Critical NaNoWriMo weekend ahead. The past week has been a struggle—as previous writmos presaged it would be.

But even when you steel yourself against a challenge, things always have a way of blindsiding you. This experience is going right for the jugular and the juggler, as I stay on top of a daily minimum word count of 1,667 words, hold down two jobs, and deal with the interrupted sleep pattern.

I will say this. It’s AMAZING how much you can get done with just an hour or two a day. But that’s writing every day. If I get nothing more out of the experience than this, I’ve learned that it’s less painful to spend time with your work than to avoid it altogether.

A short recap and I’m off to early sleep for the regular 4-5 a.m. wakeup.

The first, oh, one or two thousand word was painful as hell to write. Throat-clearing, awkward, chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug…slow slow slow…

Then, about middle of last week, I hit a stride. Some surprising things came out, but it’s all a blur. I haven’t gone back to edit much, if anything. What’s saving me, I think, is Scrivener. If I’d attempted this in Microsoft Word, I’d have a mess of documents, all titled something different and all scattered in folder of God-knows-what. With Scrivener, the time I took setting up my folders according to my basic outline (I didn’t do a step outline, just sketched in where certain story points would turn, and foldered accordingly).

Rewrite will be interesting, but we’ll worry about that once NaNo is over. For my story, there’ve been two challenges, the protagonist’s first-person narrative, and the catalyst character’s third-person omniscient narrative. Don’t know what will survive rewrite, but I’m finding it way easier to breeze through the former over the latter in draft mode.

Now, some sweet sweet sleep!

One house needs to be emptied, the other is empty, the next a graveyard:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

—Philip Larkin

If you have a friend on whom you think you can rely

—You are a lucky man!

If you’ve found the reason to live on and not to die

—You are a lucky man!

Preachers and poets and scholars don’t know it,

Temples and statues and steeples won’t show it,

If you’ve got the secret just try not to blow it

—Stay a lucky man!

If you’ve found the meaning of the truth in this old world

—You are a lucky man!

If knowledge hangs around your neck like pearls instead of chains

—You are a lucky man!

Takers and fakers and talkers won’t tell you,

Teachers and preachers will just buy and sell you,

When no one can tempt you with heaven or hell

—You’ll be a lucky man!”

Alan Price

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night
People so busy, make me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright
But I don’t need no friends
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise.

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset’s fine

Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station
Every Friday night
But I am so lazy, don’t want to wander
I stay at home at night.
But I don’t feel afraid
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise.

Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset’s fine

Millions of people swarming like flies ‘round Waterloo underground
But Terry and Julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound.
And they don’t need no friends
As long as they gaze on Waterloo sunset
They are in paradise.

Waterloo sunset’s fine…

Keith Reid, who sez:

Your multilingual business friend 
has packed her bags and fled 
Leaving only ash-filled ashtrays 
and the lipsticked unmade bed 
The mirror on reflection 
has climbed back upon the wall 
for the floor she found descended 
and the ceiling was too tall

Your trouser cuffs are dirty
and your shoes are laced up wrong
you’d better take off your homburg
‘cos your overcoat is too long

The town clock in the market square 
stands waiting for the hour 
when its hands they both turn backwards 
and on meeting will devour 
both themselves and also any fool 
who dares to tell the time 
And the sun and moon will shatter 
and the signposts cease to sign

Probably no more than a half hour ago I was staring, probably jaw agape, at a wall. Head was humming; found myself mumbling like an idiot, completely disoriented.

That’s because at 10 a.m. this morning, I started the draft of my followup novel to my previously published novella, The Crowded Room. Outside of lunch and 1-hr. nap around 2 p.m., I wrote until about 4:30 p.m. Would have liked to have dashed past 3K words, but came just short of that. Anything more would’ve led to complete incapcitation.

See, I’d forgotten how fucking aerobic it is to be a writer, hunched over a word processor for hours at a time, aching through conflicting feelings about the words plopping like shit on the virtual page. I’d written two and a half screenplays, a number of stories and short pieces, a novella, and sketches for two other “things”—novel, long-form fiction, midlife crisis, I don’t know. But this pounding out words thing is not for sissies.

I learned a couple things if I’m gonna make it through NaNoWriMo this month:

1. Take care of yourself. Eat as best you can, go easy on the stimulants and depressants, sleep and, probably most important in my case, don’t let the world distract too much from the dreamworld you’ll need to inhabit every flippin’ day for one month.

2. After today’s long-run, don’t feel bad about daily word count failure. It’s bound to happen. Tomorrow’s another day. And if you’re feeling pain after writing: stop and do something physical: a walk, run, whatever it takes to put the mind in another place.

3. The story is always being written, even when you’re not writing. For example, after hitting the gym and easing slowly out of today’s scenes, I was still struck by an image that I’ve noted to use for tomorrow’s writing. Didn’t even need to lift a finger for that one. And whether it makes final cut or not doesn’t matter. The subconscious is always working away.

4. Seek support when needed, but don’t lean too heavily on others; don’t “talk” the writing out, but seek answers to niggling questions within the writing. Another example from the story is an office setup entirely unfamiliar to me. However, I know where I can learn more about that environment and have footnoted it for later revision.

5. Praise God for Scrivener, the word processing software from Literature & Latte. I no longer need to write in linear fashion. I can put the bones of the novel on their corkboard feature, slap down some note cards with titles and scene possibilities (did this as last-thing-of-the-day today, so I have scenes to pick and choose from tomorrow, and the day after that, etc.). If you’re frustrated with writing in MSWord, give Scrivener a try. And no, I don’t get a kickback.

This story has been kicking around in my head for over a year now, so it’s time for it (whatever it is) to come out. By remaining open, planting the butt in chair for a minimum of an hour and a half, and maybe—just maybe—I’ll be smiling on November 30.

This is one of the reasons I’m glad I have a job to go to in the mornings.

At the bus stop, 7:15 a.m., a mini-drama unfolded. When the 46 bus pulled up, there were four of us at the stop, and three were getting off. It was raining, so of course we were eager to board. Of the three getting off the bus, the second person, a short, older woman, was in a snit.

“Pressure, pressure, pressure! I can’t go any faster!!”

Everyone patiently backed away to allow her to get off. Another guy, just behind her, was giving her plenty of room, but the woman wasn’t having any of it. “Judas Priest! I can’t deal with this much pressure!” The woman in front tried to calm her down as she got off the bus. The rest of us boarded. Out on the sidewalk, the woman flew into a rage. The guy and other woman tried to restrain her.

But that’s not what interested me the most.

First thing I see going to my seat: grins on everyone’s faces. Even the bus driver is chuckling. I couldn’t find anything funny about it. Since I, too, suffer from mental illness, I knew exactly how I felt: complete empathy.

See, we’re all a knife’s edge away from such raw emotions. If you’re lucky, you’ve got a well-stocked brain chemistry to keep them in check. If not, you’re raving on the street in the hours before dawn.

Since medication is doing wonders for me, I was able to dissect the woman’s statement: “I can’t deal with this much pressure.” Negative self-talk such as “I can’t deal” feeds the fire already smoldering under a thicket of previous negativity. At some point, inside comes out and—boom. You gotta public spectacle.

But more than that, mental illness destroys families, relationships, careers—lives. It took my mother’s life, a great aunt, my best friend’s brother. It has entirely wrecked many of my own relationships.

So, I’m proud to be supporting actor Joe Pantoliano’s efforts to remove the stigma of mental illness. Joey will be having a benefit for the cause on Dec. 2 at the MOA. For more info, check it out.

As for the rest of you on the bus, enjoy smiling through that honey-sweet, beautifully balanced brain juice you have.

For some of us it just ain’t that easy.

“There were those starry, moon-glowing and windy nights where I would sit out in the hammock and think into the night. There were those bright sunny days where the sun reflected off the clear, blue water.

“I would step onto the deck when I’m there at night and feel the summer’s breeze flow to my face.

“And now summer has come to an end. I’m back in those halls of hustling, bustling kids. Run to this class, run to that class. Test here, assignment there. But in the midst of all that up and down hassle I have one hope and promise—

“That summer will come again.”

I’ve hit upon a theory of human existence that, while not founded in any religious or moral creed, probably owes more to the psychology of Freud and Jung (and by extension, Myers-Briggs) than anything else.

So, first things first: we all exist. That’s the good news, depending on your half-full, half-empty view of things. But here’s the kicker:

Your perception of existence (yours as well as others) depends entirely on where you sit at any given moment upon this range:

Externally Directed <——————————————————> Internally Directed

Everyone has this range in his or her experience. But where you are on the scale (and that can vary from time-to-time and person-to-person). No person is “all” externally directed or “all” internally directed. So what do I mean by those terms?

Externally Directed people generally are:

·      Thinkers over feelers

·      More egotistical

·      More apt to attribute or blame external things for their happiness, or lack of it

·      More secure in their self-esteem

·      More likely to seek company over solitude

·      See things as “fixable” or “black and white”

·      Extroverted

On the other hand, Internally Directed people generally are:

·      Feelers over thinkers

·      More altruistic

·      More likely to blame themselves for things, experiences

·      More insecure

·      More likely to seek solitude over company

·      See things in terms of grays, blends of many different things

·      Introverted

The point here is nobody is either one or the other, but everybody has a propensity to one over the other. A “healthier” person would fall more toward the center, maintaining a balance between the two extremes.

Ironically, an Internally Directed person is more likely to rope in others when he or she feels insecure about his or her abilities to achieve something on their own. Conversely, an Externally Directed person is less likely to ask for advice or muse introspectively about his or her problems.

This conundrum became evident to me when I was trying to understand someone’s behavior. Because the Externally Directed person perceives there is an all-important ego to protect, she is quick to blame others for things that may have originated from her own thoughts or feelings about that person or experience. The Internally Directed person will brood over hurt feelings, thinking it “must be something I did.”

So, when you’re “wondering what it’s all about, Alfie,” consider this:

1.     We perceive and interact with people and things in the world;

2.     These people and things have an external appearance, of which we think we know well;

3.     These people and things have an internal structure, of which we can never know;

4.     Our thoughts of these people or things are either given expression (by communicating, asking questions, exploring meaning), or not;

5.     Our thoughts of these people or things are only thoughts—they may or may not be true;

6.     How we react (through action, word or deed) to these thoughts—our thoughts, our feelings—determine where we fall on the scale of Externally or Internally Directed.

From October 1996:

“All this called to mind X’s little parable about my having a gift that I wanted to give, one that includes all my talents, temperaments, tastes, behavior, looks, moods and values, a gift the entire package of which [she] did not recognize as hers to receive.

“X said you can go around and around trying to give that gift to many women, but it never seems for the right person. One day, X said, some young woman will walk up to you, tap you on the shoulder and say, nodding toward the gift: ‘Excuse me, but I think that’s mine.’

“If I had to title that parable, I’d call it Baggage Claim.”