If you’re checking out the chapter I posted last night, I’ve updated it. I found a mistake in location. I had moved my characters out of a room into a hallway, then had one of them still sitting in a chair, back in the room. So I fixed that.

Also, I updated the page design to make it more readable.

Link

“Can Giving Away Your Book Generate Sales?”

Link

Well, I was just checking out the stats and it looks like readership visits to the old blog are trending downward lately. It’s my fault. I haven’t been writing much for Metaphor lately. It’s partly because I’ve been writing a lot about the Warrior imagery and posting it elsewhere, and partly because I’ve been posting more political stuff elsewhere, but mostly because I’ve been working a lot on the novel.

I read something interesting the other day, about how poetry is attire for emotion. That makes sense to me for creative writing in general – at least the kinds of things that I like to write. But you know what works better as an analogy for me? There’s a scene in one of the Invisible Man movies – maybe in all of them and cartoon versions too – where the invisible guy gets spayed with water, and you can see his form because you can see the water on him.

I think writing is a lot like that. I can’t really make you see what I see. But if I dress it in words, or spray it with a fine mist of expression and get the light to hit it right, maybe you can glimpse it running – otherwise naked – into the distance.

So sometime this weekend, I’ll try to post a new chapter or something, so you can see what I’ve been up to.

There must be a hundred ways this scene can begin, and I’ve tried every one of them in the past week, except the right one. There is a right one, you know.

I need to have the two boys in the front yard or on the front step under the hanging fuchsias, or among the potted nasturtiums or something, when the explosion happens. But eating lunch? It seems like way too many scenes in this book start with them eating lunch.

It’s 1:10am. The lamp on the piano just went out. It’s on a timer.

OK, so it’s after lunch. move them to the back yard, nearer the barn. That’s where it blows up. What does? Hang on, we’ll get there.

Now that I have your attention, I have a bone to pick with my readership. (Excluding those of you with whom I’ve met personally this week.)

Back on Monday, I posted a set of questions for writers and poets to answer. Nobody responded, despite the fact that my blog was visited about 60 times since then.

Not just idle curiosity but a means of networking, to share possibly some better ways of doing what we do with our creative lives, would be my point. (Now there’s some fun syntax.)

I am a poet. I’ve been writing poetry since about 1985. I’m also a professional writer in other genres. As a technical writer, I’ve got some game when it comes to the geek’s side of the writing biz. But …

“He who thinks he knows does not know. He who knows he does not know, knows.”
– Joseph Campbell

I want to learn from you. And I’m completely willing to share everything I think I know and know I don’t know. No charge, for whatever it may be worth.

When I post my own writing and no one comments, I can only assume it must have blown baby chunks. So back to the editing desk it goes – or to the drawer. No one wants to be cruel and I appreciate that. But I’m amazed that here we have a small group of poets and writers who don’t want to talk about themselves. We poets and writers – especially bloggers – Love to talk about ourselves.

I would post creative work in process here a lot more often, if I got more response to it when I do.

I can take a hint: I have not sold the proverbial bike shop in hopes of taking wing. But I feel like I’m hiding my own Easter eggs here, folks. He said, baldly mixing metaphors.

This blog is about writing. It’s about the creative impulse, the dim vision, the rare visceral pangs of clarity, the technique, the process, the dream deferred and supplanted, and the warm hard copy received in lieu of payment.

If you’re looking for Dilbert, you’re in the wrong place.

If you’re interested in writing let’s have a little intercourse, shall we not?

in·ter·course /ˈɪntərˌkɔrs, -ˌkoʊrs/ Pronunciation Key – [in-ter-kawrs, -kohrs] –noun

1.	dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc.

2.	interchange of thoughts, feelings, etc.

Are you a writer? So am I. And I want to ask you questions. I want to get down to brass tacks, or nuts and bolts or something with you. I have been looking everywhere, trying to learn the secrets of sanity. I want to know how you write.

I’m not talking about inspiration here. I don’t want to know – at least not today – how you finally get those elusive drops of blood to spring forth from your indehiscent brow. I need to know how you get your ideas into the world on any given day, and keep them from dissolving into the dew.

Here are my questions. If you will answer them for me, I will reciprocate in an impending post.

1. What software do you use?
2. When you are creating a longer piece – such as a novel – which has parts or sections such as chapters, do you keep the parts in separate software files or keep them together in one?
3. If you keep them separate, do you at some point merge them into a single document, prior to printing?
4. Do you work on one computer or with more than one, such as a desktop and a laptop?
5. If you use two or more, how do you keep your working files synchronized and prevent them from getting all confused?
6. Where do you like to work? Describe your favorite and least favorite places to write, and circumstances such as music playing, noisy coffeehouse, library, freeway underpass, etc.
7. Do you work best at certain times of day or under certain circumstances? Does this vary; and if so, why?
8. Do you have to enforce your need for solitude or quiet on family, friends, or neighbors? If so, how? And how do they react? Are you successful?
9. When you are away from your writing place/s, what steps if any do you take to be prepared if inspiration strikes or something notable appears? For example, do you carry a notebook?
10. Please share any thoughts or tips on organization or productive work habits that come to mind.

Please enter your responses in Comments in any format that suits you. Number them if it pleases you. Or respond by e-mail. Let me know if I can quote you on this blog, and if you prefer to be quoted anonymously. Thank you!

Work, you say? Oh balls, I was afraid of that.

In response to my last post – bemoaning the dichotomy between the dream and the practice of creating – Joe Bunting has left a comment. (Thanks!) It links to a short article by Ben Stein, of Ferris Bueller fame. It’s good – so good that I had to move it to the main thread so you don’t miss it.

I know a lot of really successful people — in finance, in government, in politics, in Hollywood, in journalism, in literature.

Their common denominator is a modicum of talent and a capacity and an eagerness — not just a willingness, but an eagerness — to work like Trojans to get ahead. I don’t know of one really successful, famous man or woman who didn’t work insanely hard to get there and to stay there.

Doggone it. I guess I need to either learn to rap or sit down and write.

Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It’s one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period.

–Nicholas Sparks, author (1965- )

Two things jumped out at me from this quote. First, that Sparks is the same age as my brother. And it always galls me to no end to see that writers younger than me are several laps ahead in the writing game. I would have guessed the third digit in that year might have been a 4. Dang.

Second, he’s right. There is a great satisfaction to getting to the end of a work, making a beautiful, powerful end to it, and looking back at its totality. Alas, it doesn’t often work out that way, does it? I frequently find the end fairly soon after the beginning, or somewhere in the middle, as a means of knowing where I’m going. I’ve heard this is not uncommon.

But good on ya, Nick!