"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
I did the morning pages again this morning, though I decided to give this evening a break from the short story writing. To relax, decompress, rest my poor tired brain.
I finished re-playing Portal 2 and watched the latest episode of Justified instead.
That, plus work, was my Friday.
I overslept this morning, waking up the time I usually do on weekdays, which didn’t leave me much if any time to worry about writing three morning pages in my notebook. But I did it anyway. I had to hustle a little bit after that, but I’m glad I forced myself to write. I’m even more glad that I wanted to force myself to write. That’s a nice feeling to have, actually, even if it’s happening at the same time as grumbling exhaustion and wishing it was warmer in the house.
The morning pages aren’t themselves anything useful. Although, thanks to a dream I’d just woken up from and wanted to talk about but not actually recount, this morning’s pages took a weird detour into what might actually be a story idea of a sort. (I don’t remember the dream very well, but that was actually sort of the point of what I wrote. It was basically a movie already in progress. I recognized some of the actors. Pickle chips figured prominently. Did I mention it was a dream?) But it’s not so much about their being useful; it’s about proving to my brain that a blank page isn’t an insurmountable hurdle. Can’t think of anything to write? Start writing and something will probably come.
And it’s been working, after a fashion. I got through another page tonight, which still leaves me at only 2,500 words and nowhere near an ending, but worse things could happen than my missing the submission deadline of February 1. (Like, oh, missing it because I was only a few hundred words in and nowhere near an ending.) I think I know where this story is going, and even if I don’t know word for word how to get there, I’m not as worried about the words coming.
I really don’t want to call morning pages a miracle cure for writer’s block. But I do think they put you in the mindset you need to be as a writer — which is to say, someone who does not believe in writer’s block. Take away the fear of a blank page and what can’t you do?
The rest of the day was a whole bunch of work and reading and it being much, much too cold outside. Oh, a lousy morning commute — the stuff of a thousand little annoyances, like my connecting train not being there this morning, but none of them that seem particularly important now in the cold dark of night. Which is as it should be, I think.
I woke up 40 minutes early this morning to write 3 pages, in what took about 10 or 15 minutes. Then I went to the train station 10 minutes early for the 7:20 train. One minute after I arrived, the 7:01 pulled into the station, 11 minutes late. I figured I’d get on that rather than wait for who knows how long. I arrived in Manhattan 15 minutes early, at the tail end of the lamest math non-problem ever.
I didn’t love getting up early this morning, but I did it, and I scribbled my three longhand pages. Because it really does seems to be helping. I wrote another page of my story this evening. For me, for this story, a page is damn good. I don’t want to suggest that it’s a page of all gold, or that the words weren’t still all hard-earned. Writing three, free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness pages every morning isn’t remaking me as a writer. But it does seem to be helping me past what’s always been my biggest obstacle: editing as I go. I know I can get three pages out, and knowing that has been helping me not get so hung up on each and every word.
I mean, nobody has to see a first draft.
Well, depending on when I finish this story and what I do with it, I might like to submit it to the Online Writing Workshop. I haven’t completely got a handle on what’s going on, but it’s certainly some kind of horror.
Well, nobody’s going to see that notebook of morning pages. I think I can guarantee that.
This evening, I had a ticket to see Selected Shorts, a night of Junot Diaz and Karen Russell’s stories, but I didn’t really want to go, as much as I’ve enjoyed both of their work, and Selected Shorts as a whole. I thought, rather than not get home until 11 or 12 o’clock, I’d come home and write. And I’m glad I did. I’m sorry to be out the $28, but…oh look, this is turning into a math problem again.
Time, I think, for me to turn in.
Today was just kind of a day, you know. I was woken up, fairly early, by a barking dog in the hall outside my room. He acted like he needed to go outside, so I pulled on some pants and a coat and that’s where we went. But of course he didn’t have to go, and had just been out, not too long before, with my father. We came back inside, and I went back to sleep.
This evening, I watched (and did not much enjoy) Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I understand it has the author’s name on it for legal reasons, mostly, and it’s not the (many) differences between Stoker’s novel and Coppola’s movie that bother me. The book holds up rather well, but it’s not always exactly what I’d call cinematic. But the changes that Coppola introduces are not very good, and with the possible exception of Gary Oldman, the movie is a master class in terrible acting. Even Oldman doesn’t give a performance so much as a parade of constantly changing makeups. (It changes almost as often as Keanu Reeves’ accent.) It’s mostly the bad acting that undoes the film; without that, it would still be bad, ridiculously over the top, but in a much more enjoyable way. As it was, the film was considerably worse than I’d been led to expect.
And that was Saturday. Beyond that, some Portal 2 (when it isn’t crashing), some writing (when I’m not), and a walk, that’s about it.
A busy day at work, but luckily it’s the start of a three-day weekend. The office is closed on Monday, and I’m working from home on Tuesday, and honestly I’m looking forward to it mainly for an extra hour or two of sleep in the morning. I am indeed that dull.
I do plan to do some more writing over the weekend, as I’m fast approaching the deadline this short story was meant for. It’s not the end of the world if I miss that deadline, and I can easily rework the story. I just worry that, with that deadline gone, I’ll have an excuse to avoid the work. And I don’t want that. I want to finish this story.
Meanwhile, the stories in the most recent issue of Kaleidotrope — that quarterly online zine I edit and publish — were reviewed at Locus Magazine’s website. Reviewer Lois Tilton, who’s had mixed things to say about the zine in the past, calls these stories “almost all dark, to a greater or lesser degree. Several quite depressing.” But I think she means that in a good way.
And I finished reading John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, which may have made me tear up just a little. But I am a big softy like that. It’s not a perfect book, occasionally a little too clever for its own good, but it’s very touching, and it does that thing that all good books should do: make you miss the characters when they’re gone. I recently discovered Green through his YouTube channel, which I think I discovered mostly because I wanted to subscribe to a YouTube channel that didn’t then immediately vanish.
Anyway, it’s a good book, sweet without being maudlin, and I quite enjoyed it. That, as they say, is all.
Oh, and I (re-)finished playing Portal. On to Portal 2. (You think I’m kidding. I am not.)