I have been reading a lot recently. However, I was not reading for fun or relaxation. I’ve been reading page after page devoted to helping me understand my mind and the path I allowed it to take. That path led to mental, spiritual and physical delusion. It was an incredibly bad choice. However, I did learn that in order to
move on I must forgive myself. I have to use some of that grace and forgiveness I usually reserve for others and take it for myself.
It was a cooler day on my porch yesterday when I picked up a book I had started a couple months ago and read just for the fun of it. I began reading for reading’s sake again. It felt great.
Reading for fun again reminded me how much fun reading is
The book really isn’t the point here. Yes, it was a good choice as it was a fun escape and I was half way through it already. That was part of the value in picking it up again as I was remembering characters and plot twists as I went along. Clearly, this isn’t unusual in and off itself as one reads a novel. yesterday on my porch whenever I said to myself “Oh, yeah, he’s the crazy guy with the mechanical hand stalking the main character“. As a result, could feel myself connecting to the “Golden Buddha” inside myself. The one we all have in common, yet is too easily covered up.
I ended up finishing “Squeeze Me” while not having set out to finish yesterday on my porch. Yet, I was having such a grand time reading for fun again that I just kept going. The grace that I was able to give myself a little grace. I felt good enough about myself again to just enjoy the present moment.
It is fair to concede that Carl Hiaasen did not have me in his thoughts when he was writing his book about Burmese Pythons over running south Florida. In the end, he wrote a enjoyable book and it felt good to simply enjoy reading it.
The fault lies not with the mob, who demands nonsense, but with those who do not know how to produce anything else
I have picked out Don Quixote as the centerpiece for my summer reading. I have been constructing my own summer reading program for years now. My recent life has permitted time to design my front porch to accommodate a summer spent there reading to my heart’s content. In the last few years of I’ve added a mosquito net, a wheeled table, and a small circular fan for hot ass summer afternoons.
During the depths of my Midwest winter I begin to imagine myself out on my porch on a sunny Sunday afternoon with a book, my mind and me. I will chose a book to read that has been calling to me for years. A list of those books includes Moby Dick, Tristam Shandy, Huckelberry Finn, Oscar Wilde’s plays, Hamlet. This year will be Don Quixote which I have already bought and it ready and waiting for the weather to begin to warm up. But this year, something troubling has been happening. I’ve already wondered how I can post about my reading Don Quixote. And when I do, how many likes will it get? How will my SEO program react to it? How do I work Sancho Panza into my meta-description?
A trip to the library
Let me compare my front porch to a library, like the one I grew up going to on Dayton’s near north side. I went there to read books on lots of subjects. At that time in my tween years I loved books on WWII. It was exciting to go to the library. I headed straight for the history section within which lived the WWII books. Sometimes it was hard to chose among the titles. But part of the fun was choosing among the books, and then picking a couple you took an interest in at that moment. There was an element of suspense in those days in doing so without a phone in your hand providing as much information on the book as you could find.
I had to read the cover, back cover blurbs and maybe the table of contents. I had to then trust my instinct, obey my intellectual curiosity, and chose to read the book based on something inside me.
The icing on the cake was that if you had time you were able to read at least some of it then and there, before you had to head home. Once home you could read that whole book that you did not know existed just an hour or two beforehand. By reading it you could learn, discover and grow. As a preteen, I felt a rush, a buzz on the walk home holding the new book, this new world under my arm. That feeling was one of both anticipation and excitement with a dash of something undefinable. It was perhaps the sense, the understanding that I growing my mind and furthering my understanding of the world I lived in.
My old library
Keep your mind shut. No one wants to hear it
But what if I went to my library looking for something I knew was already there? A book or books that someone had told me to go find for some other purpose beside genuinely wanting to read it? Another reason besides satisfying honest intellectual curiosity? You know, that energy that can’t be defined by formula, measured by a scale or held in your hand? That thing, that mental force that got us out of the caves one fine spring day and on the way to indoor plumbing? What if you put other books aside and read a different one because a SEO program told you it was what someone else wanted you to read? Expected you to read, so that you could post about it to get clicks, likes and comments?
And this is what is scaring me about myself. More and more often I have been finding myself basing my choice of what I read and if I can post about it, or how I can post about it.
When reading was for it’s own sake
Give them what they want, to hell with your your own intellectual curiosity. SEO it steering your content towards clicks. Where does the content orginate? My mind. Who is in charge of my mind and all of it’s possible thoughts? Me. Or, it used to be.
It may be me over-reacting a bit, but I want to roam all the stacks in my library again. SEO and Google can piss off. I want to read so I can continue to learn for it’s own sake. I thought that was supposed to be the great thing about the internet, it was supposed to give us unlimited access to the world, not contain and control that access bit by bit. Like I said, I decided last year that it was time to read Don Quixote. I will honor that intention when it finally warms up around here. The book has been calling to me the same way all the books on the summer read lists have: In an undefinable way which I’ll call it the law of intellectual attraction. I am going to read Don Quixote because I want to.
All the said, the point underlying all this is that I like to write fiction. And recently, I have found writing about writing fiction in this blog to be too time consuming and not all that much fun. I have posted weekly for about two and a half years, which is quite commendable considering most blogs die after just a few months. So, I’m going to post less often for the time being. I’m going to ignore as much as I can SEO, SERP and web crawlers. I’m going to read and write and post for the fun of it!
So there. Is this what they call “tilting at windmills?‘ If so, I’m about to find out.
It led to thoughts of quitting everything for good. Not stopping, or taking a break, but quitting everything for good. – a journal entry from last week
I wrote the above entry in my journal after a tough week working on the books and the blog. I could list the causes that generated that entry but they are all downstream. The lists always are. They are different for everyone, everyday, every time. My list of woes, trials and challenges were mostly all of a technical, after market nature. I can do content. That is no problem. It’s the rest of the stuff involved in moving the books and the blog along that drove me to the point I noted above. My life as whole was fine and dandy. In fact, the next day’s entries mention that I got a raise at work. I am grateful to have a job in the first place so don’t bust out cryin’ for me just yet.
What about that writing you used to do?
But the two are connected. I received my raise partly do to the fact that I go into work mentally energized and ready for the day. Often times, I have already achieved something such as a good first draft on a post that has put me in a good place mentally. This carries me thought the work day and it’s challenges. Before I know it, I’m home and work has gone well.
That cycle has been generated over and over by getting up around five every morning, making my doppio, and writing on my books and my blog. My after work day mind is fatigued, my stomach empty and body in need of a shower. Yet, I can sometimes find space in the evening for social media, blog maintenance and revisions.
This is a great routine for me. It may not be clear yet but I am simply doing what my mom asked me to do years ago. My mom is not the most direct person on the planet. She would not ask directly for things. I remember once making a pot of afternoon coffee for a group of family and friends and my mom was there. She saw me obviously performing the task and asked, “Are you making coffee?’ This was her way of saying that she’d like some.
So, when she asked me, “What about that writing you used to do”, she was, in her own round about way, telling me to get my ass in gear and do something more constructive with my time besides drinking beer and watching football. This was half a decade ago or maybe longer ago than that. I still prepare and brew coffee the same way.
What about that writing you used to do?
When I noted in my journal that I was quitting, I had to ask myself why I started my writing based routine in the first place. I had to find the place I go back to. What do I go back to? My purpose? What hill was I choosing to die on? What would I do with my hours and days if I were not following my mom’s round about suggestion that I start writing again?
So, what about that writing I used to do? I write to give me incentive to achieve and maintain mental clarity, energy and calling. I do what I do because it generates a positive sense of self before work and on weekends. It gives me a settled mind which in turn rewards me with a great night of sleep. I wake up at “divine time”, not clock time, when my subconscious and superconscious minds have recharged and tell me to get up and begin this day. The day I will direct, define and refine by doing just this, exactly what I am doing now.
I asked myself the question my mom asked me years ago I realized that I would be quitting for the wrong reasons. OK, I’ll list a few : Tripio cover upgrade rejected by Amazon, cost of an editor, writing to keep Yoast SEO happy. Give all this up for that? No way. I was thinking quitting for reasons that had nothing to do with why I started in the first place. Fortunately for me, I think I remembered my mom’s suggestion because in few days I am finally going to be able to safely visit her again.
I found it again
To conclude, I think that it is too easy to get distracted in this world today. It is too easy to stop something for reasons that aren’t your own. Even something that you know has been good for you! And that is a red flag. Or even a red apron recipe. If you are feeling discouraged about doing something that is good for you, try to see where those thoughts are coming from. Find your way back to the why. Try not to look at the downstream list of attachments or results that are really beyond your control. The distractions, the reason you want to quit are most likely not truly your own. You are a golden Buddha, hidden by a layer of mud. Take a look, scrape off a bit of the mud. There you are! Carry on!
Oh by the way, mom, thanks! And, your coffee is ready.
“Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility”
I wrote that
Painters block?
I take this blog seriously. I know I have come to use humor more frequently as the blog goes on. However I believe that is an indication of growing confidence in the blog itself. The humor, mostly self-deprecating, is an attempt to create an enjoyable, unique experience for anyone reading the blog. I feel responsible to put out a good post even if it is read by a single person.
But this week, I have devoted the mental energy usually spent writing the blog to the countless other details required to sustain and maintain a published novel on Amazon. In addition I am occupied with the progress of novel number two, following other blogs and the housekeeping required to manage it all. As such, last night arrived and I found myself without a topic in my head for this morning’s first draft. It is the end of the week, the time when I usually begin work on my Monday post. Mildly panicked, I did glance over some books I have around that I sometimes refer to for inspiration. They provided none.
Shaking the content tree
Earlier this week I had met a fellow ex-Starbucks barista. We exchanged battle stories and favorite coffee drinks. I promised I would drop off a signed copy of Tripio when I returned next week. Consequently, Tripio was in my head more than usual since then. However, I could not dredge a post from it all week. Then I tried movement. I wondered around the house hoping to shake the content tree. I can usually pick up fallen fruit off the content tree after I step away from the laptop and move around a bit. Letters to Theo, by Vincent VanGogh came into my mind. I went upstairs to retrieve my copy, brought it downstairs and did nothing further with it. It was too late. I was past writing but was confident I would find something in Letters to use in the morning.
Letters to Theo It is an important part of Tripio. If you google Van Gogh you will discover he was, the letters to his brother aside, a painter. You will find the book mentioned by Jay, Tripio’s main character, in this excerpt – “One must not wait for it to reveal itself. By painting one becomes a painter. That must be from Letters to Theo.“
Starry, starry Starbucks
Jay isn’t trying to become a painter. But he is sure that he can apply Van Gogh’s wisdom to his own life and write novels. Jay questions himself throughout Tripio. Will he just write and not worry so much about anything else? Will he do the right thing by taking Van Gogh’s wisdom to heart? Will he write and forsake the promising career he had in front of him at a new and growing company called Starbucks? Will he stop writing to become the man he was meant to be? Van Gogh was shaking the content tree pretty hard in Tripio as you can see.
As for today’s post, Van Gogh provided the inspiration again. This morning, after brewing my doppio followed by a pot of coffee backer, I picked up that same, beaten up copy of Letters to Theo. I opened it. Then, I swear that I am not making this up, I turned to and read the paragraph containing the quote:
“Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility”
And so the canvas, as you have read, is no longer blank.
I am reading “How Starbucks Saved my Life” by Michael Gates Gill with great interest and a good deal of empathy. I am marking Starbucks 50th anniversary by attempting to read other books on Starbucks that focus on the baristas, and not the business. My novel, Tripio, does that brilliantly. I had not choice however, since I began my career there as a barista. How was published in 2007. Tripio in 2018. Tripio takes place at Starbucks in 1992, and How in and around 2007. The years between 1992 and 2007 represent almost unimaginable change in the small barely regional company for which Jay Altonstreet put on the green apron. Since Jay in Tripio actually started in 1990 the contrast is even more telling.
1990 Starbucks expands headquarters in Seattle. Unveils Starbucks Mission Statement. Total stores: 84
2007 Eliminates all artificial trans fat and makes 2 percent milk the new standard for espresso beverages. Opens stores in: Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania and Russia. Total stores: 15,011
See what I mean? But the numbers can not do much more than look back at you. If you closely though you will clearly see both Tripio and How.
“That’s the way we do things at Starbucks”
The company experienced by Jay in Tripio and M.G.G. in how would seem to be worlds apart. The company they each experienced was different. The protagonists in each book could not be more dissimilar. The books are told in a way reflecting these distinctions. The unification comes from the fact that the two books are each telling one person’sunique story while working at Starbucks. I wrote Tripio in large part to release the experience of the Starbucks years. I worked there during the Starbucks IPO and left a million dollars behind when I took off my coffee stained green apron for the last time. MGG “felt numb” at the prospect of starting his job at Starbucks, already a global corporation.
How is the story of how MGG undergoes change, transformation ands personal growth. Gill admits to a lot of his faults in How and tells how their consequences led to him working at Starbucks. Jay’s story is similar in that I wrote him the intent of keeping in all of his faults. He is selfish, convinced he is unique, and wants to do with his life want exactly what he wants to do, even if it means hoping for a mis-carriage for a child he has fathered. His faults contribute to him leaving leaving a million dollar IPO payoff behind when he quits Starbucks.
Telling figures
Tripio and How by their nature must also include baristas as major figures in their respective tales. For MGG it is his hiring manger, Crystal. For Jay that person it is a barista named Kati. Tripio features characters based on dozens of real life baristas and store managers who day to day, latte by latte built the Starbucks MGG went to work for. His baristas and managers work to improve on what the people in Jays’ time created.
The two tables of figures above made me say “Damn, look at that.” How and Tripio due their part in telling the numbers story also. I am finding How worth reading so far because like Tripio, it tells the equally important story of the real, actual people behind those numbers. Writing this now, many years later, I miss the crews I worked with. Those days at Starbucks still vibrate in my person, still resonate in my mind. Hence books and novels that tell the stories of real people, not numbers, money and data. How and Tripio tell the equally, if not more, compelling story of what happens after the tills for the the day have been counted, after that stupid green apron is untied and thrown in the dirty laundry bag on the way out the door.
It is Sunday morning and soon I will head off to my local Get Fit for my mental and physical self care routine (masked up for the duration). Sure, I go for my physical cardio workout. My goal, as suggested by my GP, is to elevate my heart rate several times during my time on the cross trainer. It isn’t easy. But the getting up, the climbing, the few moments of increased effort to achieve an accelerated heart rate is what does the most good for the heart, veins and cardiovascular system. Simply running in place for 20 minutes with only a slightly accelerated heart rate apparently has little benefit. The climb up is where the effort is and the resulting benefit attained.
Like so many, I must have music while I exercise. I use my Pandora app to select some workout appropriate music. I can’t it all the work here, people. Recently, I’ve set it to feature Abba. Reason being that if “Mama Mia” doesn’t get me moving, then it just isn’t my day.
There’s a fire within my soul
MENTAL CARDIO
Since Pandora is free it has commercial interruptions. I know I could move on to an upgrade or source my music via Spotify or some other means. However, this task never seems to make it to the top of the pile of things to do. So, I stick with Pandora and the commercial interruptions, even if I have started to loathe them more and more. It took me a while to understand why I became progressively less tolerarnt of these distractions during my cardio sessions at the gym. Then, it hit me.
My mental cardio session is meant for my mind, my body and for me. I am moving, sweating, while unifying my body, mind and spirit in the process. It is a private time when the three of us communicate intimately amongst ourselves. No one else is invited. How dare these commercials try to steal my thoughts at this precious time when my best thoughts are doing me the most good? I consider the commercial interruptions an act of trespassing, especially when they begin by yelling “Hey!” to grab my mind away from me.
I used to simply rip out my ear speakers and toss them violently off my head until my phone said the commercial was over. I was then safe from a commercial violating my mind for several more songs or hopefully until the conclusion of my workout. Still, I felt cheated of several minutes of my empowering workout time. The good news is that I have recently found a solution, a middle path. And no, it wasn’t found on the phone.
The mental cardio middle path
It is not switching apps, accessing a different source for music or ditching the phone altogether. It struck me a few visits to Get Fit past to use the interruptions to make my mind healthier, just as interval training makes my cardiovascular system stronger by making it stop, restart and climb again and again. Let’s call it mental cardio. A time I now recognize as a combination of mental cardio as well as physical.
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS
So later today when I make to my cross trainer, I will apply the middle path wisdom and use the commercial interruptions as my interval training for my mind. You see, typically I have found that when the body is moving that the mind, especially the subconscious mind, is most productive. So I listen to my mind while working out and it usually brings me pure, fearless thoughts for my books, the blog and my life as a whole. I later use these healthy, self generated thoughts found during my mental cardio to apply to my life in positive ways. I have seen it work. To have an unwanted voice try to reach into my mind during this time is unacceptable to me.
So, when I’m on the cross trainer and a thought stealing commercial comes on, I will smile. I will simply remove the ear phones calmly and begin my middle path inspired mental climb. I will start “the climb”, which to reiterate, is the part that does the most good. It strengthens my mind against unwanted distractions, interruptions and commercials. By practicing mental cardio I will find them easier to ignore, which is the last thing the folks behind the commercials want out of me. So, to them I say, bring them your distractions. They now make my mind clearer and stronger. So, Flo from Progressive, Jake from State Farm and legions of others, I want you to give this post some thought. Unless of course, it is a distraction for you to do so.
I’m in the process of finding an editor for my next novel. I am in the process of searching for answers, looking for outside help. I am in the need of expert assistance for something I can’t do as well as they could. This happens so often in our world that we don’t even know it happens so often, as it happens. I don’t bake my own bread, darn my socks or remove my own bodily waste from my house. This is all done for me. All I have to do is complete a transaction.
In the case of the latter transaction, my toilet often runs a bit afterwards, so I have to jiggle the handle to make it stop. It bothers me to have to do so after I ‘ve left the room to return here to write. I can hear the annoying running noise from at my laptop two rooms away. I sigh or swear, get up, and go back to the bathroom to jiggle the handle. This interruption usually costs me a thought or two. It may have cost the world the thought that would have led to a literary masterpiece. Or not. The point is, I have finally taken action to produce the resources to do something about that toilet. I now have the money get it fixed. Why take any more chances on denying the world some of my wisdom, a great novel or an insightful blog post?
NO LEGAL REQUIREMENT FOR AN EDITOR
The running toilet has also taken its turn in distracting me from finding an editor for my second novel,Back outta the World. An editor is a must for any writer- what a boring sentence– see what I mean? Anyway, in this day of direct or self publishing, you can press “publish” on Amazon or your platform of choice and off your work goes in the infinity of the virtual book shelf. There is no law that says that your masterpiece needs an editor. I am not here to criticize anyone who had done this. It has occurred to me to do this with BotW many times. I could do it today and be done with BotW. But, it would bother me. BotW would not be the book it could be. It would bother me, much like the noise a running toilet produces from several rooms away.
The process of finding an editor goes on. But I did find someone to fix the toilet. In fact, I decided to redo the whole bathroom. I had three different companies visit the house and each looked over my bathroom in their own fashion. A full bathroom remodel amounts to a substantial investment. I have to mention here that my downstairs bathroom was once a back porch. It was made into a full bathroom sometime before we moved in. Hence one wall faces the outside. It’ s the wall with the water pipes and so it freezes when the temps drop enough. Each of the three companies and I talked process, price and the people who do the work. All three companies had faucets, shower shells, and towel racks. But only one took the interest to ask a couple more questions, to get understand the origin of the bathroom itself.
I WANT SOMEONE TO DO THE DIRTY WORK
I could not answer some questions. Hey, I just live here. So I led them to the crawlspace off the basement that was under the bathroom. It was there that one of the guys, using his phone for a light, crawled into my crawlspace. He then crawled, of course, to the far wall. There, now on his knees, he found a piece of plywood that allowed access the the floor under the bathroom. I did not know that space existed and I’m into my third decade here. He removed it and was able to examine that.
After he managed to extract himself, brush off the dust and shut of his phone light, he told me things about my bathroom I did not know before. He told me that there was an old heating tape that ran around the pipes. He also noticed a damper valve half closed on the heating duct that led to the bathroom. No wonder I had been showering in a meat locker for twenty years. He opened it all the way. I would be warmer the next time I stepped in and out of my shower. The work hadn’t even started on the room and already this company had improved my bathroom. He took the time to understand the the dynamics behind why the bathroom was cold. Fixing a running toilet would be no problem for this company. We had a deal.
AN EMOTIONAL DECISION
That is what I am looking for in finding an editor, people. I don’t just want a transaction. When we bought this house those two plus decades ago, the realtor said something I have always remembered. She said that buying a house was an “emotional decision“. So is parting will a novel and handing it over to an editor. This not just a transaction to me. If I am going to do that, I want an editor to go into the novel’s crawlspace, find things I never knew existed, and make the book better. No luck so far. Maybe, when I’m no longer distracted by a running toilet, I will be able to find such an editor.
Even now I am practicing. I am looking for my writing mind, searching for the one thought that will begin this post. I am trying to plant thoughts, grow thoughts, cultivate thoughts and produce a post. But that is getting ahead of myself. I just want one sentence. Hell, I’ll settle for a phrase, a name, the name of a place. All this would be easy enough to do if I went looking for it out there with a click or two. But then that’s someone else trying to get at my unique writing mind. I don’t need that, nor do I want it. So, I take another sip of my coffee and wait for my subconscious mind to send this post to me, then to you. When that happens, this post may not perfect, but it will be mine. It will be original.
Writing Back outta the world
Why it this relevant? Because, I have just finished my second novel,Back outta the World. I am intentionally giving myself a week or so to honor myself, to congratulate myself. I once read that it is way too prevalent in this country to ask someone who has just achieved something remarkable, such as high school or college graduation, to ask them “What’s next?” Consequently, I have tried to make it a practice instead to say to the achiever, “That was quite an accomplishment” or “It must have taken quite a lot of work.”
Of course, being human, we are most often extremely hard on ourselves. I am no exception. If my life is a kitchen, then I am my own hangry Gordon Ramsey peering into the fridge and seeing blood from his onglet steaks dripping on the radicchio. It was with some difficulty then that I was taking this week to say to my writing mind, “Well done on the novel. You did it. You must feel proud of yourself.“
As the week went on, in spite of my opposing intentions, I observed myself thinking about what to do next with Back outta the World. I have to find an editor and cover artist, start social media marketing, decide on genre to place it in. Those of just some of the steps taken withTripio. I have done them before. I was able to let my writing mind process most of those thoughts away. And yet, I was still observing my next project, my “what next?” making itself at home in my subconscious mind. I could not just shut the fridge door and walk away.
The WritingMindforIronjaws
I had written ‘Ironjaws” so long ago I could hardly remember much about it. I had not even opened the file for about 5 years. It is a novella in length and the next work of mine I’m planning on getting published. My plan all along was to begin to work on it afterBotW was up and selling. Towards the end of my week of trying to shut out the “what next?”I gave up on that plan and read Ironjaws and laughed out loud several times.
I decided then and there to apply a lighter touch to Ironjaws, to attempt to add a even more laughs to it. Ironjaws is the story 5 boys on a fishing trip the last weekend before 8th grade school year starts. Once at the lake they have a chance encounter with “a man in red baseball hat”, who tells them of a fish who lives in the lake named Ironjaws. This fish has hundreds of rusty hooks in its mouth and stomach because it’s “too big and mean to be caught.” I couldn’t wait to start working on it. I knew that I really should be doing more practical things on social media, Amazon etc. but it was too late at that point. I had started mentally began to write Ironjaws.
“The follies of our youth…“
One thing I remembered after reading Ironjaws for the first time in 5 years was that I didn’t like the very first line. I needed a different line to open the story. A line that would capture the excitement of being at a fishing trip with your friends just before you start the school year again. Where would I look for such a thing? In my own mind of course. I thought of a line attributed to Chesterton. I found it via a Monty Python skit, so don’t think I am that well read. It is, ‘The follies of our youth stand in glorious contrast to those of our old age.” That will be in Ironjaws somewhere certainly. If in spirit only because this group of 8th graders would not be working Chesterton into any of their conversations during this fishing trip, unless that is, he wrote jokes for Playboy.
Not written with the mind in mind
But thankfully that one thought I thought of become another. It was a memory of ditty sung by my friends and me a lot during those years caught in Ironjaws. And so Ironjaws will open with Jimmy, or Boxhead as he is nicknamed, looking over the lake, where Ironjaws may indeed live, and chanting “Got a skeeter on my peter, knock it off, knock it off. Got a skeeter on my peter, knock it off, knock it off.”
My own mind did bring me a better opening to Ironjaws with one thought I thought. And I am grateful. Yet, It brings me a new issue with it. Because now I can’t get that damn ditty out of my head.
Have you noticed, as I have, that there has been a good deal of content focusing on the benefits of getting up early? There are podcasts, posts and articles everywhere extoling the benefits of getting up early. I came across podcast on Linked In called The Six Morning Habits of High Performers, by Pete Mockaitis. Not to brag or boast while I sip my coffee over my morning toast, but I’ve been doing my own, very similar morning regimen for several years now. I’m not talking about just getting ready for the day. I have been getting up early as a means of setting my mind and intentions in the direction I feel is best for me. I like to say the morning is the best time to do this because the rest of the world is not awake to distract me with their intentions for my mind.
My morning routine usually includes a few minutes reading a wisdom book, journaling, a few yoga asanas, then some time writing for the books or the blog. All this in done in and around several mugs of coffee. It’s duration is dependent on work start time and day of the week. For me, the morning thing people are preaching to the choir.
“You never get tired of feeling good” – me
My wisdom reading, my reading for my clear, respective and energized morning mind, most recently has been a Shakespeare sonnet. Even on weekends when I have more time, I read just one sonnet every morning. It is about all of that iambic pentameter I can take. But I found it to be as good a mind exercise as reading a bit of the Bagdavida, or page or two of Dear Theo, both of which I have recently used in my morning routine. Yet, I have never been called to read much Shakespeare and it isn’t something one normally does voluntarily. I am of the age that it is a recommended that I get a colonoscopy. I did that. Now comes reading Shakespeare. Both are highly recommended but do you really want to do either?
As I said, I never did. However, I finally had to see for myself what all the fuss was about. So, late last spring, I read the old paperback copy of Hamlet that had been around the house forever. Later that summer I read Oscar Wilde’s essay on Shakespeare’s sonnets. The lengthy Wilde essay was less a discussion of the sonnets themselves but more his learned opinion on whether the sonnets were written to a particular person, of which there is much academic debate, of a particular gender, of which, in those days, there were only two. Reading those led me to find old Riverside Shakespeare that had also seen sitting around the house forever.
For my current morning routine, I first read the original sonnet several times. Next I write a guess as to what it’s about in my journal. Then I read a modern English interpretation. The process is completed when I watch and listen to Patrick Stewart read that sonnet with my eyes going back to the original. It is a good way to create the open mind and intentional thought you want in your head to start they day. To me, that is the greatest benefit of my early morning routine.
As for Shakespeare as a whole, I’m not saying there’s not wonderful language and imagery in Shakespeare. In fact, to even begin to get into all of it is simply too much for my mind on this particular morning. I know my limits, as demonstrated by my one sonnet a morning practice. I only have time, space and intent enough in this post to recommend coming at Shakespeare not when it is not forced on you. Sure, I did voluntarily read both Hamlet and Oscar Wilde’s essay on the Sonnets last summer but avoided Shakespeare during my years of formal education. However, for the purpose of this post I also recommend coming at Shakespeare via Ben Elton’s series on BritBox called Upstart Crow.
Ben Elton wrote or helped write some of my all time favorite British Comedies such as The Young Ones and Blackadder. Upstart Crow is indeed funny. The episode where Shakespeare attempts to explain the plot of Hamlet to the actors who laugh at each machination thinking the play is a comedy, was cathartic for me and perhaps for anyone who has been told how great a tragedy Hamlet is. And, it still may be a great stage play- I haven’t seen it. But when I was reading it, I kept thinking that Hamlet and his screwed up family would have made good guests on an episode of Jerry Springer. It was already clear that with them in charge that Denmark was never going to achieve superpower status in the coming centuries.
I think a secondary reason I enjoyed the show was that it often portrays William Shakespeare, as a man with a wife, kids, a commute to and from Stratford and day to day worries. One would have no trouble reading hundreds of academic volumes about written about Shakespeare’s life. But for me, Ben Elton’s presentation of Shakespeare as an ordinary guy made his works way more accessible, approachable and appealing. And more than all the academia, classes, and textbooks combined, persuaded me to finally open that 1926 page Riverside Shakespeare to read a sonnet every morning. Sure, Shakespeare may be the greatest writer in the English language but he still was just a guy in puffling pants trying to get through his day, starting with what must have been a hell of a morning routine all his own.
One thing writing can do is that it forces a writer reflect on who you are, were and with a bit of intention, design and align who you are going to become. Today, I received an email from Terry Allen saying that I could use his song title, Back outta the World as the title for my metaphysical road novel. Feel free to check out Terry Allen now or after finishing this post. For me, the email was the unofficial end to the writing of BotW. It was the light turning green telling me it was time to head off to editing, publication, and since this country demands validation through it, monetization, of the novel. In my thank you reply, I told Terry (God knows why I felt compelled to do this) that I felt a bit of “postpartum blues at finishing the novel” and that it “been with me such a long time.“
A Terry Allen work which is perfect for this post. Would you believe I had no idea it existed before I started the post?
THE LAPTOP SCREEN AS A MIRROR
I first heard Terry Allen’s music in St. Louis on the weekend I attended the historic Davis Cup match between John McEnroe and Mats Wilander in 1982. That match was as engaging and tense a tennis match as one could hope to see. I remember being damp with sweat as I sat watching. In and around that weekend in St. Louis, after showering, I remembering hearing a Terry Allen’s song called “The Great Joe Bob Went Bad.” I have been a fan of music since, coming his art a bit later. I feel that in a metaphysical sense, that weekend is when I began writing Back outta the World.
Is this me?
Writing this post now in central Indiana on a 12 degree day during a Pandemic, I am struggling a bit on where to go with it. Like the beat up yellow VW van in BotW, I could go anywhere. I could head off to the dreams I had of playing tennis professionally, to playing shortstop for the Reds, to becoming Ultraman. I am trying new SEO software on a new laptop, so I could look to Key phrases or even additional Key phrases for direction. Not really, no. Because if you’ve read these post you know that ain’t gonna happen. Keywords will not provide any help in finding out how the hell yours truly went front scribbling on a yellow pad in the back of a van in the 80’s to being a single father of four young adult children.
I think one way to do that, to take that journey, is to write about it, to take a look inside. And how did I come to that understanding? Partly or even mostly by writing, writing and rewriting BotW. Also by reading BotW over and over and letting it tell me things about myself. The book is a road trip where Jay’s (me) mind and body are on two separate trips and meet at the end. This is a realization I came to during the third rewrite, which itself come to be after a two decade hiatus in which I barely recalled BotW existed. Yes, the actual words have gone from the yellow pad to typed pages to laptop screen. Like the novel that is now BotW, I have undergone different versions of myself as well. And I am not still talking about SEO, word counts and punctuation. When I went to that Davis Cup match in 1982 I still had hopes of making a living playing tennis. But those tennis pro dreams were fading even then. That great match rekindled them for a short time. In the 30 years or so since that Davis Cup weekend when I was first introduced to Terry Allen’s’ music, life has given me the above mentioned four adult children and a hell of lot more in the bargain. At times, it looked as if life had given me more than I could handle. One way I began to believe I was able to live my life with my own intentions was by writing. And, thank the heavens above, I have discovered that it works and continues to work.
I really like this book
Or maybe this is me…
I am aware now that I need to continue revise myself. These days I view the thirty year journey of rewriting BotW as a mental makeover. An ongoing practice of looking at me through the book. I like to say that novels are never really finished. If that is true then it must be true of it’s author as well. Today I find myself finally happy with the latest revision of both the book and of me. That may only last this one day. But, I’ll take it because it’s the book I’m reading right now.
Coffee Novelist 
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