“There were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity.”
Herman Melville from Typee
I found the quote in Lapham’s, before I found the cartoon.
“There were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity.”
Herman Melville from Typee
I found the quote in Lapham’s, before I found the cartoon.
Everyone now and then I think about revising my first novel, Tripio. I’m guessing that I am not alone in this, especially on one’s first novel. When I actually voiced this over a phone call to my book producer, who I worked with on the Trier, his response was that a lot of authors do feel this way. He told me what was involved from a technical standpoint in order to, as he put, “re-pour” the book into print. He also said make sure I don’t do all this work just to change happy to glad.
I have not been visited by the same urges with The Trier. In fact, as I write this post, I dare say that I never have wanted to go back into it. I may revise this post later, but I can’t think of that thought poking at me since the Trier came out last summer.
I am writing this blog post before I begin work on the follow up to The Trier, whose working title is The Trier Goes to London. It feels like I just started it. But it is coming to an end, not by my choice, or decision or plan. It began when I had my main character sit in a chair with his back to a fireplace. It was the beginning of the arc that will conclude TGL.
It isn’t that I have had no idea what I was doing. I am a dedicated “pantser’, not a plotter, but I’m not crazy. I have had the dramatic ending of the novel in mind for months now. It has just been waiting in my subconscious mind for a chance to jump out and say “now”. That did sound a bit crazy, I guess. But then again, not a crazy as spending a small fortune to change happy to glad.
The word happy appears 31 time in Tripio.
Meet me in St. Louis? I took the cold winter months off touring to work on the follow up to The Trier, which went really well. But writing the follow up doesn’t help sell the first book, so I’m hitting the road again. Can’t wait to get started on The Trier Tour ’24.
Oscar Wilde once said that some things are too important to be taken seriously. That captures how I go about writing. And to prove it, as I write this post I’m thinking about Monty Python’s Oscar Wilde sketch, and not any of Wilde’s plays, novels, and further wisdoms.
And don’t call me an artist. That sounds way too serious for me. No, it’s ponderous and pretentious, and is just another useless label. My writing practice is what I take very, very seriously. The results, not so much. So, just don’t call me an artist. Here in Indianapolis, there is an annual Gathering of Artists, put on by the Indiana Writers Center, of which I am proud member. But I will never in a million years go to such a thing, unless they call it something else.
I practice writing every day. I don’t even write, as such, most of the time. In reality, I direct the neutral mental energy collected and assembled from other parts of the writing practice. Those parts include but are not limited to yoga, meditation, cardiovascular exercise, journaling, sitting in the sauna, and lots of intentional distractions such as doing the dishes, mowing the grass, feeding the cat.
I do my best writing as I harvest the mind’s energy during all the activities I mention above. My brain and five senses are doing one thing, while my subconscious mind can act freely. It sends me names, bits of dialogue, character traits. You name it, it is always there.
So, to say I sit down, usually after a solid-ass night’s sleep, and “write” or craft or God forbid, perform the work of an artist, isn’t accurate. It just doesn’t capture how I feel emotionally about what I do to produce novels.
One of the hidden benefits to this is that I avoid labeling the results of my writing practice. Labels require maintenance and don’t work anyway because the implication of a label is that the thing labeled will stay what it is forever. Nothing does. Not the thing labeling, nor the person doing the labeling, categorizing or whatever you call it.
There is only one thing worse than being called an artist. And that is not being called an artist. Or did I get that wrong?
Not an artist
With the overwhelming amount of information available to us, we are more reliant than ever on categorization, labels and shortcuts- these can bring us a sense of security in shrinking the world to make it more manageable- A writer does not value safety or sameness.
This quote from Rick Rubin has been visiting my mind for a while. I think it has to be because I recently sent in my application for a spot in this year’s Columbus Book Festival.
They stopped accepting applications on January 31st and so the waiting begins. I learned a lot last year when I hit the road to promote The Trier and by extension Tripio. There are a lot of venues, or landing spots as I like to call them, for a coffee novel. That is one reason I chose to move ahead with the Trier as opposed to my YA novella, Ironjaws. I worked hard on Ironjaws and had gotten as far as getting blurbs for the cover, the manuscript professional edited and all that. But I was hesitant to move on from there because I did not see a lot of ways to get the book to readers. I did not see much hope in setting up a book table at a bait shop or at a fishing tournament.
But there are 38,400 coffeehouses in the USA alone. So, I reasoned I could find a few of them to set up my table. And I did. Some events were better than others, and as the novelist in residence, for at least a few hours, I was able to drink free coffee as I sold and signed (on not) my books. I love coffee, so there was not a lot to be learned there. However, did learn that the most successful events financially involved a customer base with an intent to buy. I usually do not walk into my local coffeehouse with the hope that an unknown guy with a novel is going to ask me to spend 15 bucks. Lesson learned.
The Columbus book festival will include a population with an intent to buy. About now you are thinking, what the hell does this have to do with the Rubin Quote? Here it goes. Each book festival that I ‘ve applied for a table asks you for your books’ genre, category etc. Well, I ain’t got one. In fact, I call myself America’s Premier Coffee Novelist partially as tongue-in-cheek reference to just that. In fact, I often add the line, until I hear otherwise. All well and good until you have fill out the application form and don’t see where you fit in.
So, as I wait for the Columbus Book Fair to let me know if they want an uncategorized book vendor among the romance, thriller, sci-fi, murder mystery etc, I wonder if it is worth it? Worth it to try something new and different. Like the quote says, I do not value safety or sameness, as least as far as writing goes. I’ll just have to wait and see if the folks in Columbus do.
This is the same photo you always use.
The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable.
This morning I am reviewing my 5th Chakra. You heard me right. It is snowing and cold. I just wrote in my journal that the wind is literally rattling the windowpanes of this 112 year old house. So, why not brew some coffee and see how I’m doing in good ol’ Chakra number five?
If you don’t know how balanced or imbalanced you are in your 5th or any of your six other Chakras, I’m afraid you won’t’ be able to find out by asking Siri. Save her for ego gratification and disconnection from the effort required to actually enjoy the outcome of what you are asking her to do for you.
The Fifth Chakra is the throat, the voice Chakra which impels you to express yourself in a creative way. It can be helpful for me at least, to view the Chakras as a type of ladder with seven rungs in various states of repair or disrepair. All steps need to be working before you get to a state of detached, self-awareness in which one doesn’t have anything to defend, be the smartest guy in the room, and in which you understand that you are in the materialistic rat race world but not of it. The Fifth Chakra is the throat and voice Chakra which impels you to express yourself in a creative way.
I am feeling fairly sure of my footing on the 5th Chakra this morning as I write this post. I may be struggling in the 2nd or 3rd Chakras tomorrow so I’m writing this post while I’m here. It’s a new ladder every day.
A balanced 5th Chakra allows one to speak their personal truth. Of course, one doesn’t just spin the Chakra dial and end up with a balanced 5th Chakra, writing your personal truth. You have to find it first. I have had my path and it ain’t pretty nor is it recommended. It wouldn’t’ work to do what I did anyway. Your own personal truth can only be discovered by you. Makes sense to me.
I was into chakras for years and years before I read the Robert Henri quote in the Rubin book. But it was during my 5th chakra review earlier this morning that I saw the connection between a balanced 5th chakra and the “wonderful state.” The 5th chakra is knowing your tendencies and traits well enough to get out of the way and allow the liberated pure light to shine through.
Not sure where to go from here. Maybe that there is nothing new under the sun, certainly not my warped, wooden windowpanes. Henri and Rubin aint’ breaking news here. Maybe simply feeling like I wanted to write about something I believe in (and I definitely do), like the existence of the energy centers in our bodies that the Chakras are, confirms that I am balanced in my 5th chakra, and freeing my personal truth, sharing it without any other agenda to fulfill.
Yea, that must have been the reason.
Photo taken when it was a lot warmer.
A river of material runs through us. When we share our work and ideas, we are replenished.
Rick Rubin, from The Creative Act
I almost didn’t start this post. I almost didn’t because I did not see where, when, or even if, it would end. Which makes sense now because a river keeps flowing, and from the shore, or sitting on a dock watching it flow by, there is no end.
My writing practice is like a river, and I could get carried away with how that makes sense to me. The above quote makes sense, perfect sense to me. But how does one share a river? A fair question. If you are brave enough to read more from this guy who thinks writing is a body of water flowing past, read on and I will provide an answer.
It is simple really. It already exists in some rivers. You share the river by stopping the flow. Not by a dam built by beavers or named after J. Edgar Hoover. It is a temporary halt, and interruption, a redirection using the same source material, of course. It’s a waterfall.
I have been integrating yoga and writing for ten years, consciously and with intent the last five or six. It has been more an intention to release everything I write during these yoga practices, even if the practice is just a five minute one before work. I have written something in the last day that I release. “Let it go, so it can flow”. And it works. I do not experience writers’ block. And since it is all one practice anyway, it is harder and harder to tell when I’m writing here at the laptop or on my mat.
A couple years ago, I developed a blood clot in my right leg. I’ll leave out the grisly details as to how for now. And I am on my feet all day at work. So, to give my lower legs and feet some respite, in the last two years, I have been finishing my longer yoga practices with in inverted shavasana against a wall. My bottom is against the wall, legs lined up along it, and my feet are the highest bit of my body. Arms at my side. My legs love the reversing flow and energy.
I am not sure why, but it may be because I’ve been writing for long enough that I needed another way to let it all go. Not just the daily stuff, but the accumulated bits the daily practice missed. But about six months ago, during my wall shavasana, I put my arms above my head, flat on the floor, spread all my fingers apart and imagined my body as a waterfall. My head is where the pool of water forms, stays for moment, and moves on.
I imagine this as I hold the pose, now called waterfall shavasana, and let it go so it can flow, and tomorrow I can write mo’. It works very well for me. The water flows into the pool below, stays for a bit, and keeps flowing. If I envision the writing as water, it’s how I share it.
Makes sense to me, anyway. That concludes my sharing time for today.
I spent several hours yesterday morning actually writing. Sitting on my chair at my laptop grinding away on some plot points on my follow up to The Trier. For the record the working title is The Trier goes to London. It is set in 1675, or thereabouts, because that was the year Charles II of England issued a proclamation that ordered the closing of all of London’s coffee houses. Why, you ask??
You’ll have to read the book when it comes out.
Later in the day I went to my local gym to do the editing on the work I did earlier and write more. The writing I did on the cross trainer, on my yoga mat, in the sauna, and on my meditation, pillow will show up later today when I work again on TGL. And again, the next day, and again next week.
This is my writing practice. The source line for this post from Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act, is “good habits create good art (his word, not mine)”. My choice is writing. And I would even leave out the good. Why complicate all of this?
I cannot make it to the local gym every day. If I make it twice a week, I’m having a good (not to complicate it) week. The other days, I do a five- or eight-minute yoga/meditation practice before work. I feel like this all adds up to keeping my mind in that wonderful state mentioned in the earlier post.
I’ve been doing this for years now. I know it works for me. It has to because I, like most of us, have limited time to actually sit down and write. It doesn’t pay the bills, and I have no one pounding on my front door demanding I get to work on the next novel.
So, in a few minutes when I click on to Trier goes to London, the work yesterday will look different, will tell me what to do, and give me today’s – not sure what to call it- not content, not word count- today’s opportunity to move on. Don’t like opportunity here either though.
Not to worry because I’m going to yoga class tomorrow.
I’m talking about practice.
Your relationship with a piece has many layers. As you move through the layers, you see clearer and it sinks into your system. And then you liberate yourself in a healthy way from the technical necessities of the piece. That is when you make music.” Anne-Sophie Mutter, a world-renowned German violinist
I found this quote in an article I was reading on my phone about ten minutes before ISO’s production of Mozart & the Chevalier. There is a movie out with the same title, but this was the live symphony performance which was just about to start.
I really enjoyed being in the old theatre seeing live music on a frigid Friday evening in January. The work week I endured working outside would have made Earnest Shackleton proud. I wore lots of layers to keep warm. Could be why the quote resonated. I don’t think so. I didn’t finish reading the article as the house lights went down and put my phone away as requested.
I am not a big fan of reviews of any sort. It just doesn’t make sense to me to think I would experience Chicken Carbonara, Romeo & Juliet, or Porky’s in a way remotely close to how anyone else would.
I ain’t trying to prove a point but I say that because I spent a lot of the concert imaging the musicians in their street clothes and sweats practicing, practicing, and practicing the music the needed to in order be ready when it was time to hit the stage in their black gear. I even wondered if they had to buy their own performance night outfits. I suspect that they do. All part of getting through the layers.
It takes time to do anything of value. Time in sweats, practicing, moving through the layers, getting familiar with what you are working on. That is why I liked the quote so much, I suppose. It is how I go about my writing practice. I’m in sweats now, writing this post before writing a bit more of the Trier goes to London.
My relationship with the novel is in a good place. We know each other well by now. My favorite characters have emerged from the layers. I have an end in sight but that can change as it gets closer. The technical necessities come later. I know what they are already. They are the performance night blacks, and I will also have to pay for them: editor, proofreader, cover design and all that. Which is not what the violinist is referring to, I know. And, hey, I get that she’s talking about a piece of music. To me, it’s all mental energy to start with and it’s my post, so there you go.
In a few minutes, I will start to find out what the novel wants me to do for this layer, this next paragraph, page and stage of our relationship. We’ve been together long enough now that I can be who I am, and the novel can do the same. The stuff I have to pay for, the technical necessities, don’t matter at all. Nor does a single craft book, blog, podcast, beta-reader or Stephen King.
This relationship is between the manuscript and me. This relationship is only for me, for now. After the technical necessities, it is all yours.
PHOTO
The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in
That wonderful state that makes art inevitable.
There it was. I read the above quote from some guy I had never heard of. It is on the first page of Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act- A Way of Being. Not sure if you’ve ever heard of Rick Rubin, either. Never mind if you haven’t because this post and the eighty-one that I plan to post altogether are about me anyway.
Why? Because they have to be, that’s why. I ain’t doing none of this for anybody else. Don’t be fooled. If that doesn’t stop you from reading, maybe this will: If you are writing for anybody but yourself, it ain’t gonna be any good. It won’t last, it won’t resonate, it won’t have the energy from you, the stake, the risk, the offering it takes to be worth reading. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.
But I will get to all that and more in the next year or so. And, you know, part of me hopes to look back on what I just wrote and call it nonsense. It may be, but this morning, I don’t think it is. Not to worry, I’ll get to that also. Like I said, I have eighty-two posts planned directly inspired by that guys’ quote and confirmed by Rubin’s book.
I read the quote and knew I would read the book. So I did. I found it landed beautifully into my path that I’ve been on for about ten years now. The book may not do the same for everyone of course. That is why I don’t review books. It is random, a borderline waste of time. How would I know whether you, me or the grand piano would like a book I read?
I didn’t want to call this post a book review, so I won’t call it anything. Labeling and categorizing is also a waste of time. However, I did waste some time trying to label this series (I just did it again) of posts. This morning about half an hour ago, I decided to just release the mental energy (write) and see where it takes me, labels be dammed.
Since I have to start somewhere, for now I will just post, post and post, for me, me, me. Because this morning, I am in that wonderful state. And that wonderful state is all that matters to me. This stuff you’re reading now, not so much.
And why not? Because I’m there. Later it will, just not now.
The quote uses the word art. But I’m talking about my writing, which I do not refer to as art. Hell no.
Coffee Novelist 
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