Word Counts and Distractions.

Did you ever see that movie UP? The animated cartoon about an old man determined to move his house with balloons. There was a dog in that movie named Dug who had a short attention span. He wore a specially designed collar that allowed him to speak. At some point during every conversation he would suddenly look to the side and shout. Squirrel!

While hilarious the first time I saw it, and still funny during subsequent viewings, it reminded me of a little problem I have with my writing.

I'm easily distracted.

Ooohh look, a shiny thing.

Like Dug I can be in the middle of something and all of the sudden my mind will zoom off on a tangent. Can anybody say Squirrel. I'm surprised I ever get anything done to be honest. It seems when I near the thousand word point I become bored with what I'm doing and start looking for something else to occupy my mind. Even now,  as I'm writing this, my thoughts have turned to listening to some music.

In fact I think I'll do that. Hang on a minute.

There, that's better, nothing like a little AC/DC to get the blood pumping.

Now where were we? Oh yeah, distractions. Did somebody say Squirrel?

I write seven days a week. Every morning, without fail, I'm at my computer either editing, marketing, or writing new stuff. But my output remains minimal at best. I probably average five hundred to a thousand words in a two to three hour period when I actually do write.

For much of the time I'm at my computer I'm usually browsing the internet, checking my news feed on the biggest time waster of all, Facebook, or repeatedly checking my nearly non existent sales figures at Amazon and Smashwords.

Did anyone buy anything yet?

When I first started writing, back in the dark ages of the early nineties, it was nothing to pump out ten, fifteen double spaced pages. Of course when I went back over my latest ramblings I'd end up deleting ninety percent of what I'd written. So I guess I'm holding my own in some small way. I've matured as a writer, and as such I've become more selective to what actually makes it to the page. I've discovered too that much more of what I put down during a first draft remains through subsequent edits.

Yet the distractions remain and I sometimes wonder how much more I could write if they weren't calling to me in their most alluring voices. In all honesty, would I really get any more done? Or would I revert to padding the page to fill out my word count as I compete with myself.

Maybe I just need to accept the fact that I'm a thousand word a day writer.  Of course as such I should be able to finish a 90,000 word novel in three months. Right?

As a writer, what's your daily output?

In Rememberance

On Monday May 27, 2013, my mom passed away. She went home to be at my father's side. While saddened by the loss, the strongest emotion I've experienced is one of relief that her suffering has come to an end. I believe it helps that, unlike with my father,  I was a thousand miles away when he passed, I visited my mother the day before she died. She told me then she was dying. We talked about it, and before I left I held her hand and told her that I loved her. Something I never got the chance to do with my dad.

I've spent the past week reconnecting with family, sharing the memories of her life, and of all of us growing up together. She grew up with five sisters and three brothers. At this time one brother and four sisters remain.

One memory has risen to the surface and become fixed in my mind.

When I was nine years old I had fallen in with a bad crowd at school. At the time we lived in Bradbury Heights, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C. My Dad was working two jobs to make ends meet and keep food on the table, allowing my mom to focus on raising us kids. At the time I had a sister, two years younger than me, and a two year old brother.

After cutting school me and one of my so called friends, found ourselves outside a 7-11. The plan was my friend would distract the clerk and I'd grab a pack of Kools that were displayed on a plastic shelf within easy reach. Everything was going as planned. I grabbed the pack of cigarettes just as the clerk turned back to me and grabbed my hand. I tried to pull away but he had a pretty good grip. My friend, seeing our intricate plan collapsing right before his eyes did the only thing he could do. He ran, leaving me alone to take the fall.

The Police were called and I was taken to the local station house where they called my mom to come pick me up. After nearly an hour she arrived to take custody of me. I believe at the time I would have preferred jail time to what I knew was waiting for me.

We leave the station house and I climb into the passengers side of the car. Between us on the bench seat sat a bag of groceries. Sticking out of the top of the bag was a brand new pancake turner. You know the old metal kind with the oval holes.

"I see you did some shopping." I said as her eyes remained fixed on the road before us, her mouth set in a grim line. "You got a new pancake turner."

"That's because I'm gonna wear the old one out on your ass when we get home." She said.

That was my mom. She kept us straight, and out of trouble as best she could, and in my opinion I believe she did one hell of a good job. The more enlightened may frown on the fact that she resorted to smacking her children's ass when they got out of line. Others might classify it as child abuse.  That's neither here nor there at this moment. Because even though my ass was indeed sore, it wasn't the beating that hurt, it was her disappointment in me that cut the deepest.

R.I. P 

Mary Juanita (Crowe) Schiver

June-19-1935  to  May-27-2013

In the Zone.

I recently found a clip on Youtube taken from the concert film, The Song Remains the Same,  a movie released in 1976 that featured the group Led Zeppelin. Filmed during three nights of concerts at Madison Square Garden.

The clip features the song Stairway to Heaven which has become a classic since it’s release in the early seventies. I grew up listening to groups like Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Boston, and The Eagles just to name a few. But this was the first time I even saw the guitar solo by Jimmy Paige halfway through the song, and I was blown away by what I saw.



In the close ups during his solo you’ll notice that Jimmy’s eyes are closed as he’s playing. He has transcended the mechanical melding of guitar and man, the song is not coming from the musical score in his head, it is no longer the act of metal strings being strummed while fingers move to the appropriate fret. This goes much deeper than that. In a sense he has become the song itself and what we hear comes from the depths of his soul. Jimmy has entered the zone. If you were to ask him what he was thinking about while he was playing, I’m willing to bet he wouldn’t be entirely sure himself. 

Discovering Oneself

It is an accepted fact that our upbringing has a lot to do with the type of people we become. How we are raised as children will have a direct bearing on our interests later in life.

I've often wondered myself what exactly it was that compelled me to become a horror writer. The answer of course has been right in front of me all my life. I never recognized it until now. While visiting my mom, who now resides in a nursing home, during one of her lucid periods, we got to reminiscing about the past. Which always begins with, "Do you remember?"

Recently she asked me "Do you remember how your Aunt Jean used to scare you kids?"

Of course I did.