Sunken eight feet or so in the ground, the view from the window where I write is comprised by a ringed retainer wall and a three-foot open space that lets in soft light. Today, the elements are falling through the small clearing and into view. Freezing rain and big snow flakes fall past the few overhanging arms of bushes and the stray brown stems clawing like dead hands from the flower garden along the side of the house. Whatever the weather might be outside, the window is always a source of light in the basement, yet, without viewing the sky directly the sunny days can be told from those that are are overcast. Sometimes, the ear can tell if there’s precipitation outside – the drops fall on the little gravel that’s been tossed on the bare spit in the window well. (more…)
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Tags: Writing Practice
Loose-fitting flannel shirts, warm coffee and shallow fog are what lie in store during the mornings this week. The final deadline for Urban Times is this Wednesday and, as usual, I’ll be writing at dawn, through the children’s nap time and deep into the night.
I write by a window well in the basement, probably the least artistically encouraging spot in the house. Boxes and old clothes and toys are spread on the floor in disarry and the disorganization, if I let it can play mental games with me. It’s exactly the type of disorder I hope to keep out of my writing.
Downstairs, the light is always the same – muted, neither cloudy nor sunny – and so it feels a bit disconnected from the world. All I need, though, is a little space cleared so that I can put some thought into my work and find the words. Today, my work involves a historical piece. Tomorrow, an urban trend I’ve come to learn a great deal about. And, still more work on Wednesday.
I”m dressed the part and in this Seattle-like frame of mind, fueled by caffeine and a little creativity, I’m going to push through a day perfect for sleeping, for lying in bed and reading, which is how I ended up here in the first place.
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Tags: Urban Times, Writing Practice
An Eccentric
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
The charge has finally been made. I am an “eccentric writer” who has immutable quirks in the way that he perceives and experience life. It’s hard for the people I am closest to … to “track with me.” Who I am when I speak, I’m told, is far worse off and laconic compared to the person who sits down to capture his thoughts in writing.
I announce these shortcomings with a bit of satisfaction because I know them only to be partly true and because, on some days, to be referred to as a writer even if it’s one that is enigmatic is a strong enough connection for me. The great ones are generally thought to be a bit off kilter (Kerouac, Sexton, Joyce, etc.) like train cars sitting in the pulverized railroad ground, just off the tracks. (more…)
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Fighting a fever, a bronchial cough and the side effects of caffeine withdrawal, I finished writing a 1,700-word article this week that will be published in Present Magazine on Monday. I actually typed about half of it before the symptoms worsened the day before, using my thumbs and my BlackBerry. The handheld device and its miniature screen seems so much less daunting than a PC and is apparently a medium in which I feel less pressue to write well. It must be a Zen thing. Less thought, more emotion, and feeling more comfortable in using my first flashes on a subject – my first thoughts on whatever comes to mind.
When you’re writing on deadline, as I was, you have no choice but to perform no matter what the circumstances. The fever kept me strangely focused. I could feel it behind my eyes, locked on the screen and working the buttons while I layed on my back – flat in bed on a thick comforter, under the whips of the ceiling fan, across from a bay of windows that let’s in soft light and opens up onto an intersection where the neighborhood boys gather in the summertime and cuss as loduly as they see fit until an adult comes out to check the mail or walk the driveway and they hush their voices. (more…)
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Tags: Present Mag., Writing Practice
Every spare moment since launching this blog I have tried to fill with words – either writing or reading, my own or someone else’s work. To borrow a line from a favorite poet, it seems that “I’ve traded my soul for pretty words, love essences.”
This has been a down week, locked in a sort of holding pattern while waiting for magazine assignments to come through. Tomorrow, the drought ends with the comic artist interview I promised in a previous post. Assignments for Urban Times were also issued on Friday. I’m interested to see how freelance reporting impacts my blog output. I suppose what’s important is to continue writing, continue reading, and continue to improve no what medium the words appear in, if at all. (more…)
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