Fatherhood and the Stay at Home Storyteller

As you all know I am getting ready to be dad here in a couple of months. In many ways it has already started. I have been blessed with the situation of being able to stay at home and write “full time”. While that has always been my goal I feel that I have less time to write now then I had before. This is only compounded with the fact that my wife is pregnant and doesn’t have the energy to do a lot of things. As such I find myself spending more time trying to keep the house in order so that she can come home from work and crash on the couch.

Trying to come up with a writing schedule on top of all this has been difficult. I have always had a strong desire to tell stories. I have so many ideas in my head that it literally keeps me up at night. some may call that a good time to get it down on paper I find that come morning I have no idea what it was I was trying to say. So any time i have seems to go to working on my never ending, always growing book series that i cant seem to complete.

So now as fatherhood comes ever closer i ask myself when will i find the time to write? I then think of why I am writing at all. The only answer i have had for the longest time was  that I had stories to tell in a world desperate for new stories. I now have a new motivator, my little girl that is soon to enter that very world and she will want stories. I have become determined to complete my work on ‘The Therrian Legacy’ so that when she is much older she can see what it was her daddy did. I will also be writing her stories filled with the things that she wants. While I will be sharing these stories with the world they will still be hers and she will grow up never wanting for a good original story.

I look forward to again be working with my good friends here. I also look forward to working with others who eventually join our ranks as storytellers.

A Writer's Duty

This quote has stuck with me since I read it during the #trust30 project. Thought I'd share and see if it sticks with you as well.

"As a writer, your only duty is to be original, to inspire, to put something new on paper. Don't be reasonable--your job is to fire up people's imaginations, to give them permission to dream, and to lift their heads up to the incredible sight of the stars. They may forget what you wrote about, but they will never forget how you made them feel." --Ben von Burg

Is it too touchy-feely, or do you think it nails what a writer should be focused on?

The words are dead.

The words are dead.
They fall flat from my mouth.
Inelegant.
Ugly.
Broken.
They are stale from disuse.
Brittle and dry.
maybe even harsh and uncaring.
spit out without thought.
without relevant thought at least.

The words are dead.
They thud on the ground.
Shriveled.
Emaciated.
Consumed.
They are void of emotion.
Tired and old.
maybe even passed on to the afterlife.
never spoken, never used.
never to be heard from again.

The words are dead.
They screech like hollow demons.
Twisted.
Thorny.
Leathery.
They wrench good from it's throne.
Evil and uncaring.
maybe even intent on conquering.
using silence to oppress.
creating their own demise.

Welcome back... Take it easy!

Welcome Back!


It's good to be back.  It's good to be here.  It's fun to be here!  I'm excited!


I think Quill and Think was a great thing for a short lived time.  It had a purpose and it served it very well very briefly.  I still look back on it fondly, and didn't honestly expect the response I got when I brought it up... which was a nearly unanimous vote to bring it back in some fashion or another.  


I was just random browsing, noticed via Google analytics that Steve had linked me from his blog.  So I perused his blog and then clicked on his profile... which led me back here, where I read every post and comment.  


I don't think any of us need a regular 'assignment' to grow our talent and challenge ourselves anymore.  Not saying there's no growing to be done, and no challenges to tackle, for enjoyment or said growth.  I do think our weekly timelines and trying to come up with homework was putting too much pressure on ourselves though.  


Even if I'm wrong, I think that it may have been what we needed then and isn't now?


What do we need now?


Well, mostly I think we just want to hang out together a bit more, am I write... er right?


I think there's all sorts of things that we can do with this blog to bring it back for a short tour or for a longer stay.

Talk about writing in general - I know some of us already blog about the subject... but some community discussion could be a nice change of pace sometimes.


Write anything that hits your fancy.  Gabe... I miss your poems, man.  Seriously.  


Maybe even the occasional assignment, only this time without rigid deadlines, and pressure to get things done by a certain time AND come up with future projects.

In the end... none of us is expecting this blog to change our lives or anything... but we can have some fun.

In the interest of getting things started, I think a small easy project (again... no pressure, no deadline!) could be in order. 


We've all made strides as writers since 2006, I can say with some confidence.  How do you feel about writing in general now?  How do you think your views on it have changed?


I'll lead off with the first post later tonight.


In the meantime... I just snagged some fun quotes about writing.  Have fun!


A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
Gaston Bachelard

The pen is the tongue of the mind.
Miguel de Cervantes

I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are  certainly worth thinking about.
Arthur C. Clarke

It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them.
Isabel Colegate

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
Charles Caleb Colton

A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt

In my experience, the best creative work is never done when  one is unhappy.
Albert Einstein
 
Curiosity has its own reason for existence. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein 

No Snow Plowing

     Kelly and I have been traveling all over the state of Colorado this year as we venture to visit all 42 Colorado State Parks. In the process we've driven over 5000 miles in the last three months and it's been a blast. One of the side effects though has been a sort of Sunday afternoon delirium as we head home. And it's led to some amazing moments of hilarity. The best example of this is a road sign that is rather common on the bits of nothing that connect one small town to the next. The sign reads as follows: "No Snow Plowing 7 PM - 5 AM". In my delirium I read it backwards, imagining a rogue townsperson regularly and  illegally driving his plow-truck down the interstate around 8:30, only to be sent home time and time again by the sheriff.

     It makes for a good laugh every time we mention it. The juxtaposition of the concept and the reality. The way the meaning is so completely different. I think Quill & Think can have that, and have it in a very good way. The tagline reads as follows: "A Casual Writers Group". Will you read it as 'a group for casual writers' or a 'casual group for writers'? Either way is acceptable. Welcome back. Write on.

Something New

I just thought that I would share something new with you all. You can read it on one of my blogs. ssmarks-crazy.blogspot.com . Tell me what you think.

Seeing Red: Giles' project

I sit, staring at it. The monster glares back; mockingly silent, almost daring me to do something. I can’t help but think how unfair this is; I mean, I worked hard only to be rejected. This wasn’t the first time, either. Rejection has become synonymous with my name.

It started over three years ago when I tried for the first time to gain acceptance. We met in the lobby of slick New York hotel, and she treated me to dinner so that we could chat, discuss the future. I didn’t know then what the monster truly was, so I brought it along, even showed it to her! She simply smiled politely, flashing those beautiful white teeth, and told me we would not work.

Undaunted, I flew to Seattle and met my next prospect in a coffee shop on the waterfront. I showed him the monster as well, and he seemed intrigued. So we met again, for several weeks we would sit and talk over coffee, and it was going well. Until that fateful day when he didn’t show up. I waited for over an hour, only to receive a phone call. He was polite, but he said this would work for him, or the people he worked for.

Denver was even worse: she led me on for almost a year, even working with me in my attempts to create new masterpieces. Every day we labored, sharing in each other’s lives. But she completely ignored my original creation. She would not accept that part of me, and so I could not accept her. They say rejection is easier when it is mutual, but that’s only another lie we tell ourselves to make it easier.

I tried again and again, each time falling flat on my face. It wasn’t as if it was my fault, it was this thing, this monster. So I sit, glaring. Now I’m going to fix this. I will not be rejected again.

I reach into my desk drawer and remove an ancient weapon. Unsheathed, it has the power to destroy lives or make me into a king. Naked, it sits in my hand; I’ve mastered it’s use over the years. I think I can see the monster change before me, but I no longer hear it’s plea for mercy. With due prejudice I slash! It lies before me, bleeding helplessly on my desk, but not dead, so I slash again, over and over! For hours I sit there, butchering the thing that ruined my life.

I cannot recognize it anymore, not as the work I carried with me all those years. I see it for what it truly is: a beast in literature form! To think that I could naively present this abomination to the public makes me sick, so much so that I nearly wretch. But I have found satisfaction so I will lay myself down to sleep.

And as the sun rises on a new day, I will begin anew. The monster is dead, and from the ashes of the creature, I will bring forth a true work of beauty, something they will have no choice but to accept.

Project Time:

You must write about something red and patience, 500 word minimum. Stop signs, stop lights, yield signs, do not enter signs, anything that has to do with traffic.......FORBIDDEN. Go for it. Deadline is Thursday, August 10.

New Posts Coming!!!

Quill & Think is back in the saddle folks!

Giles will be posting this weeks project soon!

Changes Time

OK so it seems we have a dead place here. We seem to no longer be motivated to write for our collective site. A few of us have gathered at a coffee shop now and agian but never in groups larger than three. So if you have not yet been a part of one of these gatherings and would like to join us for a time of writing drop a line to Gabe, Giles, or myself. If you dont care about writing any longer then keep quiet and let the rest of us work.

And yes I know that noone reads this blog anymore.

Summer Approaches

Ok this group has been in hibernation for the later part of winter and it is now spring. Now I have recieved some requests from a few of you to do a get together and write thing. I love this idea and think we need to plan a day in the early part of summer (June or early July) to do this. Please post your ideas here and we will try to make it happen.
One idea that Karina told me was to go to that Body Worlds thing at the natural history museum and do some journal writing. Great idea but I think we should open it up to write whatever. Well Im sure that everyone has a good idea and I am sure that you all still check this site for stuff. So lets have it.

A Writer's Plea

Ok, so I went to London to do research for my mystery project, and things have changed, so I need to meet with as many of this group as I possibly can....in person. I would like to sit down and do a brainstorming session, at the very least with Gabe, Steve, and Julie (since you all are in town and slightly familiar with my project), so if this can be pulled off, I would be overwhelmingly grateful. Let me know what you can do:-)

Giles

New Idea?

Just a suggestion for this week:

What needs changing? How should it be changed? (Where will we start?) Stream of conscience, persuasive, poetic, argumentative, quote-based, etc.

Just been on my mind--the state of things here. People are so wrapped up that they aren't living the life, ya know? Anyway, it's a thought.

Packaging beef [inside propaganda]

Carbon monoxide - it's what's for dinner.
It's also a slogan that will never be embraced by a beef industry blitzed by consumer groups for injecting carbon monoxide, the toxic gas found in tailpipe exhaust, into meat packages.
The carbon monoxide, which the Food and Drug Administration says is harmless at the levels being used, keeps the meat looking red for weeks by replacing the oxygen that would otherwise turn it the color of an old leather shoe.

I can't honestly believe that this is what passes for news these days. But I say that all the time so this should be nothing new. First of all, I disagree with this article entirely as liberal propaganda. The first paragraphs paint an entirely different picture than the way this should have been "pitched" as an easy news story but this was front-page-center of the Denver Post this morning. Luckily, I had the time to chill in Starbucks this morning for about 40 minutes before I had to go to work.

To be completely fair, would you buy meat that looked like shoe leather, whether or not it was edible? Also, who are we to challenge what the FDA says is "acceptable" and if we can challenge it with gas in beef packaging, why can't we challenge it everywhere? I don't even understand why people even want to discuss this and why the people that invoked this article don't just shop at Wild Oats instead. Or be vegetarians.

If you actually read the article, the ending isn't nearly as ridiculous as the beginning but if you're just glancing at the beginning you'll (hopefully) become just as enraged as I did, which is why I read the entire article. Give me a break, people, you're complaining about an injection of gas that will not, in any way shape or form, harm you in this instance, but will entice you to buy the product that you should be buying. You can't tell me there's fault in making sure people buy a product that is edible instead of allowing them to pass it up as inedible just for the color. If meat started going "bad" and not being bought, the article is right, the prices would go up, and then we might as well all shop at Wild Oats anyway, right?

I so don't think so...

The other day I scanned this at Wired -

Blogging Is So Punk Rock
"Right now the blog world has the feel of the punk rock scene in the late '70s, and for much the same reasons. The music business in the '70s had become disconnected from its audience. Record execs, busy getting Rolexes from REO Speedwagon, were horrified at kids paying $3 to see the Clash play a benefit for Marxist youth. Punk rock became a beacon for creative people of all walks. We thought that energetic counterculture would last forever, but it didn't. So enjoy the blogs while you can."

There are two things I have to say to this. The first is that the punk ideal is still alive. It is harder to find, the edge is nearer the end, but there is still an energy pushing against the strands of convention. The second thing I have to say is that Blogs will not die. I wrote the other night on the Denver Metblog that blogs are still figuring out how to change the world, and how to do something different. There are those that will be analogized with Green Day (Gawker media being a prime example) for their mainstream turn and supposed abandonment of the punk/blog ideal of independence. But there are those that will do something that no others have tried. On this point I cite this very site, we are doing a community, something that seems to more belong at a forum or something like Urbis instead of a blog format. But we've got something here that underscores the flexibility of this media. Blogs have pushed the edge out further, but they have in no way eliminated it.

- Gabe

Week Ten - Project Nine: Let the discrepancy begin!

Allrighty then! Thanks to everyone who jumped in for the add-along. I think next time I'll pay more attention to the originator of the idea. Todd said that we'd need to commit to an order and I see now that it might have worked better that way.

This weeks project?
Find a story, news article, journal, book, blog, song, political figure, anything.
Link to it, and then tell us why you disagree with them.
Research is good, but if you just wanna shoot it off the cuff that's cool too.
Just make us think that you believe what you're saying.
Ready ... Set ... Disagree!

And Now For Something Compleatly Different

Hokay so. This site is a place to put up anything that is writing related, so i am putting up something that is writing related. This is an 'intro' to a story i have been working on for about 10+ years now and i thought that i should share this little snippit with all of you. This story will probably never be finished in my life time but I like to think that some day this will be my masterpeice.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bear Truth

It was a dark moonless night as Nick ran blindly through the trees. He was being hit by branch after branch in this maze of endless trees not knowing his pursuer was closing fast. His foot caught a low branch and it sent him rolling down a hill that earlier he had struggled to climb. As he came to his feet he could hear the sound of something coming toward him trying to run he noticed that the fall had left a deep gash in his thigh. He limped toward a clearing ahead of him hoping that he could make it to his truck but as he entered the clearing his pursuer had caught up to him.

Nick turned to see a hellish looking beast peering over the trees, parting them like one would look through curtains. The size of this beast alone would cause the bravest man past or present tremble in fear. Its claws were like that of grisly and its head was unlike any beast that he had ever seen. Nick moved as fast as he could to get to his truck, and as he entered it there was a jerk as if the truck was being lifted off the ground. He turned just in time to see the tail end of the truck ripped away. In front of Nick was the face of the giant grotesque beast. Its fangs were stained pink from a fresh kill and its breath smelled like rotting meat.

Nick opened the door and noticed that he was at least 15 feet off the ground. With a jerk of the vehicle he fell to the ground. The beast let out a blood-curtailing roar. Nick tried to escape but the fall broke several bones, making moving very difficult. With out warning the truck fell to the ground trapping Nick beneath it.

Run with it, this is your time!

An anonymous Thinker has been overheard saying that the Add-along was taken in an 'undesirable direction'. I have to say that I find that lacking. This is a take it where you want it kind of thing, if you don't like where I took it, and where Karina took mine, and where Steve took hers, then just 180 and do your own thing.

That's what it's all about, your two cents.

Keep it up!

Add Along will roll through the week! It has so much potential!
"Be your own voice." - Anonymous

Yelling Midgets

- I was riding my bike. Downhill? Yes. Too fast? Ummm, Plead 'The Fifth'. Anyway, it was too late to stop when she opened the mailbox. I mean, who knew that those blue mailboxes had swingy doors that open out? So she opens the door, gets behind it, and all I can think is that if I don't kill her, maybe I can get a date, and with a postal worker none-the-less. By the time rationality caught up enough to arrest and detain that thought, it was really too late to stop. So I did what any guy in my situation would do, I aimed the bike into the yard she was kneeled in front of, and bailed onto the grass. Hey, it seemed like a good idea.

- The problem with good ideas in 'too-late' situations is that they're rarely as good as they seem. The first indicator of this was the sprinkler head that was twisting it's imprint into my rib-cage. The second was a strangely slow moving blue Volvo. I swear it wasn't there when I put the bike on autopilot, but now, somehow, there it was. And my red, twenty-one speed mountain bike was making a bee-line for the driveway it occupied. I couldn't look...

-So I shut my eyes. (Blue.) It was shortly after I crashed that I began to feel the philosophical section of my psyche awaken and growl. Well, I thought, the mail slot is blue, the Volvo is blue, the sky...my knees are wobbling and knocking now. They soon will be blue. The postal worker noticed my spread eagle, contemplative position on the lawn. She let her eyes wander over me without appearing to be examining me at all. Maybe she noticed the azure socks I was wearing. Probably not. By this time my arms felt more comfortable under my head so I rested them there. My ankles were feeling stiff, so I crossed them. The neighbor's blue healer began to sniff at my socks. The postal worker walked away, her blue pants creased at the knees. Not that I could see her knees, she was walking away--I noticed this more clearly when she was kneeling and looking at me with her deep cobalt eyes, which weren't really looking at me at all. She was just rechecking the house number. Really. I feel I'm losing my point. The philosophy. So here it comes. The hill, six blue houses lined it. The bike, blue spangled handlebars (okay, so my sister pranked me and I haven't gotten around to defangling the sparklers). The mailbox, well, postal blue. Her eyes, ah yes, her eyes. They too. Mesmerizing. Tantalizing. But they weren't looking at me. Just philosophizing the house number, really. My socks, well said. The dog's collar, sapphire-studded, but I wasn't looking at the blue healer. I was for the duration gazing at the sky. Which needless to say, is the entire reason--not the girl, forget the girl--for my accident. And for my depth of thought. And perhaps for all of the meaning in my very, very, simple life.

-You thought I was done! Aha! But here is the most winsome part of all. It is the part when four of my comrades emerge from blue house # 5 and begin a straight-forward but reminiscent conversion of textile (movable, philosophical) grammarian terminology with me...

-The conversation went way over my head. Most of what they said was no more then gibberish. As they proceded through the conversation I stared at them blankly. These were not my friends. My friends never spoke this way. They were staring at me as I remained quiet during the entire conversation. After a moment of silence I shared with them my philosophical view of the color blue. And I pointed out all the blue items around. Now it was my friends who stared blankly. Then they revealed that the houses were in fact green and that my socks were mismatching shades of orange and maroon. I was about to ask them why I saw everything as blue when I remembered that I was colorblind.

-As my friends laughed at my realization, the door to the house whose lawn I had been occupying opened and out walked a fat bald midget with a pair of socks over his ears. He looked at me and then at my friends. Back to me and then at the red mountain bike sticking out of the side of his blue Volvo. His high pitched voice began screaming in French as the socks on his ears flopped up and down. My friends began laughing uncontrollably…