Small Stones, a New Challenge

Today I'm starting a new writing challenge. It's called, yes you guessed it, a river of stones. The badge above will link to the information page at Writing Our Way Home

This is another page and group that my friend Johanna Harness put me onto in one of her posts at Johanna's Big Thoughts - This one. She's awesome like that, @Johannaharness is

One - up & out of bed

First cup of coffee is just kicking in
as I climb the stairs to his room
He is almost eight, going on five
It's part of his boggle, you see

I make sure I've got Monkey
as I scoop him up from his bed
It wouldn't do otherwise
Monkey is "very special"

He's getting too big to carry around
my legs tell me so going back down
to his breakfast, and cartoons, and clean clothes
Dawn, coming in the window on his face



Two, off to school

He rides out on his little blue bike
a chipper fellow
in his silver helmet
and his red coat

It's just now full daylight and cold
he seems so small, so fast
Something catches in my chest
and he's gone

Jacob and Ava, The Scrap book

This is one of my "Friday Flash Fiction" stories written for, and appearing at Amwriting.org A fine site for writers, and for readers.

The old man Jacob sat in his rocking chair, older than dirt he thought, the both of them.

It was that week between Christmas, with all the familying whirlwinds, and New Year's Eve. It was hard to get excited about New Year's, having seen so many of them come and go. It was hard to get excited about much of anything these days. He couldn't do much anymore, felt he hadn't done nearly enough for most of his life, and now his times of doing seemed to be mostly over.

He thought about this year, and all that had happened in the world and in his life. There were so many bad things happening in the world. There were good things too. It seemed like nothing was as clear-cut, as black and white as it used to be, for him or for most other people. Nothing was certain any more, and worse, life no longer seemed to hold the hope, the magic, that it once had.

Jacob went over and over his life in his mind, remembering when he was young and thought he knew it all. He had run out of tears years ago, for all that was lost or had never been because he was such a fool. As much as he had thought he'd known, he had known nothing, not even how much he was loved, until it seemed too late.

His daughter Ava, bless her heart, had called him the other day. If he had still been able to jump he might have jumped right out of his skin. He still hated the sound of a telephone, even now, when it rang so seldom.

She wanted to come over and go through his old photos with him, build a scrap-book, she said.

He reminded her that he could no longer see very well. What would be the point?

She said it would give them something to do together, something that she hoped they'd enjoy. She would build the scrapbook for him, all he had to do was tell her about the pictures.

He thought seeing all those old photos, thinking on those times now would probably hurt as much as they'd help, remind him of chances lost, possibilities died on the vine. But still, he did want to see them again, and to show them to her to remind them both his life had not always been as it was now.

Besides, he didn't have the heart to tell her no. He suspected she was afraid he might die anytime now, and wanted to have something better to remind her of his life than the scattered pictures he kept in worn out boxes.

When she came over she seemed to have enough stuff with her to build a world he thought. Boxes and boxes and portfolios of fancy papers. Tools and gadgets and bottles also came in the door and just kept coming. When he asked her why so much she said she brought it all so she'd be sure to have "just the right stuff".

And as they labored over each page he realized she did, in every case, have just the right stuff. Not only did she build up each page of multiple layers of different kinds of paper and fabric, she added other things.

For the pictures of the beach she found sand and shells, drift wood and dried seaweed, even scents in bottles for that "finishing touch".

For the forest pictures oak leaves and pine needles, a tuft of deer fur, the smell of old trees, and finally one single pinion, the silent flight feather of a great horned owl.

For the pictures of them together she had tiny bits of fabric one or another had worn, a piece of a toy, a ticket stub from a favorite event. Ava always found just the right, no - perfect, the perfect thing to finish off each page, to seal the power of the best, most important memories of his life .

Rather than taking an afternoon as he'd originally thought, it wound up taking the entirety of the week to finish the project. Some evenings she'd stop and fix him something to eat before continuing on her own, till long after he'd fallen asleep in his chair. He'd wake to find her curled up on the sofa under one of her mother's old afghans before the fire, and he could have sworn he saw a faint shimmer, he imagined like a magic faery dust, about her hair and shoulders.

Even as she worked through this with him Ava watched his remaining strength fading, day after day, though his mood seemed to actually get better. She was sure she saw a little of the old twinkle come back to his eyes.

He was napping in his chair as she finally finished the last page. She carried the thick book, practically a tome. over to him and placed it on his lap. Gently she roused him. "Dad, here it is. I'm going to go straighten up around the house a bit, you have a look, see what you think", and she was off in the other rooms.

Ava hoped he would find it as magical as she knew it had turned out to be. She imagined him in his chair slowly turning each page, discovering not only his own memories of each event, but also perhaps a new sense of the presence of the places, people, and things. She knew there was more depth to each story than either of them had been aware of. They had captured not just his impressions, but the essences of each moment, each day, that would make them new for him again.

As she puttered around the old house she began to feel him in there. It was a talent she had always had, to feel what he and a few others felt. Tired. She felt tired, and wondering if it was her tiredness or his, she went back in to check on him. "You okay, Dad? Do you like it?"

"It's marvelous, just marvelous, Honey" and he smiled at her, really smiled, as she hadn't seen in many years.

"I'm so glad you like it, Dad. I'll just be in the other room if you need me."

The book would sustain him. The book would hold him, as in a loved one's warm embrace, until the end of days.

When Ava returned to the room sometime later she found the book in his chair where he'd sat with it as he and the book became one.

She cradled it close to her heart as she gazed at the still glowing embers in the fireplace he had built so many years ago. "Happy New Year's, Dad."

Being Here, Being There.

I've been thinking about airplanes. I've been dreaming about both my family back in Kansas and my family here with me. A lot. I've been feeling guilty for not being financially able to go back for Christmas. Nothing to be done to help that now. The truth is, I haven't been back in over two years. It all gets to be a complicated set of thoughts and feelings. This weighs on me heavily this time of year.

There is a shape, a taste in the mind, a physical feeling that goes along with some emotions. These are some of those. Both curious and lovely as well as both painful and pleasant, these sensations of mind and body and soul.

It's about those strongest of family ties. It's about memories. It's about hopes and fears and all those years bridging time and space between childhood and now, on into the future too, as perhaps no other season or holiday does.

Curious because it taps into and touches on thoughts and ideas about time and space. These things are always present, and somewhat of a quandary to me.

Sure I understand distance and I understand basic concepts of time. But really deep down inside, where something about those tickle something in my mind, I know there are mysteries involved.

Here is here and there is there. Now is now and Then was then. That's all there is to it, right? Except it's really not all there is to it. Not in the deep places of the heart and mind. Here and now are constantly permeated by there and then. Sometimes I even think by there and now, but that's purely imagination, right? How could I possibly be remembering there, now when I'm here now?

That is some of the lovely part of it, that memories of back home and times with my folks and my brothers are things I carry with me always. To feel, to see, and to taste and hear and smell.
I keep the best times close to the center, and when I want or they want, they come back to the fore. I remember a lot. Sometimes I believe I remember everything. I recall the good and the bad, happy and sad and all points in between. But not really. Not fully. Not like one feels the moment at hand because well, that was then and this is now.

And that's part of where the pain comes in, yearning as they say, to bring back those moments to their completeness of experience. The pain is knowing that those can never be fully seen and heard and felt in this time, with this mind.

But I am tremendously thankful and happy to have the memories I do have, however imperfect or incomplete, to carry me back to there and to then.

I am not alone here. I have my family here as well, the "new" family, the one I've brought with me and the one I helped build here. I do revel in the times and the moments we have here as well. I know that some day my current here and now will be another "there and then". And so I try, as best I can, to soak it all in to build the memories I will have of this later, knowing that my recollections will again be imperfect, incomplete.

Here is my point: Pay Attention. Soak it all in, consciously, mindfully, purposely.

The more you do so, the better you will recall later I think. Why would I think that? Because that has been my experience. When I tell my self to do those things, to pay attention and remember, I find later that I do remember better. Sometimes it happens on it's own. I hear myself thinking "I will remember this moment for the rest of my life" and so far mostly I think I have.

This may not work for you. I'm sure it doesn't always work for me. Sometimes there's just too much going on to be able to grasp it all.

As I go through this holiday season with my family here I know I will be split in two. I'll be trying to find my balance between living and experiencing these moments here and now and reaching through time and space to be with my family there and then, perhaps even there and now.

My wish for you all is that you have the best of times, make the best of memories, with whom ever you can this season.

And oh yeah, take more pictures.

Andy's Room

A Crack in the world

 

He woke up. It was still dark. Off to the side he could just see the light around the top and one side of the door. He was probably three or maybe four, but he had no sense of that now. His big brother was there. Andy pointed to the crack in the ceiling. It bothered him. What was it? What did it mean? Dan said that was the ghost crack, the crack to The Other Side. If he wasn’t very quiet the ghosts would know he was there. Andy wasn’t sure if his brother went back to his own big bed, or if he left the room. He could do that, just leave the room. Dan didn’t have bars on his bed like Andy had on his.  

In the dark from his bed he could just make out the crack in the ceiling. He stared at it – hard. He looked away fast. Had he seen it move? Couldn’t be, it was just a crack. A crack couldn’t do anything could it? He looked to his stuffed bunny, there beside him. Pulled it closer, buried his face in it. After a long time he looked at the ceiling. It had seemed to move just a little he thought. He pulled the covers up over his head. He wanted to call out for Mommy, Daddy, someone, anyone to come get him, come turn on the light. But he could make no sound. Not. A. Sound.   

After another long time nothing had come and gotten him yet. He pulled the covers down away from his eyes just enough, just barely enough, to see out through the wooden bars of his bed into the dark beside him. Nothing was there. He pulled the covers up over his head again. It seemed cold when he uncovered his head. Were Ghosts cold? 

He slowly pulled the covers down again. He did not look right at the crack in the ceiling. He somehow thought that maybe it only moved, only opened when you looked at it. Was that right, or did it only move if you stopped looking at it? If that was true he hadn’t looked at it for a long time and maybe it was way big open now. He looked. It hadn’t moved. He looked harder. It moved. It didn’t. Did. Didn’t. He covered his head up again. If it got him, he would stay gotten for a really long time, maybe forever. He wasn’t sure either, what forever was, but sensed it meant for real and for keeps and maybe even past then. 

 

He pulled the covers down again. He was sure the crack had gotten wider, deeper, and blacker inside. He looked away and then back. It was the same as when he first looked at it. But there, off to the side, where the ceiling met the wall, now he saw a spider web. Spider webs meant spiders.. A Spider! It wasn’t. It was. Wasn’t. Was. He covered his head with the blanket again. Did spiders only move when you were looking or when you weren’t looking? 

That reminded him he hadn’t been watching the crack. He had to know, even if looking meant it would move while he watched. He looked. It was wider. It wasn’t. It was. It grew wider and wider still; began to open downward into the room. It was really dark inside, but he could tell something was moving. He could feel it coming to get him. He pulled the covers up over his head. He thought sure there was something, something mean and angry and hungry in the room with him now.  

At that moment he was sure it would be bad. It would hurt and hurt and be scary and sad and hurt some more, for longer than anything ever and there was no one to help him because he could not move or make a sound. 

 

Andy woke up. It was lighter in his room now. The side of his bed was down, like when Mommy came to get him. But Mommy wasn’t there. His gaze shot up to the ceiling. The crack, little more than a squiggly line on the ceiling. It was the same as it had always been. His brother Dan’s bed was gone. The funny cactus lamp was gone. The rug was gone. The bookshelf that held his Little Golden books and Dan’s big books was gone. Everything in the room, except his bed, was gone. He stood there in his pajamas looking for a long time at the floor where the rug should be. It was covered with a thick dust. 

He had to find Dan, he had to find Mommy, or maybe even Daddy for this! He ran into the hall,down to the first place the steps stopped, to the front window. There were no curtains on the window. The window was covered in dust. He rubbed the dust away with his hand and wiped his hand on his Roy Rogers pajamas. When he stood on his tip-toes and looked out the window he could see his parents’ car out in front of the house in the street below. There were people in the car. 

 He ran, almost stumbling down the rest of the stairs, suddenly knew that the living room downstairs was bare of furniture, that the whole house was empty of everything except fort maybe ghosts. He got to the front door. Pulled with all his might on the big wooden door, and again, and more frantically still and finally got it open. He couldn’t open the screen door. He banged and banged on the door, trying to get the people to see him, to hear him. They were going away. They couldn’t hear him and they didn’t see him. 

The car slowly pulled away from the curb and drove away. He sat down on the floor and cried. And cried harder. And cried some more.  

Andy woke up. It was too dark where he was. There was a crack of light in the floor. He needed what was on the other side. He pushed the crack open, slowly, quietly. There was something alive sleeping in the room below.

And Andy was hungry.

Anything Can Happen - If I Say It Can

Todays post is also found as a guest post at Amwriting.org

When he woke up Andy had a horrible headache centered in the back of his head, just behind and below his ears. It didn’t help that The Ring of his tinnitus was louder than ever. Somehow it made him think of a futuristic time bomb in his head, ramping up to vaporize his brain. He wondered if it would all be internal or if there would actually be grey matter on the walls after. In addition, it was time to write his guest post for amwriting.org, and make up for lost time on his #NaNoWriMo piece.

And so he wrote: Anything can happen if I say it can.

I recently read a fine post on this same site Let’s Talk About Your Premise, by Jason Black. It dealt with the idea that one’s audience will accept one major suspension of disbelief. The author described this as the writer’s “Freebie”. That really resonated with me. I think it bears revisiting in perhaps a little different voice because well, he made a lotta sense and I know how much trouble some of us have with that. I think that it could be said as well of life in general. He went on further to say that once you have established your freebie, any consequent fantastic concepts would generally be accepted IF they follow the internal logic of the first unbelievable premise. “Sure there can be a wyvern, I already told you, there is magic in this world”.

The other day, while lounging half asleep – OK so I was writing, but lounging half asleep sounded better… While lounging half asleep with the tv on, because I was too lazy to turn it off, I overheard parts of an episode of Vegas. Apparently Tom Selleck, I don’t know his character’s name, had just bought the Montecello, the casino around which the show is built. He was in a period of adjustment, of shaking things up, as it were, and he took as his mantra the phrase “Anything can happen”. I really liked that. It made perfect sense(and yet I still got it). Normally, out here in the sometimes foggy, sometimes windblown poo-storm reality of the Hinter Lands of perception, I would be hard pressed to believe that anything could really happen. For instance, I’m now fifty three years old, vaguely self employed, but stifled work–wise by chronic Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I find it unbelievable that I could yet wind up a yuppie, being neither young nor a “professional”. Similarly I find it hard to believe that I could actually become an Olympic power lifter, brain surgeon, professional skate boarder, or a successful financial investments broker. But on this episode of Vegas, I could believe it.

“Everyone bring one suitcase to the lobby for a raffle. Someone is getting on a plane for a mystery two day trip to somewhere waaaay more exotic than Vegas”. “Here, passers-by, have some truck keys. Instead of giving away one Maserati, I’m giving away one hundred new pickup trucks”. Very believable because it is Las Vegas, he owns a Casino, he can do that. And more than that, it’s believable because we know we’re dealing with make believe. It’s a Story. Someone wrote a Story. Wait a minute; I think that was important, well, at least to me, currently in the persona of Writer Man, able to write about leaping tall buildings in a single bound! It was a story made up by a writer, and the audience all, hopefully, understood that.

We all as writers get one freebie suspension of disbelief, however that one freebie might – might just be capable of containing myriad smaller suspensions of disbelief because we’re making up stories, written down by we, the writers.

My wish for my eternal freebie – I’m a writer. This is a story. Anything can happen, if I say it can. Okay, here’s where I make what I think is an important modification to that. In order to make that work, I may occasionally have to step back and give the readers a little background, a little “this world” history or theory about how and why this thing that would totally tweek the reader’s melon in “real” life is totally doable. Ya gotta have a little mercy, or a little sense of authorial self-preservation. Let’s face it if one story is just too chock full of “unbelievable weirdness”, unsupported by any internal logic or plausible back story, the reading public is not likely to want to partake of, or worse pay for, any more. Then we might have to go get yet another real job to support our caffeine and chocolate habits and we certainly do not want that.

Reminder to self: You may have to explain, like Piers Anthony, how it comes to be that there are two parallel worlds, one of technology, the other of magic(See the Blue Adept Series, I really loved that). Besides, it’s just fun to say or to think “Blue Adept”. That could mean all kinds of erotically charged things. Or not. Anything CAN happen.

That’s where my head is at, this mid NaNoWriMo morning. How many of us #amwriting folks are doing NaNo, and how is that going? What kinds of things are we making happen?

Elements of Writing(But probably not the ones you're thinking of)

This was originally posted at Amwriting.org. You should visit there.

Joni Mitchell had it right.

“Great. What the Hell are you on about now, John?”

Bear with me. You know how my mind has to come at things sideways. You don’t? Um, perhaps you might want go take a quick break, get a beverage, smoke if you got ‘em, come back prepared to think all random abstract up in here.

You back? Great.

When you were learning about writing, about how to tell a story, there were I’m sure, lessons about elements of writing, elements of story. Do I know them? Some, but not the same. Sure-sure beginning, middle, end – plot, character – conflict, resolution … and yeah, some of those others I can’t easily bring to the surface. But I didn’t learn them in any real organized way as I should have. Misspent youth, too much fun,“OH, Shiny!", whatever. For me, a lot of this is happening as we go, studying when I can, gathering to mind other lessons and observations learned in the last fifty or so years and making them relate to this craft of showing, of telling, and hopefully of relating.

This is Bad. I don’t know what I’m doing in any formulaic, quantifiable way. Not in any way that’s easy for me to discuss, and especially not discuss intelligently as I’m doing it. I have to come at things a little differently. Think of it as the Pantsing Mind(i.e.- flying by the seat of the pants)

This is Good. I know from observation that all the world seems to crave the different, the unusual. Is that not what keeps advertising agencies, research and development departments, and all kinds of creatives going? Different – I got. (That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.)

“Artifice… Brutality… and Innocence – Artifice and Innocence” – Joni Mitchell, The Three Great Stimulants – Dog Eat Dog, 1985 – track number three.

Yes Joni had it right. Those are three great stimulants “for the exhausted ones”. And they will serve us well in the showing and the telling.

The artifice comes in as a necessary quality of crafting our words. A matter of choosing which and where and how we put them down. “Say me something clever, he begged.” Yes, yes we want our characters and our stories to seem to have grown “organically” from some greater or different nature, but let’s face it, a lot of it comes from carefully choosing, endless times of thinking, crafting, revising, editing.

Brutality may be actually brutal or it may come symbolically as an element of drama, trouble,“Danger, Will Robinson!”, conflict, something to add some spice to the mix. If you think of brutal in the sense of "from the brute", is not all human conflict on some level brutal in it’s most condensed essence?

Innocence provides the necessary balance to brutality. An animal which is by nature innocent of human malice may act in a way that seems brutal, but is it really? If so then they’re much as we, being capable of innocence and brutality within the same shell. Innocence may only be a relative position to the circumstance of the story or to a conflicting element or character of the story. Or the innocent element may truly be innocent, blameless, guileless and without a shred of meanness in it’s whole being. Next time you’re reading a story you love, look for artifice, brutality and innocence. See if they’re not there in some form.

How about some different elements?

A long time ago it occurred to me that there are certain aspects, objective as may be, that all good Rock ‘N’ Roll seems to have in common. Those are what I call Tooth, Edge, and Snap. No, they don’t necessarily correspond to artifice, brutality, and innocence but sometimes may.

Tooth is that element of nature, “red in fang and claw” as they say. Something to bite down on the beat with, the part that speaks to the monkey brain, gives us the primal in your gut sensation. It’s the “NnnnGar!” in the song.

Edge, though similar to tooth, is not the same. Edge is that part of good Rock ‘N’ Roll that literally puts you on the edge of your seat. It’s the electric Zzzzzap!, the sparkling shiny bit of tingly stuff in the sound.

Snap? Think of snap as the crispness, the bounce–back, the rock in Rock ‘N” Roll. It’s the actual snap in the beat and in the phrasing of notes.

“Okay John, enough about yer heathin Rocky-rolly, we’re here to be on about writing!” Well, of course we are.

It’s the same thing.

Yes, that’s right, I said a good piece of writing is much the same, has much the same feel, the same taste as a good piece of music generally, and rock sometimes specifically. Well, it does.

So, there then are some of the elements of writing that I think of, strive for, listen for. And even though I’m pretty sure you won’t have run across them in any of your normal writing studies I hope perhaps they will give you something to think about.

Now if you haven’t already, please go watch and listen to Joni Mitchell and friends, including pretty much all of Herbie Hancock’s band performing The Three Great Stimulants, which carries it’s own jazzy versions of tooth, edge and snap.

Are there any unusual or unorthodox elements you know of or look to create in your writing? I’d love to hear about them.

The Game, Passages, and ...

My son, seven, got his first serious game machine, a hand-me-down PS2, last weekend. If That isn't a sentence rife with potential for several different blog posts and probably a short story or three, well, I just don't know if a person, no wait - a parent could call themselves a writer.

It brings up parenting issues about values, socioeconomics, Rites of Passage, (I promise I'll stop using capitalization for emphasis soon, I'm coming off of it gradually, because quitting cold turkey would be Traumatic)

Where was I? Right then - PS2 - 7yo(autistic spectrum remember) - Rites of Passage now - value judgments and socioeconomic implications and traumas to be dealt with later - got it.

As I mentioned in Monday's post, nice neighbor dropped off his old PlayStation 2 last weekend, and of course A-Boy was thrilled, just thrrrrilllled I tell you! My first thought was "And so it begins". My second thought was along the lines of perhaps now he'll be more likely to be content on his own a bit and not be requiring direct, active attention seemingly all the time. I know, I'm a horrible parent. Sometimes, even when my child is awake and around, I just want to concentrate on something not involving him, or his repetitive large/fast movements and sounds. Something like reading or writing or even, Heaven forbid, watching a movie and actually hearing all the dialog. There, I said it, send me to horrible parent Hell.

Well that has not been the case. It turns out that playing video games is just not as fun by one's self. I've been captured and drug upstairs to the room with the thing. I have been forced to play video games. And occasionally, just occasionally, it's been OK. More than Ok. Other times, not so much. Not surprisingly, I suck at pretty much any video game that involves speed and control. Yeah, all of them. But it's not about me, right? Right.

About A-Boy and the Game console, I see that it's a modern rite of passage. Even if his is a second hand less than current example of the game maker's art and alchemy. He's a big boy now. He has his own game machine. He can invite his friends over to play and have something they know, something that makes him part of the group.

Getting the training wheels off his bike was a rite of passage that I could recognize, could remember and relate to from my own childhood. That one has been around for many years, a well known passage I'm sure recognized world over. It's almost as integral a part of growing up human as walking is.

This video game as rite of passage thing though, I've got no reference for that. Never been a video game guy and when I was A-Boy's age they hadn't invented Pong, and no one new who Atari was. Yes, I'm that old. And here's another one coming up, his own phone. No, I'm not buying a seven year old a cell phone, but I anticipate that it won't be very many more years before a cell phone will be a practical necessity for him. Will his first phone be a smart phone? Or, perhaps it will be one of the emerging pad/phone/game/video production hybrids that are pretty much here or right around the corner, waiting for a release date. How would I know, I'm a dinosaur!

So what have I learned here? Um....Oh, I know! Pick me! Pick me! What I've learned on a real, visceral level, that I only could have theorized before on a rational, hypothetical level, is that our children will have, are having, an often very different set of Rites of Passage than we had. And I''ve learned that not only will I not have had some of those experiences as a child, I can't even partake in the activities, the languages, or the mindsets involved in them now. That makes me kind of sad, but it's not like the same thing didn't happen to our parents. First-time things we did, not realizing they even were rites of passage, became those for us, and our parents may not have even known it, let alone been able to witness and partake in them.

I realize that many of you probably already experienced this. But it was a "Wow, look at that weird thing happening" moment for me, so of course I had to write about it.

So, have you noticed any important rites of passage your children or their children have had that are part of the new?