Home

Hey y’all just making sure I didn’t royally screw up my blog here as I did something completely and totally dangerous tonight. I upgraded my software!

Whoo boy, lemme tell ya I never was so nervous to click on a button before.  But things appear to be good from this side, the blog looked right when I viewed it after the upgrade so I think all is good! If it’s not…well, another blog post will cover my Agony of the Software Blow Up: Why Coltranes Should Not Be Allowed to Upgrade Anything.

Khee!

Back in June, I submitted an essay to Newsweek for their My Turn column. The submission guidelines stated I would be notified only if my essay was picked and if my essay wasn’t selected after two months I was free to submit the material elsewhere.

Well, I wasn’t selected. And given the essays that did appear in the My Turn column from June until now I was up against some pretty good writers. One essay was even done by Kirk Douglas. Kirk Douglas! Spartacus! How am I supposed to compete with that? I might as well be asked to play a game of Clue against Peter Falk…

Anyway, most of the essays, if not all of them, were and are personal in nature. In fact, a lot more personal than what I wrote, complaining about the light speed technological advancement of cell phones. The most recent My Turn essay is written by a medic in the military and he writes about what it feels like when one of his patients, namely a fellow soldier, doesn’t make it.

Oh man. FORGET the cell phone. I can’t compete with life stories like that. Anything I write that’s more personal than the cell phone thing would either come out sad and pathetic or bitter and resentful. And nobody wants to read that kind of stuff. I certainly don’t.

I’m also an extremely private person, to a point. Yeah, I’m yammering away here on the Internet and I publish my stories online for all the world to see but I’m still a private person. Many of you who know me beyond the moniker that graces the top of this blog, know that already. (Although I have learned that despite the very public forum that is the Internet, you can still exist in total obscurity.) So, finding a personal topic to write about, without feeling like I’m exposing my soul to the world and having that naked experience Brian referred to in one of his previous posts, is difficult.

I’m not going to give up trying with this My Turn thing tho’. If they publish your essay, you get paid $1000. (SOLD!). So, I’m going to try to come up with another topic to write about and in the meantime find another publication to submit that cell phone essay to.

Blaugh! I’m slackin’ again. I haven’t posted here for several days and I’m about due for another Screen Cap o’ The Week and I can’t decide on one. I think my brain done exploded.

Ouch. And I was doing so good too! But nothing has struck me lately to blather on about (at least, nothing I wanna blather on about publicly!) and I’m…I’m…stuck.

GAH! This is bad. Even worse is the fact that I’m writing about the fact that I can’t think of anything to write about. Although, to keep along the lines of the Coltrane Skewl of Writing posts we’ve had recently, this might be a good opportunity to talk about journaling and free form writing.

This was an exercise we used to do in one of my English classes in Jr. High. We would be given about 10 minutes or so to write something. Anything. And often mine started with “Well I can’t think of anything write about so I’m writing about not being able to write anything. Oh man, have ya ever realized that…” and then I’d be off on some inane topic of importance to a 15 year old mind. Heh!

But ya know, it worked. If you keep at it, even if it’s just still saying “yep, here I am, still trying to think of something to write–I’m so sick of adult contemporary radio…” Boom. Yer topic will come to you eventually.

And I am sick of adult contemporary radio. Kelly Clarkson is pissing me off and if I have to hear Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” one more time I’m gonna take that Louisville slugger to something other than a set of headlights. ARGH! That song can not be the only song that woman has ever recorded! But apparently it’s the only song that gets played on the radio.

Corporate radio sucks nowadays anyway. I think I’ve commented on this in a previous post but it’s worth commenting again. In fact, I’m even gonna write it again.

Corporate radio sucks nowadays anyway.

They play the same dozen or so songs every day, every week. And then boast about having the “biggest variety.” My posterior.

What really annoys me is when one of those songs that annoys the crap out of me gets stuck in my head. Like pretty much any Kelly Clarkson song. “Because of You” Kelly, I’m about ready to puke on my radio.

Gnarls Barkley can best some up my opinion of corporate radio:  “It’s Making Me Craaaaaaaaazaaaayyyy!”

Ahh. There. And lookit that, a blog post!

See? I knew Brian wouldn’t be able to handle roman numerals. I ain’t even gonna comment on the number selection he made. 

I do, however, think ol’ Brian done baited himself pretty well with that last post.  Ya need some extra loose bullets, Brian? I can fire a few your way–

Whups. I mean, aim some in your direction–

Ahh…nevermind.

Feeding the muse! Well, I certainly got enough muses around this joint that the ol’ grocery bill is getting expensive. Especially the coffee and donuts. I’ll tell ya, feeding the cops and Feds around here is a full time job.  And oh yeah, they’re all willing to volunteer to deliver those loose bullets to Brian in the story if need be. Brian even knows me well enough to have the spin I’d put on it already figured out. Bleeding on the page, cousin, it’s what it’s all about.

Of course, I realize that’s not supposed to be literal but even some of the boys in blue around here might argue that I might take it literally. Considerin’ what some of them all have been through. Ah, ahem…

Anyway, if I were to make up a muse-box for Brian in an attempt to entice him over here, I wonder what I’d put in it? Hmmm lessee…black wrapping paper to start with, yep, and some packets of sugar for his coffee. Some tapes of Cheap Trick, AC/DC and Areosmith. A harmonica. A few beer nuts and pretzels. A gold plated pen. A bottle of Miller beer. A pack of cigarettes and a lighter. (Hmm…Maxwell cigarettes perhaps? Khee!). A swatch of leather. A key chain with a Chevy emblem on it. And ya know, for the heck of it, I think I’ll toss some fried chicken in too.

Gee. No bullets.

But I could toss in this boxing glove to represent my right cross.

Enticing ain’t it? Khee!

Brian’s number for his post technically shoulda been V. His next post should use VII. Knowing him, he’ll use X just because he knows he can annoy me with it. Heh!

Ah well, at this rate it seems we’re going from Inside Joke to The Cousins Coltrane School of Writing. Still, Brian did manage something of a pot shot in his last post, to which I’ll respond to in a minute.

First tho’, I wanted to add a comment about those quotes about voice, particularly the last one that talks about how some of what you write will be lousy. This is true. However, one should not be discouraged by this. I have long believed in the following writing maxim: “The first draft is always shit.” Once you’re comfortable with that, the rest of it isn’t as difficult.

I have times when I’ll write a scene and it’ll come out pretty good on the first go around. Then I have times when I write a scene and the wording is just sucky and awkward, but I at least got the thing down. And that’s the important part, and the core of what was said in that last quote. You gotta write it down! Otherwise, whatever it is you’re looking to say or express isn’t going to come out at all if you’re worried about it coming out pretty or perfect the first time through. You can shore up the scene afterward, revising it and such. But it’s getting the thing down that’s the first big step.

Aside from that, have I found my voice? I believe I have. (At least, I’ve bled on the page so that must qualify me for something!) And I know my voice certainly has a lot more it wants to say about my personal observations, my beliefs, my desires and my passions.

Which brings me to answering Brian’s question about the naked experience…

…in that ah ree-fuse to answer that question. 

Now, I wonder if it would be plausible for him to get shot in the story at this point…muhahahahaha…