Category Archives: Writing

Bradbury Challenge Week 2

Posted on August 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

So far so good regarding the Bradbury challenge.  Last week’s short story is called Third Time’s the Charm.  A twice reincarnated man makes his second return during the Holy Roman Empire.  After years of study and seeking, a street vendor offers him a good luck charm that he instinctively feels may be the key to unlocking the meaning of life.   Will his third walk upon the earth reveal the truth?  Could it be that the third time is literally the charm?

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Productivity Boost – Get Moving

Posted on July 31, 2013 | Leave a comment

If a standing desk arrangement isn’t your cup of tea, check out this spiffy post about exercise breaks…

Lee Laughlin's avatarLive to Write - Write to Live

You’ve heard the mantras:

Writers, write.

Butt in chair, fingers on keyboard. Go!

Free weightsStill, humans weren’t really built to sit still for long periods of time and yet, that is what so many of us do every day. We sit, at a desk, for 8+ hours poking our keyboards and staring at our monitors. More and more we are hearing that the path to productivity, is NOT more hours, it is higher QUALITY hours. A fellow writer Nancy Mirtle, shared this article by Rachelle Gardener about interval training for writers. Based on the work of Tony Schwartz Gardener suggests setting a timer for 90 minutes and focusing on writing without interruption. On the days I can make this work with my schedule, it’s gold, pure productivity gold. There is however a catch for me and, I suspect, other writers.

If the diagnosis ADHD had been around 30 years…

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The Ray Bradbury Challange

Posted on July 25, 2013 | 6 comments
415px-Planet_Stories_November_1953_cover

Planet Stories feat. Ray Bradbury (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Author Ray Bradbury , most famous for his novel Fahrenheit 451, was known to hand out advice to struggling writers.  There’s a fair amount of it available on the net, including a talk he gave back in 2001 (see link below).

He issued two famous challenges.  The first, which seems to me to me the lesser of the two in terms of payoff, is to read a short story, an essay, and a poem per night for 1,000 nights.  The second, and I think by far the harder challenge, is to write a short story per week for 52 weeks.  Lots of people, like Lin and some weird guy living in Japan, have accepted one or the other challenge.  It’s fun to watch how these exercises are changing writers.

With that in mind, last week I accepted the second challenge albeit in a modified form.  I will write a short story a week, not for 52 weeks, but until I get to 80,000 words.  When I hit 80,000 words I’ll self-publish the collection at Smashwords.

Last week’s story is called Shiflett Courier Service and it’s about a cop who, after getting shot in the face during a robbery in progress, retires and starts his own courier service.  Years later, when he least expects it, he once again finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

This week’s story is called The Assassination of Jhoon Hebren.  Speaker of the House Hebren and his protoge Nico Carter find themselves embroiled in a Justice Department investigation concerning a secret group called Kensho Hat.  Hebren denies everything because he isn’t involved.  Or is he?

This is going to be fun ride.  Shouldn’t be too hard to keep my pencil sharp while the editors are reading my novel The 14th Mansion.  But it’s going to get really challenging when the proofs come back and I start the novel re-write.

Will I be able to write a short-story a week and finish the final draft of the novel at the same time?

I guess you’ll have to stay tuned to find out…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-r7ABrMYU

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Leadership Isn’t Complicated (7 simple rules)

Posted on July 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

imageI have a day job, and in that day job I’m a leader.  I’ve learned a few things about leadership I’d like to share.

Being a solid leader isn’t rocket science.  Here are the bullet points:

  1. Make sure that 80% of all interaction is positive.  Start by saying good morning to everybody on your team.  Start everyone’s day with a compliment.
  2. Defend your team no matter what.  If they screw up, take responsibility yourself when talking to higher-ups.  Never, ever, throw anybody under the bus.
  3. When your team succeeds, give them the credit.  That’s right — they get the credit when they do well, you get the blame when they mess up.  Sucks to be the leader.  Get over it.
  4. Be truthful, honest, consistent, and prompt in dealing the situations.  Don’t let anything fester.
  5. Get weak players up to speed or get them off the team.  Break your back to train and foster them until you’re sure they just can’t do the work.  Then make the tough call before they wreck everything.
  6. Don’t gossip.  Never discuss one member of your team with another member of your team unless it’s 100% positive.  “Marge did an awesome job!” is fine.  “Joey screwed up royally” or “Pat did okay” are not.
  7. Give your team clear objectives, proper tools, solid training, and make yourself available for guidance.  Don’t micro-manage.  Just allow them to succeed.

Do these things and your team will be happy and productive, they will love you and defend you to the bitter end, and together you will overcome all obstacles.

 

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R.I.P. Richard Matheson

Posted on June 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

Grainy, black and white images flickered across a small TV screen in a dark family room with my parents.  I was perhaps eight or nine years old and I was sucked into the story of man who shrank so small that his basement became his Pellucidar, an inner world filled with horrors and dangers including an ordinary spider made large by his fantastic reduction in stature.   I had trouble sleeping that night, imagining what it would be like to shrink smaller and smaller until I ceased to exist.

There was talk of not letting me watch any more horror or Sci-fi until I was older.

The movie was The Incredible Shrinking Man, and it horrified me.  I would grow up to be frightened and inspired again and again by books and movies that came from the mind of Richard Matheson.

I would later be thrilled by The Omega Man and The Night Stalker would become my favorite TV series (which inspired the creation of The X-Files years later, another one of my favorite shows).  I remember being on a school bus and talking to the other kids about Bram Stoker’s Dracula with the great Jack Palance  and discussing every detail.  Then I’d be blown away by Somewhere in Time, moved to tears by What Dreams May Come, and chilled to the bone by A Stir of Echoes (Kevin Bacon’s best performance in my opinion and a truly outstanding motion picture).

To be as prolific, influential, successful — as truly excellent — as Matheson is every writer’s dream.  I know it’s mine.  I have no idea what kind of man he was, if he was kind or gentle, if he was caring and loving, none of that.  But I think he must have been.  Because at the heart of his work there is always a kernel of redemption, of humanity, of possibility.  As frightening and horrific as his stories are, there is always perseverance and hope.

I hope you rest easy.  You earned a nap you hard-working son-of-a-gun, and you did as well as any man could hope to do in his chosen avocation.  You kicked ass, and your amazing talents will be missed.

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Changing Your Life from the Ground Up

Posted on June 24, 2013 | 1 comment

Awhile back I blogged about working while standing up.  I’ve also talked about changing to minimal footwear.   Trust me.  All of this dovetails.

Some time ago I started writing while standing up at home.  Then, once I got stronger and more accustomed to standing, I made the switch at the office as well.  Standing up changed everything.  My energy level is higher and I feel more in control.  Rather than being cemented to the spot, I am mobile, maneuverable, and unrestricted — and here’s the key — I feel that way both physically and mentally.

As a martial artist I know it all comes down to positioning.  A boxer uses footwork to rule the ring and cut off an opponent, and a wrestler maintains a  guard or ride to control his adversary.  Every technique, whether it’s a punch, hold, throw, trip, shoot, etc., has a spatial requirement.  If you lock yourself into one position you’ve taken all of the other techniques off the table.  But if your position is fluid and your body nimble, allowing you to go in any direction, you can capitalize on openings.

Physical and mental attitude are more connected than I you think.  It’s all about space and position.   Literally.  From the 1913 Websters:

At”ti*tude (#), n. [It. attitudine, LL. aptitudo, fr. L. aptus suited, fitted: cf. F. attitude. Cf. Aptitude.]

1. (Paint. & Sculp.) The posture, action, or disposition of a figure or a statue.

2. The posture or position of a person or an animal, or the manner in which the parts of his body are disposed; position assumed or studied to serve a purpose; as, a threatening attitude; an attitude of entreaty.

And the less you have between you and the ground, the more you can feel it, the more you can adapt to the terrain.  That’s where the minimal shoe idea fits in.  If you’re walking on shoes with soles an inch thick, you’re not walking on the ground.  You’re walking on, well, an inch of foam.  You could be standing on stainless steel, concrete, tile or basalt and you wouldn’t have a clue.

But if you’re standing up in minimal shoes you can feel the bumps the ripples and since you’re on your feet, you can adapt.  Your body and mind can sense the difference in sensory input between being seated and standing up in minimal shoes.  The data that’s coming from your soles makes its way up your legs and into your body, shaping your outlook.

You might even say it’s sole to soul.

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A Father’s Day Gift

Posted on June 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

image

Thanks Mo, I love it!

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What Your Blog Means to Me: Moma Fauna

Posted on June 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

I spent over a year working on a project called In the Drip of an Eave.  It didn’t sell very well.  Some time later I decided to go and see if anybody had blogged about it.  I did a little search and something came up on a blog called Pray to the Moon.

A blogger named Moma Fauna had made an off-hand remark that she was reading to her child from the little book of fairy-tales I had written and included in the kit she bought from me.

I was deeply touched by the image of a mother and child reading together from something I wrote and illustrated.  If you don’t have kids you probably don’t get it.  I mean look, parents insulate their kids from junk, and they only share things with their kids they feel are good.  Suddenly I saw that my art has a spirit of its own, that it seeps into the world like water, that it’s bigger than me.  She doesn’t even know it, but her one little comment might be the high point of my career as a writer to date.  It made me feel simultaneously proud and humble.  It still makes me want to be a better writer and a better pagan.

I explored her blog and found out that there’s a reason why she won the Pagan Pages Blog Hop award back in May 2012.  She is smart, articulate, and knowledgeable, and hilarious when she wants to be.  Her blog oozes magic and lore, and the depth and sincerity of her spirituality shines out in detailed and engaging posts.  Hers is not a blog by someone futzing around with earth-based spirituality or pretending to be something — it’s the blog of a fully-invested animist picking her own path and living it every day.

Moma, I read every post you write.  I send to you and your family all the brightest blessings.

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Update: “The 14th Mansion”

Posted on June 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

Writing Progress 130528I was supposed to be done with the next book — “The 14th Mansion” — by 5/15 and I’m not.  I let things interfere, and that was dumb and regrettable.

But I’m not looking back.  New goal is to be done by July 4th.  About 25,000 words left, give or take, then the editing part comes.

Sorry guys, release date is probably going to be September/October instead of July.

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Finding Your Voice

Posted on May 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

“Finding your voice.”  At the risk of sounding like Napoleon Dynamite, what does “finding your voice” even mean?

Seems to me that finding your voice isn’t as much about locating something as it is about releasing it, about forgetting what others want or need to hear and saying what you want to say.

Popularity is a pusher hawking a rush, and he’s trying to get you hooked.  He wants you coming back and coming back, saying the words to get a hit.

Spit out that pipe and speak your mind.

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