Whiskey and Writing

 I’m supposed to be writing a paper and I just don’t have the motivation for it.  I can look down at the dog and see she’s got zero cares in this world other how many treats she can scrounge in a day. If you think about it, its a pretty nice way to live. You got toys everywhere, a dog bed to pass out in like a sailor on leave, and you don’t have bills or have to worry about putting food on the top. Not a bad way to live honestly. 

 I think its funny how quickly time goes by. Six months ago I was trying to determine a lot more than I was now.  I finished school, but I guess I’m going to do more. Then I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to work out the details on a couple of books I want to do. It takes time, and that’s the problem. Time goes by too fast, and when you have other things that demand it, it gets tough to do what you want. It seems like you just have to keep pushing until whatever it is you’re doing is done. It’s not so much how quickly time goes by, just that you’re something with it. 

 I’m doing more these days, or at least trying to.  I’m trying to finish up some classes, and I started some rewrites on a couple of novels.  It’s been fun, because I’m trying to have more fun.  Instead of trying to write the perfect thing, I’m trying to enjoy what I’m doing. There’s too much noise, and there’s something to realizing that while maybe you don’t have a perfect plan, your characters do.  There’s something to sort of “shifting the blame” onto your characters instead of keeping it to yourself. A lot of writing is supposed to be therapeutic, or something for you to wrestle some things out.  You can’t do that if everything is “perfect.”  Sometimes the grit, and the fight, and the imperfections are what make it perfect. 

 As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that some of the people we thought were heroes or role models lose something. They change, or don’t live up to the standards either we had, or they had for themselves.  I was again recently reminded of someone I really respected at one time, who decided to sort of cowardly take a stance that wasn’t either cold or hot, just sort of lukewarm.  Certainly I’m not perfect, and I don’t claim to be a hero, but I did make me think about heroes more.  We need to seriously consider the people we imitate, and look up to, and not just accept them as wonderful because they’re famous, or have made a name for themselves.

Even if you’re doing something you love, you need to get away from it sometimes.  I’ve been trying to a couple of books, and I do enjoy it, but sometimes I get stuck.  I’m too busy trying to find the perfect sentence, and after a while you learn you can’t always force things to happen.  You need something to ventilate frustrations, or at least forget about them for awhile.  I try to do that with puzzles, and reading, something that’ll keep my attention.  That’s really the key, is finding something to do you care about or you won’t care long enough to do it.  “Get a way” for awhile.  Even that means pouring a drink and sitting in the backyard.  It’ll be peaceful for a time, give you a sense of happiness, and then you can finish that project you’re working on. 

 You have to create a culture for a book. Part of that is because you’re trying to convey a certain message.  That can sound silly, but it depends on a lot of things.  A book has specific language because the writer chosen specific words to make you think of something in particular.  You can say the sky is blue.  Or you can say the sky is certain shade. And maybe that shade of blue reminds you of something, and so on.  Books are great because there’s an intent behind them. There’s a message or lack of message in something.  If you do anything, even if its not writing there’s a message you want to tell people.  You could smoke a cigar on the porch looking at the sunset and that could be your culture. We act like we have to make things complicated for them to be significant and it doesn’t have to be the way.  Anything can have a message, or a meaning if it matters to us.  We have a little culture within a culture, or if you like we have a ...

 I think most people enjoy music.  It sets a mood, it reminds us of things, we have favorite genres, and favorite songs.  These days we can listen to music whenever we want because we can put it on our phones.    We went from playing it on albums to tapes, to CDs, to downloads. I made a playlist for a crime novel I’m working on, and I’ve even got to the point of making playlists for certain sections and places of the story.  They mostly are filled with decades old jazz artists like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, and others.  That’s when jazz was jazz.  It got into your soul, and you knew music was good.  It seems to me that older music had a heart that it doesn’t know.  People make a quick single to try and get famous and rich, and it sounds like something that’ll give you a seizure.  Music is supposed to be good not so much synthesized crap.  At any rate, I made some great playlists to t...

 Its been about a year since I managed to publish my first novel. I’ve been trying to work on a couple others, but one is taking a long time, and frankly I didn’t have much to go on.  I’ve been trying to research, and think about some of my own experiences to come up with something, and I think I finally got something good. Really good in fact.  It’s going to be another mystery type story, but I can’t say much now or its going to ruin the whole surprise. I’m finally excited again. 

I suppose we think about things when we have time to kill, when we have nothing better to do, or decide to reminisce.  Some people think about the past because of regret, or they want to remember easier times.  That’s part of the charm of it.  Times seem easier, people were less crazy, and you had less to worry about.  I think about the past a lot.  Not necessarily my own.  And that’s probably why we study things like history, or watch old movies.  Things seemed easier.  They seemed better in some regards.  I don’t think I listen to music made after 1990 at this point.  I don’t watch these new shows and movies that people go crazy for her, some of it is because I don’t care or it doesn’t seem interesting to me, but some of it is because there were better stories, and better actors.  They relied more of intuition, and less on technology. That’s not to say living now is all bad.   We need to look back at some of the great feats o...

 We live in an era of mud.  We have a lot of things going on in the world, people are older, and maybe not necessarily wiser.  I would think some people would’ve had their eyes opened to things especially after the last ten years or so.  Celebrities and politicians were certainly quick to come up with some kind of line that made them sound enlightened.  The truth though is that people aren’t as smart as they think.  People spend all this time trying to be relevant to others instead of being relevant to themselves.  We’re in a mad panic to be a celebrity or think somebody will drop a million dollars on us for posting on Tik Tok.  Life doesn’t work like that.  People think TED Talks matter, or that Bono is the great philosopher of our time.  Normal people don’t watch TED Talks, and I doubt everyone listens to U2 anyhow.  Instead of trying to be trendy try being realistic.  We can’t even use the word “authentic” anymore because it...

 I haven’t been blogging so much because I’ve been writing books instead! I finished a World War 2 book, and started on a western, which I think I’m about halfway through.  Once that’s done I plan on starting work on a spy novel. I’m trying to do some real research on it, so it’s going to take a little while, but I’m really excited about it.  I’m trying my best to do one book in a different genre, I think it keeps things interesting and you’re less likely to be bored if you’re trying something new all the time.

 Just wanted to say Merry Christmas. It’s been a busy couple of months.  I’m trying to write a larger book and it takes most of my time.  I think it’s going to be something special, and probably the biggest thing I’m working on so far.  Anyway, hopefully the holidays are good to you and yours.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 

I’ve been trying to race through some editing.  Once the writing is finished, the editing seems like an even stupider process.  The writing takes a year, the editing takes less, but its like reading something you already read and have to gut it like a fish.  You’ve got plenty of patience getting the original writing done, but the editing is something you want to do quickly.  Sort of finishing a job you already finished.  I hate it, because I do most of it myself, so there’s probably something wrong with the final product somewhere.  I’m trying to write a couple of books right now, one is a story about a man looking back on life, and one is a western.  I plan on tying the western to a little book I did before, at least vaguely.  I think the world is sort of looking for a little distraction, and looking to things that may have been easier, or simpler.  No era is perfect, but there’s reasons we look to other times and other situations for entert...

There’s nothing worse than planning a book. Once you get most of the particulars out of the way, but that planning... It’s worse than writing, because at least you can edit or rewrite the actual writing.  The details have to matter before the writing matters. That’s it, that’s all I got.  I got a vague notion that I want to write something, but no idea if it’ll go anywhere. But that’s exactly I how I started my first book.

The title kind of speaks for itself doesn’t it? We’re supposed to all these things, and have responsibilities, it just depends on how many you decide to take on for yourself.  And there’s been a lot of change in the last couple of years too.  We’re taking on either more or less, or finding ourselves doing things we didn’t think we’d be doing before. I’ve been spending most of time trying to figure out career changes at forty, and trying to write a few books at the same time, hoping even one will be successful.  I try to take stock of life and see how crazy people are now, and what drives them, and I can’t fathom how people get to the point of sheer madness. I think it’s important to find something that doesn’t drive you to stupidity or hate. For me I try to do a lot of things, because I get bored easily, and I try to find things that give some kind of meaning.  That’s it really. Find something, anything. I’m trying to do some things, and enjoy things because there ar...

 I’ve spent a lot of time working on books recently.  I’m doing two more and I think I might call it quits after that but we’ll see.  I did two already, and I’m not sure how much more I have in me.  But I do like to work on them when I’ve been drinking whiskey.  I dunno why that is.  I usually put on some jazz, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and I’ve been playing BB King quite a bit these days too.  BB King obviously isn’t jazz, but he’s probably my favorite musician, and I think a little booze and the right music will give you the right mood for a book.  I’m not talking about being so drunk you can’t see straight, but a couple of shots just seem to do the trick.  I’ve been drinking several different kinds Jack Daniels, Leadslingers, Jameson, and Johnnie Walker.  I know we all have different backgrounds, different things we want to do in life, but I think the right drink and the right music will give your whatever it is you’re working on...

 So I recently published a novel called Silent.  It means a lot to me, even if its not all that great.  I worked on some of it when I was overseas, and some in America.  There were pieces of it I’ve been working on since I was a teenager, and its nice to finally see it done.  I didn’t put it in the book description, but it has to do with some aspects of the Japanese involvement in World War 2.  I tried to briefly capture what I could about things happening in the aftermath, as well how the main character is involved in all of them.  I know I probably moved a little too quickly on some things, and maybe could’ve found ways to expand the story, but I also tried to leave some things for the reader to figure a few things out too.  I probably have about 2,000 books in my house, and its so weird to see one of my own on a shelf.

 I managed to publish three books in the last couple of months.  This last one was my favorite.  I tried to make it about dealing with the aftermath of wars, murder, and fear.  But I also tried to have a little fun with it.  It took me a year to get the first draft done, and I think it’s a halfway decent story.  I’m happy that I’m at least putting stuff out now, instead of just perpetually working. 

 I think most of us were hoping 2021 would be easier or smoother than 2021.  That’s clearly not the case.  It’s sort of its own dopey little sequel.  I suppose that’s life though.  Everything changes.  At this point though, it seems like things are just...unstable.  Instead of rushing around, we’re staying home more, which is fine for some, but many of us still have to go out and do what we can to make it.  All these lofty ideas we have for ourselves, maybe we can achieve them, maybe we can’t.  All I know now, is that some of the things I wanted to do, I’m not in a hurry for anymore.  I used to want to write thirty books, then it was fifteen, now its maybe four.  It may not be anything more we’re all so busy, but I tend to think its because I re-evaluated some stuff, and got a more realistic look at things.

 With all the craziness of the last several months, 2021 is just as crazy if not more so. I sat out to really try and get more done, both personally and professionally, and its been completely bananas. But maybe its important to recognize that things are up in the air, that they are a little chaotic, and to keep plugging away anyway. Especially in times like this.