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Day Six: The Realistic Dreamer Climbs a Tree

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I am what you might call a realistic dreamer of unrealistic dreams. You probably don’t, but you might. I have this tendency to dream the elaborate fantasy, always complex in detail, always glorious to behold. Life, conversely, likes to drop rocks in my pond, fracture the stillness of the water with ripples that bound end-to-end, and sit in amusement upon the shore whilst I fuss and complain about it. I believe life does this to everyone, if for no other reason than to realize my desperate hope that I am not alone at the center of the bullseye.

As always, I will endeavor to get to the point, despite my consistent desire to offer preamble to every form of thought I ever have ever.

You see, I don’t like to write at home. Not the home I currently live in anyway. Over the years of rental madness, I’ve had a writing space here or there, but never anything fitting my need for isolation and inspiration in one. One major hurdle I’ve always dealt with is how easily I am distracted. Roaming the webbernuts, catching up on a show, grabbing a book, yelling at the cat and dog because THEY WON’T QUIT STARING AT ME FOR THE LOVE OF TIMMY CHRIST, snacks, sitting on the patio, whatever. It’s just too easy. I need a place that is solely for writing, secluded yet in proximity to home, inspiring and radiating in a positive flow of creativity. I often times head for a cafe–which is great for caffeination, but horrible for creativity. Again, distractions.

What I need is this:

Behold the beauty that is the writing treehouse.

The future home of bestselling books I will write because it demands it.

Granted, I need a house. A house with appropriate trees. And resources, a.k.a. “money”. And someone who knows how to build one of these things that won’t drop me into squish the first moment I step through the door. You know, just to name a few. But that doesn’t keep me from dreaming about it. Seeing myself with some dopey smile, typing away, a cup of coffee on the desk fueling the words that flow onto the page. Beautiful words. Words that inspire, or at least inspire you to buy my other books.

So if anyone wants to make that happen for me, you know, I’m game and stuff.

Is it realistic? Or am I a dreamer? Or is it just something I really really want and you can shut the hell up about reality?

I always tend to the latter.

I didn’t want to write Friday. I had a whole day, minus a few hours, in which to create, but I just didn’t want to. I whined to my insistence, balled up on the floor and scared the hell out of the dog, and outright refused to participate. Being at home contributed. I had other things to do. Important things I had neglected, like scooping cat poop out of Her Majesty’s litter box, washing dishes, watching an hour of that Guns N’ Roses concert I had on the DVR so I could marvel at how awful and out of breath Axl Rose sounded. Ultimately I wrote a paragraph, and only because it popped into my head and I didn’t want to forget it. Then I left the file open the rest of the day as a good-hearted testament to my desire to write something later. Which I didn’t.

This is not terribly uncommon for me. It’s likely the primary reason why I have only published two books thus far. Yeah. Likely.

Today, I went to a cafe. My usual spot. Usual time, when I know it will be mostly empty for two hours, yet the coffee is still fresh from the end of the lunch rush. Still, as the caffeine train wailed at the station, distraction happened. I people watched. They played Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys so my brain was like, No worries, dude, I know these lyrics. Check it, and proceeded to continually interrupt my flow. I managed to write Chapter Three, knowing it will likely be gutted later because it probably sucks. But it’s written, which is still better than not. And because I vowed to keep this blog project raw, I’m posting it despite my insistence that I log out immediately and go edit.

Not that I could. It has to sit for a day before I can look at it again. Distance and all. Like revisiting a soup the day after you make it. Sometimes it’s better than you thought. So, here it is. Agatha’s thirteenth birthday, and the chapter–more or less, since this is all narrative–the story told me I need to start Agatha’s tale with. As I said, it will look different at some point.

This puts me at exactly 6,100 words, or roughly 6.8% of my target of 90,000 (which would be about 300 printed pages). After this, Chapter Four will return us to the present, with a surprise awaiting Agatha.

As always, comment away. I welcome the input.

Chapter Three (Word Doc)

Chapter Three (.pdf)

The Living Story

zacharysteele Leave a comment

I haven’t been writing for the entirety of the limited experience that I call, “life”. I mean, well, obviously I wasn’t writing in the womb, nor did I pop out with pen and paper and get to scribing my experiences in utero. I suppose that would have been quite the story, if not, an altogether painful experience for my poor mother. So, what I mean to say is, though I may have spent the majority of my capable time on this earth writing, I have some lingering years remaining that offer no insight whatsoever into my life as a writer.

What is that supposed to mean? I take it to mean that I need more coffee.

The thing about life, see, is life, in and of itself, is a story. Not the words you put on paper (or screen in this modern age), or in the ideas floating about the nether regions of your mind, plucking you awake at the most obscene hours of the night, but in every aspect of every person in every day that you live. Writing is, more or less, the centrifuge to the swath of stories we swim through on a daily basis. Perhaps because of this daily exposure, the anti-originality escape clause of “there is no story that has yet to be written,” gets bandied about with regularity. Eh. Maybe. It is a rather unoriginal thought, so, sure, the stories that are written are nothing more than variances of stories that have been around for centuries, experiences we have, personally or by degrees of separation, experienced. Stories your grandfather told you on cold nights by the fire, stories you heard while eavesdropping on that squabbling couple in the cafe, stories chipped in tablets and handed down (or succinctly dropped on the floor and cracked into pieces by that snarky caveman-esque editor with no appreciation for the man-mammoth-woman love triangle). But in each story, in each tale that rings of familiarity, there is a unique perspective, a unique slant, something that only happened that one time.

Oddly, it took me a while to see this. I had to actually look up from the page, so to speak, and take a nice long look at the world. I had to see how, in its persistent way, life prodded the art of storytelling. Let’s face it: Writers can become a touch insulated. A tad protected from reality whilst we delve into the preferred insanity that is our chosen world of fantasy. It’s safer there. We can do what we want. We can kill those who have wronged (or, sadly, been nothing more than model citizens), feel remorse, and move on without consequence. We can encourage affairs, destroy relationships, leave the winning lottery ticket on a bench, force someone who needs it desperately to toss it in the trash because, well, they’re just that responsible, then stick our tongue out at them when they realize what they’ve done a few hours later.  We can rule the moon, take the fragile psyche of a beaten soul and thrash it upon the ground like a small child who is curious to see what happens to the turtle inside the shell once it is broken. But we’re always safe, because it isn’t real. It’s just a story, and they’re just characters bent to the will of our perverse madness.

Some time ago I heard it stated that every writer has within them a musician wishing to break out (and likewise, it seems, many musicians have an insane loon within them wishing to break out), which makes sense, albeit in a slanted twist of logic.  After all, art in any form tends to illicit rhythm, flow, a pace to move to. A musician is to a writer is to a sculptor, is to a painter, and so on. But while each is an aspect of the fabric of life, life is the true art. Life is the song. Every life is a story, and in turn, every story is alive.

It’s so easy to forget that your little experiences, your seemingly insurmountable trials, your possessed frustrations are shared by all of those around you. We all feel a bit like Truman, trapped on the stage, the world as our audience…ever so alone in our experiences. But the world is replete in repetition, and in shared experience. No, the mind of that person next to you is not yours, and their similarities are not as yours, but their story is like your story, only in variation, in tempo, and it’s enough to make it unique. We are bound by what we are: living creatures who wander like mobile trumpets, blaring our stories for the world to hear. You only have to listen.

Life is everywhere. So are the stories.

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It’s Not Torture When It’s Fun

zacharysteele 1 Comment

It’s no secret that I stopped keeping up with the music scene about the time that hair bands starting losing their hair. I think I’ve bought 2 cd’s in the last decade. Could be longer.  Might also be that one of those was Chinese Democracy, so that might not count at all.  I listened to it once and decided it was best to remember my favorite bands the way they were. When they were still good. So I willfully stepped aside and stuck my nose in the next Harry Potter (or the one before it–who can really tell when you’ve read them all as much as I have). It’s not that I dislike music, I just came to the realization that trying to keep up with writing, reading, paying my bills and watching as many movies as my dollar would allow was as much as I can handle. I’ve taken a beating for this, most notably from a certain NYC bound friend who prides himself on his musical knowledge, book quote tattoos, snazzy vests and pre-show panic attacks. But he did like Zooey Deschanel for a while, no matter how much he denies it, so I’m feeling ok with myself.

Last night, after a riveting mimosa-buzzed performance of female pop icons by the one and only Moss (really, there will be videos in the future–there’s nothing like it), I had to admit–with no fraction of regret–that I never watched any of the videos from Britney, Christina, Mandy Moore, or Jessica Simpson. I apparently had no context to the compelling renderings of these classics that the Moss was pouring heart and soul (and a good dose of nasal pinching) into, so she threatened to make me watch them. And with all good threats by the Moss, it was immediately implemented lest she get busy watching the last season of Will and Grace and forget. She showed me Britney’s Oops, Toxic, and Baby One More Time (Which is obviously about being really cool in high school. I don’t know, you tell me.), and then followed those up with Christina and Genie in a Bottle, that one where she’s all skanky-ho in the boxing ring (whatever that disease of a video is called) and Fighter. I actually liked Fighter, for what that’s worth to you. I don’t even remember what the Mandy Moore song was, but I kept thinking of Saved and wasn’t really paying attention.  Somebody should have told her that she’s about as sexy as Cheerio’s in lime juice, though. Jessica Simpson used to sing, did you know? I saw a video! There was a plane, or something, and she was doing stuff–I don’t know what. She might have even been singing. All I can think of when I see her is one of her many infamous quotes: “I don’t know what it is, but I want it.” What a maroon.

It was after the fourth–or it could have been the fourteenth–apology by the Moss for needing to show me just one more that I realized I wasn’t bothered by it at all. In fact, I was enjoying it. Wait. I wasn’t enjoying it, per se, but I was enjoying how insanely bad they were. I like watching bad videos, movies, and television shows. I get to flex my comedic muscles, while instantly feeling better for myself in the process. I don’t need therapy, I just need more of the Kardashians.

Which leads me to my prevailing point: Torture me with the worst you can show me, I don’t mind. It’s not torture if it’s fun. It’s entertainment. I enjoy it so much, I’m going to make a spectacle of myself in order to make it even more entertaining. The Moss has offered up the first season of Sex and the City.  I’m going to pick a day, set aside 12 straight hours and watch them all. I’ll set up a live blog, pipe comments into Facebook and Twitter, let everyone play along, and we’ll see what becomes of me. I’m not sure that my mind is prepared for 12 straight hours of that… can I really call it a show? Four weathered hags and their quest for sex, relationships and, I don’t know, luggage? I’ve never watched an episode, so I really don’t know what it’s about, but I will admit to having seen the first attempt at a movie. Like I said… I like to watch bad movies.

Anyway, if it goes well–whether anyone is paying attention or not–I’ll open it up to the public. You can pick something, I’ll watch it, blog about it, and probably lose my mind over it. I might even become religious to avoid remembering it. I don’t know. It could be fun for everyone. As soon as the Sex and the City marathon is in place, I’ll post about the specifics. I don’t mind doing this for my own entertainment, but it’ll be more fun if people are checking in on me. I’ll need it. That, and pizza.

For the moment, however, I have a song stuck in my head. More than that, a video that makes no damn sense at all. I think, based on Britney’s costume, that it’s sponsored by Trojan. At the very least they hopefully handed out condoms on the set, just in case. If there is a “script” it was written by a very lonely young man living in his mother’s basement, in between shots of Mountain Dew and down time from Halo. Mars? Really? Wait. Now where is she? AND WHY THEY HELL IS THAT GUY BEING HELD UP BY A CHAIN? Then he gives her the Heart of the Ocean, I guess. What an idiot. He makes Taylor Lautner look positively Ivy League. Anyway…

Everyone give your nose a good pinch and say it with me. Ooh baby baby!