Month: November 2021

Does this work? I chose the RED option on an all black ribbon. You can tell I have a lot to say tonight. The thing who shall hot be named because I do not like camel case as something to type that thing is draining me of things. Where things are my ideas for stuff that ‘s not part of my brain. I can only thing of thinks that I need for the next 2,000 words. Am I blathering? Well so I am blathering. I blather at times like this. It is more important to get “it” out of my brain.

I am a person who has not read everything. Where everything is all of the popular stuff like Noir, SF, where everything includes all of the well-known stuff. Today I am talking about Stephen King. I just sever got interested in King. Until last night when I started in On Writing. It seemed like a good thing to read while attempting to write a novel. Hey, if I get stuck hopefully he will have some advice for me to use. So far so great.

One of the things he includes in the book is a list of hundreds of books he has read and likes enough to list here with a bit of advice that he is not recommending the books. They are books he liked. I checked for Joe Hill to see if he was listed. I mean c’mon he is your son. There are none of them listed. None.

How can this be? I checked Hill’s list of published novels. There they were, including NOSlA2 and Horns and other things I would think he would like. Then while reading I say a mention of his brother being 55. Quick mental math indicated this was written in 2000. I checked the page in the front of all books and WOW this book was written, published in 2000.

Just goes to show that Stephen King is not a psychic.
Though maybe he just does not want to reveal the future to us.

MichaelRpdx :: rkmm 2021-11-18

PS: If like my proofreader (who lets a lot of things slide) you do not know what camel case is, it is a mix of upper and lower case words. It was (is?) a fad with computer people. Example: NaNoWriMo

If you would like to get good at something there seems to be one way to get there. To illustrate the way I am going to quote Art & Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orlund.

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produces, all those on the right side solely on its quality.

Yes, to grade the people on the left he would bring in a bathroom scale and weigh whatever they made. 50 pounds an A, 4O pounds a B, etc. The other group could be judged on whatever they made. A single piece, albeit a perfect one, would merit an A.

Then a curious thing emerged. The works of the highest quality all came from the quantity group. It seemed the quality group people had spent a lot of time theorizing about what made a good pot. The quantity group just cranked out stuff.

This is similar to the writer who produced 500 words a day, every day. Or William Gibson who once said, “I have spent just about as much time actually writing as the average person my age has spent watching television.”

This all came to mind after I verified that I had typed 2185 words today, bring my daily total for (OK, this once) NaNoWriMo to 38, 152 words thus far. I have come to some realizations about this process. A lot of these words are destined for the delete bin. But I do not think I could get the good stuff without the bad. There are sections to my “book/novel” A starter, a foreword section; a Text bit that is the main piece; two parts that do not fit they are lists as in A Book You Can and Should Write, Recipes and Scars; there is a Trash section when I and my brain cannot agree on what to write at the moment.

But this is a “First First Draft” and it brings back a memory of the advice from Ira Glass. That starts with, well near the start he wrote “You make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.” Yes, you understand what it is to be good, you recognize it, but not yours. You know that your work is not that good. The most important thing to do is DO A LOT OF WORK.

You would think I could type better, but hey, choose your battles.

MichaelRpdx :: rkmm
38,152

And yes, this applies to all kinds of work.

Taking a break today, after hitting my 2,000 plus words for the thing that I will not name because I hate to type came] case words and a doctor appointment (all is good there) and a wonderful lunch of perigees and I was ready for a break. Popping open YouTube I noticed a piece by Ryan Holliday called “Five Essential Journaling Ideas From Stoicism” The #1 idea was “Just Start”, Cannot argue with the idea of taking the first step. Which I have done off and on since 1976 and consistently since 2025.

Idea #2 was “Use A Physical Journal” by this he means paper and your preference of writing implement. Keep a physical journal and if it is from Marcus Aurelius (shit sp) or Leonardo daVinci it is Still readable to this day. Yer, when a guy was working on Steve Job’s biography and they tried to get some of Job’s early notes, all stored on an early Mac they couldn’t. Less than as Holliday said it was lost in the lifetime of a pair of iPhones. With all the technologists he had available it was gone.

I think it was more like 20 to 30 years but in our lifetimes the notes were lost. Compare this to John Kennedy’s notes pencil on yellow legal pads are still readable today. These two items rage loud] y to my ears. And there are another three to enjoy
should you be curious.

Today was a great day for my writing. I kept it all on the same topic. I have a few topics that I keep alive. These include Cancer years, Starter, Trash, Life in Idaho, recopies and more. If I run up against something in “Text” (which is the core story part of my writing) I switch to a different topic to keep writing to keep my 2,000 streak alive. (Side note: I am learning how to write something as large as 50,000 words. So I do this conglomeration of topics. I need to wrap them together later. Later. Later. I can meld them together later. Or not. I have a lot of things here to go to in the future.) Anyway, today for the first time I kept everything on one subject. Feels good.

Were you aware that Stephen King used Tarot cards to get ideas?

—- MichaelRpdx :: rkmm
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Crap. I forgot to be explicit: keep a journal. They are good
for you. Yes, we know it is for yourself. That is the point.
And I need to print out my thing that will not be named
journal thingy, The NaNo… thing. No, it is not a journal
but it needs to be on paper. Who knows what will happen
to my computer copies.

There are dragons eating brownies.
I do not know where that came from.
But it is, right there, right now.

What comes into my brain after another 2,000 plus words … is well it should be a reasonable thing. Instead I get these things like  “dragons are eating brownies.” I mean, c’mon Michael what is going on with you? Is this an inner call to write some fantasy? Or perhaps (gosh I like that word, perhaps) I should consider some children’s literature? Nah, not for me. Maybe some fantasy.

Used to be, once a month I would go to the, at that time the only Beer Store, and big a wide variety of beers. Got new things? I will take some. A hundred dollars worth of beer. I had, or thought I had, to be up on the beers we had in Portland. I was writing for a series of beer magazines. So a bunch of beer.

Now I go a month without having a beer at all. There are some things I miss, like a Porter. I have a rumored to be a good Porter waiting for me. But it continues to wait. Brownies would taste good with the Porter. But those dragons…

Remember Herb Caen … a killer great writer. He used a series of “Loyal Royal” typewriters … from 1938 to 1997. Over 14,000,000 words. He was also fond of ellipses …

Read a book set in San Francisco if you can. They get out a Royal typewriter and practice … if you can. Can I go to a Halloween party as him? With a typewriter?

This is getting too silly.

-— MichaelRpdx :: (L)rkm
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Questions of the Day

Why are winter clouds a grey that covers our area white summer clouds are white and fluffy?

Why are heart breaks at least three-sided?

How does the king of love stay so calm?

While his son so unsure and filled with dread?

Why does water, how does water fresh? Or not fresh?

Why do we have so few fountains? (Romans had them everywhere)

Under the waning moon we cannot make up our minds?

Black cats, not the ones with patches of white, the jet all black cats?

Someone always has to pick up the bats.

After a great harvest, we keep waiting on things to harvest. It all happens in late summer. Now we have nothing. Why?

In a parade, our hero never sees how his horse is unhappy. Why?

Just some random questions.

As I look at details
As I hunt for getting better, getting the point.
Just some things to pay attention to.
Again & Again

~~ MichaelRpdx :: rkmm
29,600

And no, I do not know why those turkeys stay around.

I have to admit, I have not been sleeping well recently. Not at all. Until last night, lots of good sleep then. Bet you understand it. You have had those night when sleep will not come and stay. But, Oh yes last night was good. It was like typing and getting lost in the sound of the typewriter. It just kept going. Dare I say, sing to me?

And then our breakfast was fantastic. Coffee, chocolate croissants, and (vegan in our house) sausages. If you have a Trader Joe’s you can get the chocolate croissants put them on a tray, let them rise overnight and then turn on the oven to bake them off. They work great. The flavors mixed well and … happy day to start.

My apologies, but the event that will not be named because I hate typing the mixed, the camel case name, well that is hitting the midpoint. I have over half off the words typed, 25,000 being the mark I passed by but jesus. What a grind to keep going. Every morning well let me explain, I get up do a little bit of morning stuff and then I settle down and start to type. On a fast day, one in which I have the ideas plotted out so I just need to fill in the planks, I can fill in the blanks in three hours or so. Be done by noon. That is getting more and more difficult. Coming up with the ideas to have a framework so I have a thing to fill in, well it is no longer there. I have to Stop, come up with more to write about and then fill it in. Fah, gah, I will continue.

One thing I did, thanks to advice from Kent, was to come up with things to spread out and fill in. (what that mean? What does that mean?) I have a bunch of things I can fill in. It is not like starting at the start and going on. I can write filler points, I could, if I knew where the novel was going, write the final scenes, And then got back, after a break, and return to where the book is going.

This morning, after the great breakfast I continued with my book, or the main part , the big narrative, and fill it out because I had an idea. AND I WROTE IT DOWN. And then I went to my notes and they were legible and everything and I just filled out the ideas on paper what a way to go.

I had other ideas for tonight’s (I always type my One Typed Page at night) typing, but this seems to have taken over. Now I have written down ideas in my notebook and they will be there tomrooow tomrorraw, tomorraw, whatever the spelling is there someplace and it will be there tomorrow and (hooray!) I will have something to type about.

Someone here knows or is learning Esperanto? Please let me know.

-— MichaelRpdx :: rkm
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Oh boy, oh man, oh girl, oh woman, what an idea I had today. What an idea to share with all of you here at One Typed Page. A much better idea than the stuff I wrote yesterday. Published today and as I read that I cringed. I said what? Oh gawd, I am sorry to those of you who understand. But today’s idea! What a gem! Wow!

If I had only written it down.
If only I had taken a moment, a brief pause in my routine, a tiny Slipper of time to write it down.
Which I did not do. And now, I do not have an idea,
Oh yeah, I can get the typewriter moved to the dining table like I do every night when I am ready to typewrite my brains out, I can do that like I have and I have this drivel pouring out of me.
But that idea, oh man what a gem it was and no longer is.

How do you think I have typed my fingers off each day to add another. 2,000 plus words to the collection that is now over half yes, over halfway to that pile pile

Is it a secret to not reread what you have written? I mean you definitely have to read it again. But not right now. If you have an outline and you know where you are going get on the typewriting road and get there, There is plenty of time to go back and rewrite it. Heck, it probably is necessary. Scratch probably from that sentence. Just keep going. Just like I am doing now and in the morning. I have turned off the spell checker for the same reason. I know I will misspell things. I do not need to interrupt my getting the thing down to fix something that can be fixed in the future.

The only thing I have learned from this daily writing is what do, to do, what to do when You have a choice, like which character to have come through the door # – write both scenarios. My story is fragmenting, but I need to have it do that so I know who is doing what and why. Heck, I even had a major character choose death, well accidentally, but there he was, dead. Getting out of that pickle will be quick a trick.

But glory god, is not fiction writing fantastic? While doing it I have the world(s) in my hands and I get to see what happens.

Now if I could just get the turkeys to stop staring at me.

—— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

What a great way to start a day, with a laugh. Thank you Claire. Claire who will write to One Typed Page when she has something to write. If you have been around here long enough you are familiar with people saying “I have nothing to write about.” And then they turn out some amazing stuff. Listed to your typewriter sing. It will sing to you as you sit with it. And as it signs to you you will type out the most amazing and surprising things you cannot imagine.
Yet.

And Ooohhh! It is a French too.

Oh Leo. Your stuff is so wonderful. All in five minutes. Wow.

Wait, wait, Tori lives in Vancouver, WA, as in Washington? That, well that is amazing. We now have three people living in very close proximity. (Oh gawd, I hope I have this correct.) Bill G lives just a hill from me, both in Portland. For those of you not from the area, Vancouver is just across the river from Portland. We could all meet in less than an hour. (given traffic, maybe not, but on a good day …) What was that when someone asked about a PNW biased population here?

OK, Claire, there we are with enough stuff here to fill in “I have nothing to write” which is the case yesterday. Or was. Wait a minute now, were you or are you a NaNo participant? You are part of the postcard swap. How do you find time for that? How do any of them?

OK, apologies to all. I am going to talk about NaNoWriMo (and go back to calling it the place that shall no longer be named) First of all, big, huge congratulations to all of you that work for a living and do it. I am retired. That frees up a huge part of time to type. And I use it. Imagine working a full-time job and NaNoWriMoing it? They have a lot of time and not much for anything else. Yay for You!
Go Writers Go.

Today we are one-third of the way through. Keep writing no matter what your status is. Keep writing all month. That is, after all, the whole point. A bunch of works is a side effect.

—— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm
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