Bhagwan Redux

I’m looking out over the city of my childhood, marveling at the industry and spectacle it’s become.

I don’t see this metropolis with wide-eyed wonder, or even the eyes of a child. Every street corner shows me darkness and corruption. Every vacant lot tells me a story of broken dreams and lost promise.

Some people come here for a weekend where they can forget inhibitions. I come here to work, and instead of a hilarious buddy movie I see episodes of CSI.

I’m sitting on the 107th floor of an edifice undreamed of in my youth, tapping away on a device more fiction than science. The future came to this place faster than anywhere else in America, but LV steadfastly refuses to give up the past.

Should I abandon my prejudice? Blind myself to the very real darkness around me? Or should I embrace the lie and take comfort in its soothing tones of neon

The lights have cone on in Vegas. Armor against the pain screamed from every soul on the streets below. I am safe in a tower, looking out over it all and shielded from the worst of it.

But I won’t forget, and neither should you. Always question, always see with your whole being. Choose what feels right rather than what looks good.

Mahalo for now

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

Today’s sub-conscious story exercise comes from the realm of apocalyptic underwater dystopia.

It may seem odd to describe your inner thought processes this way, but it’s how my broken brain works. I’ve mentioned before that I am a lucid dreamer. Since my memory only goes back so far, it’s something I’ve always been able to do, and the dreams I can take control of are particularly powerful when I don’t.

This morning was something of an oddity for me, as I knew it was a “go” right away. My in-dream memory told me that I’d been in this situation before, as our ragtag flotilla approached the cave system and it’s frog-like occupants on whatever watercraft we had. I and several others swam ahead and began negotiating for the supplies we’d need to continue our journey, and dream me knew I was about to be betrayed. Making the best deal I possibly could, I returned to warn folks knowing that this dreamscape does not end well.

But here’s the kicker–I had not been there before. So dream and real me were responding to an unremembered dream, something that rarely happens. And since I knew it was going to be a bad one, it’s a dream I’ve suppressed for some reason. We’re about to be ambushed and enslaved for a long time by a technologically superior race, and most of us aren’t going to make it out.

Now the dream fragments, and I wake up briefly as a defense mechanism. I’ve learned over the years that shifting my physical position will either alter or completely cancel the dreamstate, sending it down paths more of my choosing. For some reason, this does not happen today, and “awake” me is still under the control of the subconscious mind. I can’t move, and the only “action” I can take is to re-submerge myself in the dream and ride it out.

In different characters. Still lucid, I play out 4 different viewpoint scenarios, each with a minor rebellion or act of courage that does not end well. As a whole, “we” advance through the dreamscape fairly well, if fatally. Each time, I wake up, still in the same position, and with no real options other than diving back in.

In case you were wondering, this does NOT count as a nightmare for me. Those are really weird.

On my last trip in, I realize that my perspective of our aquatic landscape has been shifting ever deeper on successive episodes. We are now a fully amphibious people, but are still recognizably the same individuals that floated into a trap. This incongruity is what I need to take control, so I do. But now that I’ve got it, I no longer have enough context to materially affect the scenario. I surface for the last time, fully wake, and let out a long breath.

Time for the emotional after action report. I trundle downstairs and read further in the two books I’m cycling on my Kindle. The Author has threaded three very long novels together with about a 3 months staggering of plot in each, and I’m halfway through the first two when I begin. I realized what he was doing yesterday afternoon, and was interested enough to attempt reading all three at the same time. I moved another 15% in the second one, finished the first, then set them aside to get ready for the creative portion of my day.

While I’m reading, I’m also processing what happened in the dream world. It’s still bothering me that I couldn’t take control when I usually do, but it’s not the first time that’s happened. I’ve layered three full dream lines before, conscious of at least two, with one being an example of my aforementioned nightmares. This is nowhere in that league, but I should have been able to at least move things around a bit. Being able to both control the dream and not affect it >is< something new, and has to mean something.

Then it hits me. I was coming at it from the wrong direction–the important part wasn’t the beginning of the dream, it was the end. Being underwater and surfacing was the relevant portion, and now I know when I had this dream before. It was 6 years ago, when I got the idea for a new story about genetically modified, amphibious mammalian humanoids living in an enclosed ecosphere. They have all those adjectives because they knew exactly who and what they are, just not why. I have that dream in my head right now, and it’s the poster child for what my subconscious mind is capable of.

Although dream experiences fuel my creative process, I’m still not good enough to translate this one fully into text. There are complexities and textures to the emotions of the dream I’m not sure I can consciously express, and I ‘tasted’ them again last night. What I have been able to do is one of the most complete outlines I’ve ever worked up, and a lot of the hard science fiction I’ve worked on over the last couple years has found itself tied to the overall universe of that story. My thoughts on what the ‘self” is, how an alien race thinks and acts, all are informed by this story. It’s even crept into some of my work for hire, but not so much that I can’t still call it my own.

I’m not ready to write that book yet. It’s going to be a huge volume, the most immersive project I’ve ever done. I’ll only be able to do that once I learn how to get the “easy” books in front of and resonating with readers. I’d like to get paid for it too, really paid, so it’s by no means a “first novel.”

But it’s a lot closer now that I’ve seen how someone writing his 43rd, 44th, and 45th novels dealt with the big picture. That he’s written 8 more since in those same 6 years is fuel for the fires of ambition. I’ve written two, and started three others.

I’m not ashamed to admit that my internal monologue was somewhat disparaging last night of the prolific man’s work product. I was too heavily grounded in the parts of his books I don’t like instead of focusing on what I do. His characters, their very real motivations and problems, and the HUGE tapestry he gets to work with.

10 minutes and 93 words ago I did the math. 53 books. 2 more on the way. 14 about the same character. I am an ant cursing the ground for being solid, desperately trying to find the scent trail he’s laid down for me instead of opening my eyes to wonder.

It’s time to get to work.

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

Thought that might get your attention.

When last we left our hero (that’s ME, in case you were wondering), I was pontificating on what it means to be a writer. Since then I’ve come to terms with sporadic productivity, salved in large part by the sheer volume of words I put out every day at the paying gig.

And I’ve started packing the brown notebook again.

It’s important for me to have a creative outlet, and equally important to know what I write is relevant. In the last month, I’ve completed another draft revision on the Wandering Novel, almost made progress on two others, and gone back to writing short fiction. I’m hoping that this renewed work ethic sticks around for a bit, as I can sure use the practice.

Two weeks ago Tuesday, an idea came to me for a new piece. It started with a dream, in which I paraglided into a clear blue sea from orbit, finding (and fighting) several large ships and oil refineries. Gathering the floating survivors of this battle together, we ended up in a room (a banquet hall) with really old people who at one time were superheroes. They have mostly passed on their legacies, and the hall was filled with second and third-generation heroes in various stages of diaper-changing. The only problem is that I, or rather, my POV, was very much not old, and still an active individual.

In case you hadn’t figured it out by now, my dreams are pretty messed up. This particular experience is of the variety I like to call “tame.”

So then there I was, wandering outside the convention hall, which appears from the outside to be a ramshackle building at the end of a dirt track in a thick canopy jungle. I’m dressed in simple denim and wearing a straw cowboy hat, and at this time am starting to take control of the dream (I do that. It’s a thing). I’ve been walking for a while, but am careful to stay in sight of the shack. There’s important things and people in there. We’re saving the world, and stuff.

Kicking at the dirt, I find some nice, smooth rocks. Roughly palm-sized, they have a decent heft, about a pound each. When the giant lizards attack, I charge them up and give the scaly bastards a good whack on the head to let them know I’m not so tasty after all. It’s sufficient to drive them back into the jungle, but I know it’s a temporary measure at best. Heading back to the hall, I’m stopped by a friend and asked why I’ve been out fighting dinosaurs again. My response is “Somebody has to, and I’ve forgotten how to do anything else.”

Why am I showing/telling/pontificating you this? Because while I remember this dream quite vividly, it’s got very little to do with the story I started on the way into work that day. Here’s what I actually wrote down:

“Immortal super hero has retired, and is anonymously running a hole-in-the-wall biker bar on the New Mexico border. Breaking up a fight at the front door, he muses that no matter what the era, someone always has something to prove.”

What, you say? Where’s the paragliding? Where’s the giant lizards? What’s up with the rocks?

As a writer, it’s my responsibility to tell you that all of that stuff is absolute garbage. It’s scenery, not story. It’s flashy, and to be fair taking on a dinosaur with a pair of fist sized rocks sounds like a lot of fun. But it’s ultimately empty. Because there’s only one thing that matters from that dream.

A cowboy walking down a dusty road, kicking at rocks because he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

Story is about characters, and without a good one, you might as well stay asleep. This particular dream will stay with me a very long time. The act of summarizing its essential elements keeps it alive, even though I didn’t write down the cool bits until just now. Dreams are memories we don’t understand, of events which may never happen in places we may never go.

Stories are accounts of events we haven’t thought to imagine yet. If you ask me why I write, I’ll tell you that, “somebody has to, and I’ve forgotten how to do anything else.”

Which leads me to the first line of my new short story. It took me a while to come to it, because I had to write the middle parts before I understood the beginning. I had to know that cowboy, understand why he does what he does. feel the things he feels when he looks at the world. So I end today’s post with a beginning, and a hope that I haven’t bored you overmuch.

“Buck? You better get out front, we got some more coming.”

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

A throwaway line in a campy movie I love reads thusly:

“Character is what you are in the dark.”

Of late, I’ve been thinking a lot about who I am and what I do. I haven’t written a word of fiction in over two months, but the stories are still in my head, jostling for position.

Am I in fact still a writer?

The answer of course, is yes. I will never stop being a writer, despite periods of low productivity. I think about Stanley Kubrick and Terence Malick, universally acclaimed directors who worked only when they felt like working. While I make no claim to their level of talent, I feel connected to them in this way.

It’s not about the money, and never has been. It’s not about the word count. It’s really not even about the content, though WHAT I write really tells me a lot about WHY I write it. I am actually more prolific than many of my peers in terms of both content and output, but very few people reading this have ever experienced a world of my creation.

I write because I have to. It’s who I am. A part of my soul I can neither identify or ignore.

At night, when I lie down the last thing I see before the light goes out is a book. It’s the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up, and when preparing for my day I think to myself, “do I have room in my bag for a book” or “what am I reading today.”

My characters are like my cats. They need feeding periodically, but they really don’t care what I do as long as I provide them a place to live and the occasional attention. I’d like to promise that I’ll write more, but those are just words. And the cats don’t care anyway, it’s time for their food.

In a room with thousands of dollars of computer hardware, with the lights on and cats circling. I am surrounded on all sides by books, some of which are the fruits of my labor. I can reach out my hand and touch almost everything I have ever created.

And still there are no words ready to write.

In September and October I revised (read rewrote) nearly 200000 words of text, a complete rework of two novels and three short pieces. A stark look at both who I am and who I was. One of those volumes is in the hands of a friend, and the other is waiting for me to feed it. Three stories went out into the world, and one has come back home with the nicest and most informative rejection letter ever.

And then I stopped writing.

I carry a bag containing needed items. Or rather, I carried it daily for the better part of three years. In the mornings when I prepare for my day, the question of what belongs in that bag is always asked, but since I stopped writing the question of whether to carry it at all is more important. As long as it is no, I feel I won’t write.

I can point more or less exactly to the moment when I stopped carrying it. It’s when I took my computer out to help a friend with some technological woes. I never repacked the bag, never carefully arranged my life so that the technology I “need” to be a writer is at hand and paired with the brown notebook containing the things I “have” to write. In a week when I considered buying two completely new computers, this feels like an active betrayal of self.

I’m not sure how to resolve this. I continue to type here, instead of rising to repack the bag. I did get up earlier to feed the cats, but instead of feeding myself at the same time, I returned to the words.

Perhaps I am still a writer after all.

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

It’s the middle of the night, or more accurately, the start of the morning. Today is a good day–I’ve only been up for an hour. To my left the elder cat has gone berserk, convinced that my disinterest in her plight is really rapt attention. Cat the younger sits beside with a truly piteous look, just happy to be in the room but also wanting the same things.

FUDS! LAPS!

They attempt various ploys for both. Medea’s favorite trick is to jump four feet into the air, bringing all four feet down on my keyboard as I type. Maleficent’s is to come up beside, give a long low MrrrrroW? and then stare longingly with those magnificent gold eyes.

Lucky for them, I have a heart of stone. It’s shower time, and then on to the workplace for another day of joyous creativity and problem solving. I too require noms, but years of iron self discipline enable me to work long hours with the gnawing void. I’ve got a robe on against the NovCember chill, and am envious of the gatos’ sleek fur and seeming indifference to the environment.

The cats? not so much. Free feeding was my norm for both cats and self for 30 + years, and to be perfectly honest I was the only one getting fatter. Today’s cat food is better, more nutritious, and sadly higher in calories than the kibble I dribbled out to my furry companions over the decades. Just a small scoop at dawn and dusk is enough to keep them going all day, and a small amount of overage is enough to pack on the pounds.

Why is it that our pet food is so much more advanced and balanced than people food? We’ve been feeding people a really long time, and should have some inkling of what it takes to sustain a healthy body. Are we really so inefficient? To be fair, it is expensive, but it’s a fraction of the cost we spend on the two humans in the house. One bag (which lasts the better part of a month) costs less than half what we spent on a “simple” meal out Monday night.

Less than half.

I have a theory, and I’m sure people won’t like it. Cats lead better lives than we do. They know how to manage their resources. They understand and adapt to their environments far better than we, and though just as hungry at 6 AM, they can go without for a while longer. Were I to let them out, they’d secure breakfast in short order, find a nice cozy spot to nap in, then arrive faithfully at my door for a lap when they felt I was deserving.

The cats ask not, they tell. Or more specifically, they act. When she’s ready for a lap, she jumps right up and settles in. When they know I need to be up (to feed and pet them, of course), it’s circus time with hilarious and frustrating antics. when it’s time to go upstairs, downstairs, or to chase a crinkly ball, they just do it.

Cats are not polite. They feel no guilt for taking “right” actions, nor should they. They realized millenia ago what the optimal living conditions are : make the monkeys do it.

When Humans try this, we get fat, overworked, and in need of chemical support to operate each day. But when people take right actions, a wonderful transformation takes place.

People are happy, live better lives, and have time to cuddle with a cat or the monkey of their choice.

Have to go, someone’s running up and down the stairs. It’s still an hour till I’ll realize the rightness of their actions and fill the bowls, but it is so very fun to watch.

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

In 6 hours, my feet will no longer hug the earth as I wend my way east to destiny.

Or Columbus, Ohio. The two are often confused, though I must confess that this trip will be somewhat interesting for me. I’ve been attending industry conventions in that city for well over a decade, but this will be the first one I attend purely as a visiting Author.

More to the point, this will also be the first convention I attend in Columbus where I’m not winning, sponsoring, or accepting any awards. This is a new thing for me, and a situation I hope will not continue.

I take with me a newly revised novel, once again ready to shop around and be nearly as impressive as my manly locks and bushy beard. Perhaps the book has more legs than that, though I’ve managed to cut out a good 9% of it on this pass, including an opening section consisting of the first words ever written on this project, more years ago than I care to count.

Why do I mention this? Because some of you were kind enough to read it and give much needed, and in some cases, very usefully brutal feedback. I’m also a far better writer than I was two years ago, (or ten, for that matter), and some things about the book no longer made me happy. There was too much stuff going on “then,” and not enough “Now.” Both have their place, even within this particular genre. But one simple exercise (just done oh-so-scientifically on my machine) showed me how well I was able to turn off my editor while writing, and how much the book suffered for it.

And I am a very good editor.

I did a search for the words “had” and “been” in the text. Those of you struggling to find a voice for your piece may recognize these words. I, for one, had been very happy with the previous draft, and somewhat disappointed the editor who had been interested in it never responded, though it had only been a year gone when I realized the horrible mistake of

Passive Voice and Past Perfect Participles.

Seriously, Don’t do it. You especially should not discover that in revising the text, instances of Had and Been drop from 1448 and 271 to 507 and 164 respectively.

In a 108K manuscript, that’s death. I’m somewhat upset it didn’t drop further, but there are specific instances where the words are necessary to maintain the feel I want.

Bummer.

This streamlined, 100K masterpiece for the ages should do the trick. I hope so anyway, since I’ve already written its sequels.

Poorly, no doubt. But that’s the fun of being a writer, yah?

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

Or, how I finally managed to update my website.

I’ll admit it, I don’t pay nearly enough attention to this site. It’s been a perpetual problem of mine, especially since I let it languish with bad links and navigation for nearly 5 months.

This morning I revised several wordpress versions of my old gaming pages. I wrote them in 2004. There were supposed to be three more in the series, but it never quite happened. I think a big part of the “why” is that when I moved from a static site to a more dynamic blog, a lot of what made my original site special to me just got lost. That feeling of unbridled creativity, testing out new things and trying to make something unique just went away.

Since then, I’ve written a lot of things. Some good, some bad, mostly unsold. The urge to dust off the old and make it new is largely subsumed into the general malaise of full-time employment and creativity for a living.

All I can do is acknowledge what I have not done. No promises, no agendas. But maybe I’ll find a way to take the old girl out for a spin.

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

So we have moved. In a new bed which was not cheap, in a new neighborhood which is similarly priced, I still have problems getting and staying asleep. Be it pain, cramps, cold, racing mind, or whatever, it’s two shifts at least a night for me.

Tonight, that first shift was from 10 PM to 3 AM. quite possibly the best non-drunken slumber in quite some time. In one or two hours, I will (hopefully) wake up from the next one, and get myself ready for a day of creatively creating.

Saturday’s party was magic. Much like the theater, it all worked out, for some reason no-one understands. The ground floor was open and accessible to all, the backyard grill area worked to perfection, and the rain held off until the sun set and most grownups were either home in bed or inside drinking from big kid glasses. Many thanks to all that attended, especially those what brought wine. Post party tally shows I have nearly doubled the available bottles here, which is good because the party has much in common with the bed and neighborhood.

I also have no leftovers, you crazed locusts. Two pieces of chicken and a box of veggie burgers somehow survived the swarm, which is awesome because someone else brought the chicken. It would seem I properly estimated the available food exactly, or it could be that y’all were very kind and considerate regarding the MEAT situation.

I take it back. There is still half a bag of GIANT MARSHMALLOWS, waiting to be artfully melted at our next gathering. Stay tuned.

It feels oddly strange and satisfying to have paid the rent 11 days early. It feels doubly so to be “broke” on the day one gets paid, and then to see a large sum of money still there in one’s account waiting to be whisked away in 11 days’ time. One of our overly aggressive party purchases was returned Sat. morning, but those funds will not return until sometime today. Now more than ever I am happy to have paid down all credit cards before heading to Hawaii in May. Much of our move “lives” there at the moment, and my desire to no longer possess that debt is the prime factor in my inability to buy a cup of coffee this week.

Yes. The above statement does indeed mean I had >MORE< money before I got paid last week. go figure. On the bright side, I “found” quite a bit of it sitting in front of other people at a chip-renting game session last week. Things look good for another such session, especially since it’s now a self-sufficient bus ride away from my house.

Not paying 5bux a day for the bus next month will be awesome. Just saying. Last time I checked, that’s 8 days away. Also, twice the price of store-bought coffee beverages. I have coffee here, coffee at work, and the knowledge that I probably shouldn’t drink coffee so much.

Wheeee!

Time to pretend at sleep, so that this morning I may pretend at competence. Hope the day (or the night) holds more success for you.

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

Sure, it’s a couple days early, but the cats don’t seem to mind.

Much.

I have one on my lap right now, whose presence has completely derailed what I was going to write. Silly, silly gato.

No-one is likely to care but me, but the page links at left are messed up right now. when upgrating this theme, they “came loose” from their locations, and I need to get them synced up again. No real biggie, but given the frequency with which I do not update, folks might be lonely for content I ignore on a regular basis.

Or not.

If memory serves, they should be the following:

http://www.bhagwanx.com/everything/ ‎

http://www.bhagwanx.com/rage/

http://www.bhagwanx.com/11days/

http://www.bhagwanx.com/writer/

(redirect to bhagwanx.com)

http://www.bhagwanx.com/wbaseball2010/

http://www.bhagwanx.com/yes-that-thing…you-were-a-kid

The cat has gone off to groom herself, leaving me free to type without sneezing (total lie, I just did). With a hypothetical batch of medical test coming up, I’ve decided to go back on the Bun. I’m talking bread, baby, pain be damned. I need to know what’s happened to my body in the last couple years, and if there’s been any sort of “improvement” in my condition. To whit, there’s a class of blood tests that more or less require me to eat something I know is bad for me.

CAKE.

Sandwiches are nice too. I would like to have some, yes I would. I bought bread for the first time in a year today, as well as pre-made pizza crusts. I’m not going to stop baking the “good” stuff, but for a while I’ll be adding in regular, glutinous goodness to my diet.

More in a bit, but I can say that I’m already feeling the effects in my joints. It could also be the two hours of drumming I did today in emulation of Ringo Starr. Only time will tell.

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.

In 5 hours’ time, I leave the state of Hawai’i and return to “normal” life. I take with me memories, new shirts, and less money than I brought.

I have perhaps been here 2 days too long. Perhaps it is that I miss the comfort of my own bed, though I have slept better here in Waikiki than in many months at home. Perhaps I want to simply sit on my couch and enjoy those things I have put into my home to entertain me. But those things are merely objects, it is my use of them that gives purpose and meaning. this can happen anywhere, and the computer I use to type this works equally well in both locations.

I think perhaps it is the veneer that affects me the most. 1 mile from the beach here is a decaying city like any other in the United States. Hawaii’s #1 export is Hawaiians, and replacements rarely bring with them new means of support other than “we’ll open an XX store on the beach and never work again.”

Unlike our home, there are very few empty shops here. Not on the beach, anyway. A mile away there are plenty, for much the same reason they are vacant in Seattle. There is not enough money to go around, and when locals cannot afford local products, those items cease production.

Our 50th State is a model for Manifest Destiny. On the pretense that the island chain was needed to wage war against a country on the other side of the planet, our great nation reached out its hand and finished what a greedy group of its citizens started 5 years previous by overthrowing a peaceful, responsive, and democratic monarchy in favor of a “Committee of Safety.” A century later that same nation apologized publicly for this gross abuse of power.

Today, we see doomed citizen’s measures across the islands hoping to halt exploitation, reserve farmlands and preserves, and keep Hawai’i Hawaiian. Water, power, people–all dwindle steadily and are replaced by imported versions of same, which in turn further reduce the state’s self-sufficiency.

Paradise was nice to visit. Especially the quarter-mile strip running around the island next to the water. Surfing, sailing, sitting and snorkeling are fine activities, but they do not pay the rent. They are a reward for hard work, one that focuses the soul towards a state where every day can be lived care-free. One cannot live on gravy all the time–there must be meat to the meal.

It’s time to go home. Back to the caves, back to the real. Back to clocks, and schedules, deadlines and deliveries. To a place where the rain is cold and lasting, where life has more meaning, but less sunshine.

Paradise is not lost. It is left behind. In this place a world away from our lives is a cautionary tale–Pay attention to the things around you. Make sure you can always enjoy them. Make sure they can be shared with others.

Paradise is not a location, it is a concept. A fleeting glimpse of how life could have been, and a reminder of the Price of Progress.
Like most important things, it is best experienced with eyes open, and remembered well, but wisely.

Aloha, and Mahalo.

Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.