Me and Mr. Jones

Micah Ray came over tonight. It was good to hang out and talk. I hadn’t expected the explosions of inspiration that would follow and I’m still dealing with them. Micah Ray has a mind that I admire. He is both sensitive and erudite. And he is sympathetic to my writing ambitions because they are also his ambitions.

It took us a while to approach the topic of our craft, but as we did we managed to explain our varied approaches and frustrations. He prefers a pen, I type. We both have quite complicated tropes to aid us in our scope and sequence. And above all, we are long-standing friends with deep affection for one another and the ability (i believe) to help one another stay focused.

In and of itself this is enough, but I can’t help but take comfort from the chance to find myself in a writing community. All of my heroes seemed to have others to pal around with. Tennessee Williams played with Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, and Carson McCullers. Virginia Wooolf had her Bloomsbury pals. Allen Ginsberg got to have sleepovers Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs. And now I have Micah.

By now it is fairly obvious to me that I will be unable to achieve the 50,000 word goal by November 30th. To be honest I am not sure I ever actually planned to meet that deadline. The thing with me is that I always get inspired the night before something is due, but I cannot produce anything until the deadline has been crossed and an extension granted. Tonight I am granting myself an extension because this whole process had stirred up many positive things. I am writing, and focused, in a way that I have not been for years. Besides my work with George all other potential creative projects were imaginary. Now I have a beginning and many notes to work with over the next few months.

I will still be posting every day on the blog, and working on my “novel”. I just refuse to make this something else I feel guilty about for not getting done under the time constraints.

i admitted to my Facebook friends that i feel no motivation to do my job. today after school i had a few simple tasks to complete for tomorrow, simple things i should do to be at my best, and i just didn’t do them. i looked online for job postings. i looked at my library and it felt a bit like a cage, a place where i had to spend my days. i thought about the positive virtues of my work and also my job’s stability. and then i thought about what i wanted to be doing. i planned to come home and get back into it all. instead i took a nap and sat around. this is a rut or something. i don’t have free mind time to write. maybe i’m scape-goating but either way this is kinda the winter of my discontent.

As I’ve been writing I realize that I am in need of a refresher course in my old life. It would be a good thing for me to go home and go through some of the stuff in my old bedroom, walk around in the woods, and maybe seek out a cousin or two. My memories are becoming less vivid. My understanding of things is a bit warped. And because I am trying to stick so completely to the script I am getting hung up on descriptions of stuff that is starting to no longer exist for me. This will either become stifling writer’s block or a freedom to invent. Right now it is nostalgia.

The people who sponsor the novel-writing frenzy i am supposedly participating in keep sending me e-mails to motivate my typing fingers. They are very sweet. My friends kindly ask about my progress and they too are sweet. I haven’t attempted to write for days and I am guilty. In the meantime I made it down to Hyde Park to visit my friend I haven’t seen in a bit, I went shopping with Thom, helped host a game night, practiced Thanksgiving cooking, ate, cleaned up, took some showers, planned for tomorrow’s day job, started going through my endless piles of mail, and downloaded some new music. Life quickly works to fill itself up. Creative endeavors take a lot of focus which life attempts to thwart. At least my life seems to. At least when I am laying in bed waiting to sleep I try and dream about episodes I might want to write about.

The idea of this novel has grown a bit. Yes it not-so-loosely follows my childhood musings, walks, and desiring. Yes I want to cram inside several people who I actually know/knew. But now I also want to splinter out the plot so that I can actually write a book of short stories in tandem with the longer work. I want some of the episodes to be explored in greater depth in individual stories. I want them to work to support each other, perhaps even sometimes work against the other in a sexy sort of tension. Although I am not currently even writing one piece of fiction, I know desire to be writing several simultaneously.

after school, my friend drove me to the bus stop. at the bus stop a man asked me if i spoke spanish. i do not. he then struggled through a question about the bus we both intended to board, and whether or not it stopped at Chicago Ave. it did. he got on the bus and i followed. i closed my eyes for a brief moment and then when i re-opened them (several stops later) there was a group of high-school looking kids sitting in front of me, their 8 legs spread out into the hallway. they laughed loudly. then they whispered. and then i realized that one of the boys was busying his fingers with a hollowed out cigar wrapper in the purpose of rolling a blunt. he looked at me. i looked away. he whispered something to his friends and they laughed. i could smell pot. the bus stopped by a movie theater and they got off. i dozed again briefly before my stop. upon leaving the bus i walked to the bar for a whiskey. while inside three different people said hello or tried to start a conversation with me. i went home and waited for Thom. Thom called and asked me to meet him at the Costa Rican restaurant down the street. we ate a lot for cheap. home again to television and cookies and bed.