was a step upstairs.

"Once I'm there, I'll just be waiting.  The flowers deserve a better place to keep than that."

There was another step upstairs, and a clatter on the stairway.

In a single quick motion, without thinking about it, I slipped the little book inside my jacket.

Jimmy and Jerry came down into the room, Jimmy looking pale, Jerry's cheeks looking weirdly mottled, like cherry syrup just mixing into milk.  He looked angry, and a little downcast.

"Would you boys like some tea?" asked Mrs. Turningham.

Jerry looked at her blankly.

"Sorry Grandma," he said, "we've got to get going.  It was nice seeing you."

"So soon?" she said, and I noticed her sharpness, her strength, seemed to have vanished, been tucked back inside somehow, and only vague forgetful Mrs. Turningham was here, eyes damp and unclear.

"'Fraid so," said Jerry, stooping to give her another hug.  His eyes stayed open this time.  Jimmy gathered up the tea tray and blundered with it towards the kitchen, still tight-lipped and gray.

We all got up and headed for the kitchen.

"We'll have to come back and see you soon," said Jerry as he went to the door.

"It's too bad you boys weren't here for the yard sale," Mrs. Turningham said as she shuffled across the linoleum to hug Jimmy.  "We could have used a few strong backs to lug stuff outside."

"Yard sale?" asked Jimmy.

"What yard sale Grandma?" asked Jerry, his eyes suddenly strangely lighted.

"Your Aunt Elsie came by a few days ago," she said.  "They gathered up most of your grandfather's things upstairs, the older things I mean, to put somewhere safe, and the rest they took out, and we had a little yard sale.  We made a pretty bundle too.  You know we got almost forty dollars for everything?"

"You don't say," said Jerry, his mouth setting in a line.

"Forty dollars!" said his grandmother.  "The things people will pay for old junk, I'd never have guessed."

"Well we'll have to be sure to help out," said Jerry, suddenly turning and yanking the door open, "next time you have one."

"Surely dear, surely," said Mrs. Turningham sweetly, and we all shuffled out.

I caught one look at her face as I turned to go; she looked me straight in the eye, her features seeming a little sharper and her eyes a little less dim, but then it was gone and I walked to the car.

Jerry was swearing, and we got in the car he started it angrily and smashed the gas pedal down.

"All gone," he said, tearing around the first turn.  "We spend an hour tearing that place to pieces and putting it back together again, and for what?  Everything gone.  When I get my hands on that--" He continued using bad language in reference to his Aunt Elsie, the house, the things he'd wanted to sell, and the general situation.  I sat in silence.

Eventually his wrath exhausted itself, and I relaxed a little as his driving improved commensurately.

"How was Grandma?" Jimmy asked from the backseat.

"Yeah," said Jerry gruffly, "how was Grandma?"

For some reason, I felt like laughing.

"She seemed fine," I said.  "I think she likes it when we visit, it seems to make her a little sharper, less forgetful."

"Not too sharp, I hope," said Jerry.  "We don't need her finding out about everything that goes on."

"I don't think it's as bad as that," I said.

"What'd you two talk about?" Jerry asked.

"The flowers," I said simply.

"Do you think Aunt Elsie really came by?" asked Jimmy.

"Who knows," said Jerry.  "Mom never talks to her.  For all we know the old lady just put everything out herself and the trash guy picked it up."

"At least," Jimmy said cheerfully, "we know she's probably not on to us."

"Probably," said Jerry.  "Who knows."

I folded my arms across my jacket and said nothing.

I remember now that we actually drove past the home where Mrs. Turningham wound up that day, on our way back through town.  I didn't know it then.  She didn't move there that week, or the next, but about two weeks later, when it had warmed up outside a bit more.  Almost another whole month passed before I'd worked up the courage to go and visit her, and bring the book, but after that it got easier, and I went almost every week.

"Can you imagine the nerve of that lady?" Jerry said, that grey day in the car, after we'd all be quiet for a while.

"Mrs. Turningham?" I asked, coming out of a reverie.

"No, Aunt Elsie," said Jerry.  "Her coming down out of nowhere, when she never calls and never visits, and deciding what goes where and what goes with her."

He was speaking into the rear view mirror at Jimmy, who remained silent in the back.

"I mean, who put her in charge?" he demanded, turning to me instead.  "We're the ones who visit her, we're the ones who care about her.  It's an outrage."

"I can't imagine," I said.

Author's Sketchbook: Fragments

drawn on an iPad 2 using a Wacom Bamboo stylus in SketchBook Pro

On Making a Perfect Mix

"Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing."
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

High Fidelity is one of my all-time top five favorite movies.  Well, top ten at least.  With a bullet.  In it, John Cusack’s Rob Gordon struggles endlessly through a sea of his own blind permanent adolescent behavior, on a quest to get back his best ex girl ever, Laura.

It’s a great movie, great lines, great monologues, great characters, great soundtrack.  And it has one of the scenes which, mostly by accident, has taken up far more of my creative man-hours over the years than I’d care to admit to just anyone.

So I’ll just admit it to the web.

A cursory glance around at my fellow internet-publishers reveals that a surprising (to me at least) number of people have already weighed in on Rob Gordon and the scene I have in mind, the scene where he begins laying out his mix tape formula.  It’s a tantalizingly cut-short monologue on the dos and dont’s of making a good mix tape, or mix CD if you’re in the 21^st century.  Rather than rehash old ground, I’ll leave it to you to watch the movie, seriously go get a copy, and move on to making my point.

For some reason, I love making mix CDs when the mood strikes me.  In generally begins with hearing a new song on the radio, or an old song from my library I’ve forgotten about, and hearing it as the first track of a new mix.  No sooner have I thought “wow, this would make a good mix CD,” than I’m off to start shuffling through my other songs and trying to find the right balance of tones, attention-grabbers, and inside jokes for the people in mind to get it right.

I hit shuffle, skip through my library, and add songs that might fit.  I try to skip songs I’ve used before, I try to skip songs that strongly belong to the album they come from (no Pink Floyd for example, taking one of their songs out of context for me is like taking the middle 40 seconds out of Good Vibrations and slapping it between the segments of two other songs, but to each his own).  Soon I’ll have something like thirty or forty tracks piled up, and as this is more than twice the number I’m likely to be able to keep, I stop adding and start subtracting.

The feel of the mix will start to come through from the combination of tones the songs make from playing with each other.  It’s a tricky thing to describe, but in addition to certain songs which turn out to sound great when they come after other songs (good transitions), there’s something of a cumulative vibe that builds up when the right songs are put in the right order.  Or at least so it seems at the time.  So I combine the songs by playing them back to back, or skipping back and forth between them, and trying to nail down a rough order that the key tracks, the ones that leapt out at me most strongly, should go in.

Once I start getting a feel for the mix, whether it’s mostly playful or soulful or moody or pensive, I can more easily take those songs which don’t fit away.  Soon I’ve got a list that will fit onto a CD, but this is all the work of an evening.  It’s at this stage that the work really begins.  

The next step is to listen to it.  My job allows headphones and I don’t have to listen to anything in particular to do it well, so I’ve got a lot of time for listening on my hands.  I put the thing on repeat and see what occurs to me.  Over time, connections will grow tighter and the feel will get stronger, and then odd corners and tracks that don’t really work where they are, or at all, will become apparent.  I’ll add a track here, switch a few around there, listen to it again, and continue to tinker.  I’ll work on these things for days or weeks if I have to, just to be sure that I’ve got it right.  In the end I almost certainly listen to it more times than the person I wind up giving it to, but that’s almost beside the point.

What I’m after in doing this is what the fictional version of composer Antonio Salieri in the play and film Amadeus calls perfection.  That is, that state of accomplishment wherein no improving change can any longer be made.

Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.

If I feel as though I’ve really nailed a mix, and I give it to the person and they don’t really take to it, well it’s odd to say that it doesn’t bother me as much as would giving it to them when I felt like it could still be made better.

I’ve just remembered I said I would get to my point.

Making mix CDs is incredibly helpful for my creative life.  If I’m down, or feel like I can’t do much to get into the mood of making something new, simply sitting down and tinkering out a few songs that work well together has almost never failed to lift my spirits somewhat, even if I don’t always pursue it to that degree of fervency described above in quest of each mix’s perfect version.  In the end, creating a collage is never the most original of creative endeavor, because the material you start with is the work of other people, but being able to say “that sounds good because I put those songs in that order” is a simple and straightforward way to feel recalled to life in a creative sense.  We can make something out of something else; even if it’s not new, it can still be enjoyable and worthwhile.

The line Rob draws in the scene about how to make a perfect mix tape is that there are many rules, more than you’d expect, many subtle dos and don’ts.  Like many of us, over the years, I’ve made my fair share of mix CDs for friends and loved ones, and I’ve played around a lot with the idea of finishing the formula that Rob begins to talk us through before cutting himself off.  I’ve more or less nailed what I think is the perfect formula, at least for me, for the kinds of tracks to use for a good mix, how many to have on hand, and in what order to use them.  I’m sure I’m not the only blogger who’s tried to extrapolate on his advice, so I will not bore you with the details, but there’s something about the idea of rules that I’ve found relevant time after time.

There's a lot of ways to write an essay.  Ultimately I think the test of whether or not an essay is worth reading is whether you can clearly tell what the person was trying to say, and whether or not they said it clearly, and clearly gave good reasons for saying it.  In middle school, and for the rest of time, many are taught and judged by the three-by-five template of essay composition (introduction, body, body, body, conclusion -- no more details than that here or I might start getting flashbacks).  This patten of how to structure your paragraphs works fine, as far as it goes, but it can be followed to the letter and that won't guarantee that the essay is well-written, or that its arguments are clearly understood.  Likewise, a good essay can look nothing like this and still be comprehensible, even convincing.

There are also many, many, many different ways to craft a story.  There are probably at least as many approaches to the art as there are stories themselves.  In 9^th grade english, I learned about plot diagrams: here you have the exposition, then the inciting incident!  Rising actin follows, culminating in the climax!  Then falling action, I'm still not sure exactly what that really means, and the denouement wraps things up.  As neat and tidy an exam question as the three-by-five essay format, and about as relevant and helpful to actually making a story feel real and alive as internet map directions are to actually enjoying your vacation.  They may keep you from getting lost, but relying on them alone won’t get you there.

Later in the movie, Rob is again working on a mix tape.  But instead of putting together things from his library that he thinks work well together, he’s working to make a tape especially for Laura, one that she would enjoy because of who she is and what her tastes are.  It makes me happy to say that this advice has been more valuable to me in the things I’ve tried to make up on my own than any of the hints about rules and perfections mentioned earlier in the picture.  When you sit down to create something, and you know who you’re creating it for will just love it, it’s one of the best feelings in the world.

The best thing I think someone who wanted to make a really good mix CD could do is to take in Rob’s advice, if we could hear all of it (or take mine), and do their best to make a CD or two that followed his rules to the letter, and then throw the rules away and make the CD that they actually want.

Most often, the rules of a creative challenge serve us best when they show us where we could go if we wanted to, but are never compelled to go if something else suits us better.

Restrictions can be great as a starting point, but don't be afraid to ditch them and find something new once you find surprises in the material leading you in another direction.

When you get a picture stuck in your head, or something a person says, or a strange idea that makes sense only when you think about it a certain way, then that’s your first track.  That’s where your story starts.  From there, the only rule you really need is to keep going and see where it leads you.

Story: Treasure (part 1)

"I like how they write 'hope' on the bottom of these bottles," said Jimmy from the backseat.  "Next to the recycle sign."

"It's not hope," said Jerry, behind the wheel. "It's H-D-P-E."

"Oh," said Jimmy.

"What's it stand for?" I asked.

"How should I know?" said Jerry, without looking over.

"Some chemical probably," said Jimmy.

"Close enough," said Jerry, in a way that said the matter was closed.

He made a left turn, onto the low street with long sunny lawns and chain fences.  Concrete driveways.  It wasn't sunny today, not rainy, sort of a null.  The sky a huge bowl of grey water, reflecting nothing.  I wished there were more trees.

"Do we really have to do this?" I asked for the fourth or fifth time.

Jerry shrugged.  "You want to go, we need cash," he said.  He steered the big car, not his own, lazily, one hand barely resting at the bottom of the wheel.  "You got any better ideas on how to get any?"

I shrugged back.  "It's such a hassle," I said, which was as honest as I felt like being.  The idea made me sad and sorry and a little sick feeling every time we did it.

"Look," he said.  "The old lady's loaded, and it's all just going to rot in there.  She'll never notice anything's missing.  She likes it when we visit, it makes her happy."

"That's probably the worst part," I said morosely.

"No one else visits her," said Jimmy.

"You're not looking on the bright side," said Jerry.  "There's really no better solution to the problem here.  She gets a little company, we get a little cash.  What's the problem?"

"What if she does notice?" asked Jimmy nervously.

"She won't," said Jerry.

"But what if she does?" he said.  "She'll know who did it, no one else visits her."

"She wouldn't rat us out," Jerry said, with some edge under his voice I didn't much like.

At the low street's only tree, a large and unlikely willow, we swung right, onto a street that was identical to me except for that strange blank impression of total correspondence with memory, the instant recognition of a face or a view, seen a hundred times before in the same circumstances.  My brain said to itself, 'we're here.'  I sat up in my seat and began to fidget.

"What do we take this time?" said Jimmy.

"We won't know 'till we see," said Jerry reassuringly.  It was a litany of theirs, every time the same questions and answers.  I was quiet now, my job was to do the talking once we were in.  I started out the window at the grey house, formerly blue, chewing my thumb nail and thinking.

"Alright," said Jerry, pulling up to the curb and wrestling the long plastic handle of the transmission upwards.  "We know how this goes, just like before."

"You're sure she won't notice," said Jimmy.

"Sure I'm sure," said Jerry.  "We'll just be in and out, and then the fun begins."

"Yeah, I said, looking up at the old house.  There was something solemn in the sad washed-out color of its siding, the uneven decomposing roof line.  It was a servant remaining long after he needed to stay for the sake of his poor master.  A soldier staying at his post while others fled.  I bit the thumbnail off and opened the door.

"Let me do the talking," Jerry said as we stepped onto the walkway and wound up towards the kitchen door.  Jimmy was jittering along behind me.  I thought about turning around and shouting Boo, but I was too tired to deal with an outrage from Jerry.  I counted the garden gnomes, laying among the bright flowers planted below the unused front door instead; how long before we tried to hawk them, too?

So, we came to the kitchen door, under a low car port with a big oil stain and no car.  Jerry pulled the screen door open, tried the handle without knocking.

It wouldn't turn.  He swore.

"Mat," said Jimmy.  Jerry glared at him, touched a finger to his lips, then stooped and lifted the rubber mat by the corner.  Nothing there.  He muttered something and started running his hand along the top of the door jamb.

Suddenly the door opened.  We all jumped, at least I did.  She was there, looking at us weirdly.

She was about a head shorter than Jerry, her hair level with my shoulder.  Her eyes were large, and wide-set, and always looked damp.  Her hair was a frizzy white halo of long whorls, escaping a bun in back.  She always gave an impression of not noticing much any more, but now she seemed sharper than usual, looking at us three in surprise equal to our own.

"Jerry?" she said.  "Jimmy.  What are you two doing here?  Oh, you've brought your friend.  You should have called."

"I did call, Grandma," said Jerry, recovering in less than an instant and walking past her into the kitchen.  "Don't you remember?  We're on our way home from school, and  came to visit for a bit."

As he spoke, Jimmy and I, loitering like shades outside the screen door fallen closed, looked at each other quickly.  He seemed as tired and unhappy as I was.  Then Jimmy reached out, pulled the screen door open, and we entered.  The little kitchen smelled like lemon cleaner and smoke.  The screen hissed behind us, closed with a little bang.

"I don't remember you calling," said the old lady in a vague way.  "But it's nice you came."  She reached up and hugged Jerry, and he hugged her back, eyes closed, pat pat on the ancient shoulder blade. 

I was surprised that he seemed sincere in the hug.  If he hadn't been, I doubt she would have noticed; she generally didn't notice much.

"Can I make you some tea?"  Her voice was steady, but she spoke slowly, the beat of each word dropped like a careful step.

"Sure," said Jerry, "though we can't stay too long, we have a show to go to later."

"Alright," said the old lady, shuffling towards the sagging cupboards.

Jerry shot a look at me.  "I'm going to run upstairs real quick, Grandma, I want to show Jimmy something in Dad's old room, is that alright?"

"Of course," she said, holding a kettle under the tap.  "This is as much your home as it is mine."

"My friend Mark here," Jerry said, "can keep you company."

"Hello Mark," said the old lady.

"Hi Mrs. Turningham," I said quietly.  "It's nice to see you again."

"We'll be right back," Jerry said, moving sideways towards the stairs in the living room.

"Alright, Jerry," the old lady said.  She set the kettle on the stove.  I wondered briefly, if Jerry had been at all the smooth operator he thought he was, and if he'd wanted to set the old lady on edge, he probably would have acted the same way.

The old lady didn't notice.  She didn't seem to notice much.

"Sugar?" she asked.

"Just Mark's fine," I said, "but I think you're sweet too."  What was I talking about?

"Aren't you a dear," said Mrs. Turningham, shuffling towards the living room and the sofa.  I followed, doing that slow swinging-leg walk people do when they wish to convey that they wouldn't go any faster even if their way wasn't blocked by someone slow and infirm.

She sat on the couch, I took the love seat as usual.  The TV was off, and the house seemed still as a dusty drum, except for the rustling and stumping coming from upstairs.  I was supposed to be talking so she wouldn't notice that.

"So how have you been," I asked.

"Oh, just fine," she said.

The silence dragged.

"Might rain later," I ventured.

"No," she said flatly.

"No?" I said, half-smiling.  "Just no?"

"The weatherman said it would clear up this afternoon," she said firmly. 

I looked at her when she said it: she was looking at me steadily, her eyes still wet, but seeming more focused than usual.  Her whole person seemed a little more focused than usual.  Was she on to us?

"Well, that's nice," I said.  What was wrong with me?  Six days out of seven the problem is to get me to shut up.  Now my only job is to talk, and I had nothing to say.

"Your garden gnomes look nice," I said weirdly.

"I know dear," she said.  "You tell me that every time you boys come by."

"I do?" I said.  I felt odd; did she just remember something I didn't?

"But it's always nice that you say so," she said, smiling.

"I guess so," I said.

The silence was becoming desperate.  I found myself hoping she'd ask what Jimmy and Jerry were doing upstairs so that I'd be off the hook.  Say something!  Speak!

"May I ask you a question," Mrs. Turningham said, taking me by surprise.

"Of course," I said after a moment's pause.

"Do you know anything," she asked, "about flowers?"

I didn't know she was this far gone, I thought.

"Not really, ma'am," I said.

Mrs. Turningham looked at me levelly. There was an unusually loud thud from he ceiling, and she looked up.

"But I can learn," I said boisterously, trying to cover the noise. "What are these outside, by the gnomes?"

She looked at me again.

"Those are hyacinths," she said pleasantly.  Did she nod to herself?

"I'll be right back," she said then, and she struggled up from her seat. I got up and tried to help, she waved me away. She shuffled towards the kitchen. The phone was in the kitchen.

"Mrs. Turningham,"'I said, darting up after her.

Sure enough, she was making a bee line for the wall inside to door, where the ancient Bakelite rotary hung.

"I'm sure they'll be back down any minute," I said stupidly. Where was my brain?

She didn't turn to me or slow down. She shuffled up to the phone, and I suffered a short agony of indecision over whether to jump in her way. I didn't really want to, I think now I wanted us to be caught.

Before I could think clear to do anything, she had shuffled past the phone. I stared unspeaking, and she moved to the shelves set into the wall beside it, started poking around. Address book? I wondered, fighting panic. Who needs an address book to remember 9-1-1?

The kettle whistled and I nearly leapt through the ceiling.

"Could you be a dear," Mrs. Turningham said, "and  move that off he burner?" She didn't turn from the shelf.

"Sure, yes ma'am," I said, and found a pot-holder.

"Ah," she said, drawing a little brown book from the shelf. She turned to me, half-smiling confidingly. "Funny, I thought I'd just looked at this last week, but it's not where I left it. Oh, I'll take that dear."

She reached out for the kettle, which I was still holding, standing in the middle of the floor. The thought shit through my mind: if I wanted to act odd and tip her off, I would be acting the same way.

She took the kettle, fixed the tea. I looked on quietly. The thumping from upstairs had stopped.

"Oh let me carry that ma'am," I said, seeing her contemplating how to heave up the tray laden with cups, cream, cookies, and the pretty little teapot. I took it up, and she said thank-you and took the little book, and I preceded her back into the living room.

"Now,"'she said, seating herself and fixing her tea, "the hung about flowers is that they all have names."

"Sure," I said, accepting a warm-walled mug and sitting back. Wouldn't they be coming down soon? "Actually they all have two, I mean if you count the Latin name."

"The taxonomy," Mrs. Turningham said. "Yes, but those are really only guesses, ones we made up for them. And," she added roundly, "those are for kinds of flowers, not for flowers themselves."

"What do you mean?" I asked, taking an imprudent sip and scalding my tongue.

"Everything that grows has a name," said the old lady calmly. "Your name isn't Homo Sapiens, is it?"

"No ma'am," I said. "At least," I amended, "no one calls me that."

"Quite right," said Mrs. Turningham. "This book," she said, "has the names of some flowers Mr. Turningham and I knew, while we were together.  Both here and at our house."

"I thought this was your house," I said in surprise.

Usually our talks were vague exchanges of pleasantries, she asking me questions she'd asked me a dozen times, me giving the same answers.  I had been tempted sometimes to give different answers to see if she'd notice, but I didn't have the heart to play mean tricks.  Besides, Mrs. Turningham didn't seem to notice much.

But today was different; this was a somehow sharper Mrs. Turningham than the one I knew, a sharper one.  I had the feeling that she was more present than she'd been before.  I had never talked about anything really personal with her before, but I had never spoken with her for this long before either. 

The house was absolutely still, all noise upstairs had vanished.  What were they doing?  Why didn't they come down?

(link to part two)

Comic: But It's His Favorite

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On Journaling

When I was a closing in on my last days before graduating from college, I had a conversation with one of my English processors about whether or not I should stay on for another semester or another year in order to add an English major to my degree and make me a better writer.

It was then that I first heard, though it was surely not the first time it had been said to me, a piece of advice that has become the often-covered but never undermined bedrock of my efforts at becoming a writer. It was that taking more courses and trying to get a degree in the study of literature was no going to make me a better writer.  There was only thing I could do to make myself write better.

To be the best writer you can be, you need to read and you need to write, and you need to do both every day.

The plan I formed, partially as a result of that conversation, and partly from the large sum of other reasons and purposes at work in my life at that time, was to leave school on time, take my degree, and to to work somewhere that would leave me time to read and write every day until I became good at it.

Happily reading every day has never been a problem for me, or so I thought

 When I was very little my parents would read to me every night, or almost every night, and as soon as I could shake words for myself I was an over-enthusiastic patron of the libraries at my disposal. The long and short of it is I became, as a kid, teenager, and young adult, the kind of person who carries a book at all times, reads on the bus, reads in be waiting room, reads between classes, and is unable to fall asleep at night without wearing out my eyes on the printed page.

This was before the advent of the smart phone and its destructive subtle distractions in my life, but that's another story.

Writing every day, however, was something which, being at heart an insanely lazy person, I have struggled with ever since.

There is a book in my mind that I've been working on for about a decade now, and have been within one or two years of finishing a draft on since before my above conversation at the threshold of leaving school. I'm still at work on it, in a wholehearted but distracted way, but have recognized it for the over-ambitious project it is, and am also working on smaller projects while it continues to grow and shrink and grow clearer.

More on that later: I only introduce it now to say that, when I'd gone out and changed my house, my job, and my state of living considerably, and was a regular office worker in the real grown-up world, it was to this project that I turned, seeing it as the first thing I wanted to finish up, as my material for writing every day.

For about a year, I kept up a pace of writing at least a sentence a day on that book. It could be eleven-fifty five, and I would be heading to bed, but as long as I opened that good old document and added a few words so whatever I'd out down the night before, I could consider myself good for the day. As for the consistency or memorability of be material I was producing at this pace, I won't comment now.

In terms of sheer volume, I can't count that year as a loss by any means; I produced a few hundred pages, finishing half of what was then a first draft. A lot of the material I put down then is still useful, if I can ever compel myself to look through it.

But eventually my enthusiasm waned, then my resolve, and finally I started making excuses and falling off. Before I knew it it had been weeks since I'd written anything new, and then months, and then I had to start all over.

Seasons are a strange thing. It's odd to me that over the course of the year our lives are divided between long stretches of time that feel totally different from each other. Other writers have made this point before, that in the deep of winter, the middle of February, when the cold is getting wearying, s ow is no longer pretty, the novelty has worn off, it is almost impossible to imagine e what July or even may just feel like, but we know it will be here one day. The same goes for me now: I can visualize December, and I remember what it's like, but it's hard to believe that the world I see out my window now, when the world is humming and choked with the glare and the close weight of summer,  is that same world of dead and wasted winter.

I mention all this because it's roughly the same way I used to feel when I'd realize either that it had been a long time since I'd gone without writing at least something, and that I had no immediate recollection of what not writing daily felt like, or, more often, then opposite realization that I had stopped for too long and would have to work to get it back.

Working to get it back.

Over time you learn which tricks will work and which ones won't.

Buying a new journal? Fool's errand, you're masking insecurity with buying looser, no matter how small.

Better to find a  blank or half-blank spiral notebook you already have your house, and start on that. If you don't have one, get some scrap paper to start.

Picking right up where you left off, as if you'd never missed a day? It will be onerous to try and get back the feel, and impossible to get back the confidence, of how you felt before you stopped.

Better I've found, if you want to jump right back in line with a project you were working hard on,  to tackle smaller projects or just free write until some of the rust wears away, then go back and re-read at least the last few chapters at least once, to try and jar your memory as to ideas you'd had but not yet put down and explored, what the main emotions you were feeling when you built the last scenes in your mind, and what surprises you can remember  finding  while just working the material. If you're interested in my advice, the last is one of the best things about being a writer.

Reading books about writing itself? It's a mixed bag, like any market; I'll try and make ajar of recommendations one day, but for now I'll just say that if you're really in a funk, unless it's a book of exercises, you'll likely only see and remember the things that agree with what you thought before you read them.

Otherwise you'll do better to just free write until you begin to get comfortable with your own thoughts and expressing and empathizing with the people you're writing about.

How do you get it back when it's gone and you're too rusty to put down a word without feeling silly?

So far my trick has been to just feel silly anyway, and keep writing until it feels good again, and not awkward.

When can you tell when it's back? Everyone's experience and writing voice are different, but for me it's when i can hear what should be written next with clarity and a little urgency. It's certainly this feeling that goes missing and has to be reclaimed when I've gone too long without doing it every day.

After a couple of years of starting and stopping, beginning lesser projects and working on short stories here and there, I noticed that the plan of producing content every day wasn’t working out.  I started to try and understand why it was I kept faltering and falling off, and having to start all over again.  Instead of working all the time on being a writer, I was spending most of my effort on rediscovering, in the middle of a blank season of no production, why I was interested in writing in the first place, and working back to that point.

Basically the problem, for me, came down to the pressure of having to deliver content every day.  Not every day was I able to make time.  Not every day did I feel like what I was turning out was getting it right, especially if I was tired, or stressed, or if other things than writing had been on my mind all day.  There was too much between me and the page for me to see clearly enough to keep moving, especially if I’d had too many days like that in a row, days where “just a sentence before bed” had sufficed to keep things moving.  If I was going to write every day, it would have to be less stressful, and I would have to find a way to keep the stuff getting between me and the page out of the way, in order to see more clearly what I wanted to say.

Without really realizing what I was doing, I managed to solve both these problems with journaling.

I didn’t start journaling with anything in mind other than that I’d read that it was something other writers did, and I wanted to see how it would work for me.  So I bought a new composition notebook and cracked its spine and promised me I’d write two pages in it every night before sleep.

For a few weeks, I kept this pace up pretty well.  I still have the notebooks somewhere.  My approach was simple: mostly free writing, but I wanted, each day, to find some image or some anecdote that would make sense to me, the way some short story writers would.  I figured that if I could do that every day, it would make me better at drawing my ideas for stories from my experience, which I must learn to do sometime, and I could accomplish two things at once.

Once again, this strategy failed, for what might be becoming obvious reasons, but which were not so obvious to me at the time.

I’m sure there are people who are able to fill many of the days of their journals, if not every day, with some condensation of meaningful images and sentiment that will summarize the day somehow and make it into a little story.  There have been many, many days in my own journals, since I’ve managed to keep at it every day, which hasn’t been long mind you, that have more or less complied with this standard, and which I look forward to finding and turning over some day, if I ever decide to re-read any of it.  I am so far notoriously poor at re-reading my own work.

But journaling, I realized finally, is not something you do for reading later, like a record or a captain’s log.  It’s just a way to write every day, so that you don’t have to work your way back to being a writer in your mind.

Thus after a long time I arrived at my present practice:

When journaling, do not force yourself to write anything.  Just set aside time for writing to happen, and let whatever you have to write come out.

For the last two years, or year and a half rather, I keep a daily planner, one with a new page for every day in the year, and every night before bed I spend ten minutes filling a page.  Then I read and go to sleep.

That’s about all the rules I stick to.  But it has to be every night, and it has to be a full page.  If I miss a night, I fill it in the next morning.

There are gaps, and blank pages, especially in the first third or so of the first year I kept it up, but these have diminished over time, and I haven’t missed an entry for a while now.

I don’t put constraints on what to put down, it’s all free writing.  It’s generally thoughts on the day, and if anything important or memorable happened I try to work out how to render the feel and parts of the experience that would be worth telling in a story, but again, it’s all just to keep thinking like I think when I’m writing.

I would skip a night if I felt tired or like I wasn’t feeling like writing, and then have two to fill in the next night, when I wouldn’t feel any more like it than I had the first night, because by then I’d already fallen that far off the wagon. 

Whenever I got rusty, and had to work my way back to writing again, it always felt disjointed and like bad writing; I would feel silly and self-conscious, like talking to myself in an elevator.

This was mainly because I had lost the habit of thinking clearly, and writing down exactly what I think.

The self-consciousness wears off, if you keep at it, and you start to get to know the kinds of things you tend to say and how you say them.

As for it being good or bad writing, I won’t comment, except that for me, journaling has to be a place free of evaluation.  I will never go back and say “boy that entry was poorly written,” because I no longer write the entries to be good or bad.  I just write them to write.

Journaling, at least for me, is not an end in itself, but a means.  It’s just a tool to keep your mind wired into writing mode every day.

I recommend journaling!  Don’t sweat over how you start, just start.  And then keep doing it until you find out what works for you, and what feels right and keeps you sharp as a writer.

Then you can start worrying about writing the other stuff.