It’s close to dusk. The world was silent and still, the air had gotten heavier. Warm air mixed with the frozen ground, dredging up that heavy fog that was rolling in, slowly, it connected with every twig, tree, and blade of grass.
Hidden by the fog
I had a headache and my joints ached with its dampness. I stood out on the wet deck; all the snow had melted off the house, so that incessant drip, drip, dripping had ceased.
I was looking through the lenses of my Nikon. I changed the settings to see if the pictures would show something else, something clearer once I downloaded them on to my computer.
Fog
The air was silent and still, every so often a car swished past along the road. That sound conveyed an image to my mind and not to my eyes. Somewhere in the trees, I heard a wet sneeze. A deer? A coyote? I saw nothing past the fog. January-February is mating season for coyotes. They had done me well this year, they kept the rats under control. Rats are very brazen rodents, they will argue their point until I walk away, and I will still hear then squeaking out reasons, why I had interfered with their lives and how I should move on. ‘Go on! get out of here,’ they would say.
This past week, I haven’t heard the coyote’s distinct howling and yipping. But I have seen their tracks as they moved here and there as they followed the scent of a rodent under the snow or a rabbit whose tracks would cross back and forth, just a wild as the coyotes.
Animal tracks in the snow
Yesterday afternoon, three deer wandered around the yard, they kicked at the ground, and ate roots, fallen fruit and pulled at stray apples that still clung to the wet branches. They stared at the house when they heard my voice. Ready without any warning, to bolt back into the trees.
Fall of 2017
Near sundown, I am taking pictures of fog. I felt like I was being watched. I could smell someone’s dryer sheets. The aroma of my chicken baking in the oven drifted out and moved within the fog.
The fog will carry those scents to the farmers across the field of fog, it will mingle and connect with others; it might even connect with a hungry animal’s salivary glands. I stepped back inside, and locked the door; then I took a picture from the inside out.
Lesson #5Dramatic rules (con’d) this video is 8:20 (eight minutes and twenty-seconds)
David Mametstarts this fifth video, the second on Dramatic rules with this line.
“The rules to me are very, very simple. …”
That sentence is a declarative sentence that drew me in, I wanted to know those rules.
Tell the story
Start at the beginning
Go until you get to the end
Don’t stop
Be interesting
Make sure everything is on the line
There was another part of this videowhere David Mamet mentions, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse a pamphlet of tips for playwriting. He said that we could find that pamphlet online. I am searching out the pamphlet I haven’t found it yet. Here are a couple of the rules that David talks about.
Save your biggest laugh for the end of the second act
At beginning of the second act remind the audience who they love and who hate
Stop giving your best lines to the secondary characters
If you are interested in this course, maybe just curious here is the link to Masterclass.com, or you can click on David Mamet at the top left sidebar.
Today, January 19, 2018, is my daughter’s birthday.
Happy Birthday, Rebecca!
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She was on the go even before she was born. During my pregnancy, she was impatient and wanted to hurry up and get on with her life. I had to keep off my feet for seven long months. My dog, Buddy a 120 pound an Alaskan Malamute mix, stayed by my side the whole time; when Rebecca was born then he made it his job to protect her.
When she was around six months, I had placed her in a walker with a pillow to keep her comfortable and upright. As soon as I turned my back, her toes touched the ground, and she stood up, tossed away the pillow and charged through the house. Then right down the stairs. After being checked out at the ER, she was back in the walker, with all the doors closed and locked (I saw her turning door knobs).
Instead of diving down the stairs,she shot around the house. Sticking her feet in the dog’s food, then having him lick it off her toes, to pulling out drawers, pulling things off of table tops – she stood on her tiptoes trying to get a good look around, zeroed on her goal and took off running. I gave up and took the walker away from her.
She loved laying on her blanket on the floor, where Buddy laid next to her. He never moved from her side, even as she held on to his tongue, shared his food, and crawled on his back grabbing handfuls of hair as she jumped up and down on his back. She crawled after him at top speed. He taught her to stand up; she held onto his fur as he slowly stood up taking her with him.
By the time she was seven monthsshe was tottering around the house. At eight months she had decided to widen her horizons. While her father was watching her, she walked out the door. Buddy started whining. I freaked. I ran after her. Rebecca ran down the block, laughing. Totally unafraid of the dark.
She knew what she liked and didn’t. Pink was her color any other would bring out an intense yowling.
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When we hand fed orphaned robins she didn’t hesitate to try to taste the worms.
When she was three she learned how to play chess with her brother.
She carried a bag of toys so she had something to play with; she liked to read bedtime stories
Rebecca
She is no longer that little girl. She is an amazing woman. She hasn’t stopped running after what she wants. Her enthusiasm is never-ending
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She has helped a lot of people and has a very big heart. She has never lost that need to explore.
I love you my daughter,and I wish you health, wealth and happiness; may you never lose that enthusiasm to see what is around the corner or behind each closed-door.
David Mamet’s Masterclass lesson #4 Dramatic Rules
I watched this video, three times before I started taking notes.
Why so many times?
Answer: Because it was that good!
This lesson is –WOW! And I am not exaggerating. I am only on the fourth video and I have taken away something from each of those four videos. In Lesson #3 Mamet talked about how humans have two inclinations, ‘good inclination’—yetzer ha-tov—the ‘evil inclination’—yetzer ha-ra. I have been reading about these inclinations. To me, they are like a tiny Devil on one shoulder and a tiny Angel on the other.
This video lesson #4 David Mamet is sitting at his desk looking at the camera, and his first words are:
“Your job is to tell a story. A story a story has a hero, and he or she wants ‘one’ thing and the story begins when something precipitates the event.”
From this point, some -not all- of what he is saying I have heard or read before. But never in the way that David Mamet delivers it.
He points us to read, Aristotle Poetics, you can find it HERE.
Aristotle
David Mamet’s delivery, the way he imparts the information, is impressive. This video only lasted eleven minutes and forty-six seconds. I wanted more. I wanted to jump right into the next video lesson. I had to pull myself back. I had this Blog post to put together and I wanted to read Aristotle’s Poetics, first before jumping feet first into lesson #5
A little of what I learned, was that the audience /reader is the hero of the story.
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The Hero’s Journey “Every play has to have a beginning middle an end – Just like a joke.” ~David Mamet
Inspired by situations
Your hero needs to be inspired from the inside out.
Aristotle’s Unities
David Mamet’s Masterclass.com
From Dr. Wheeler’s Web.cn.edu.“UNITIES, THREE (also known as the “three dramatic unities. A good play, according to this doctrine, must have three traits. The first is unity of action (realistic events following a single plotline and a limited number of characters encompassed by a sense of verisimilitude). The second is unity of time, meaning that the events should be limited to the two or three hours it takes to view the play, or at most to a single day of twelve or twenty-four hours compressed into those two or three hours. The third is unity of space, meaning the play must take place in a single setting or location.
*It is notable that Shakespeare often broke the three unities in his plays, which may explain why these rules later were never as dominant in England as they were in French and Italian Neoclassical drama.” ~web.cn.edu
Keep the story simple.
David Mamet’s Masterclass.com
You decide where will your story start, and where will it end.
I opened an email with the promise of teaching me, for $47.00, a savings of $150.00 on how to be more productive and how to overcome Writer’s block. Now, this is something that I have searched out. I must have clocked in years of time trying to find that elusive beast called productivity while wishing to drop off the saddle of writer’s block. I knew, once I found the secret I would excel at everything.
I don’t have to search out that question anymore.
I can hear you, ‘you found the secret! Quick, what is it! Tell us!”
By the by, you have a squeaky voice belonging to a fairy or gnome. And, not just any fairy or gnome. Mine sits around in a fancy suit drinking Starbucks every day and eating whatever it wants without gaining an ounce, driving a fancy electric car, with its own rechargeable panels so it will never have to stop and waste time at a pump. Meanwhile, the fairy flits around, fixing words, so what needs to be said, will be said, somewhat correctly.
Yes, this is one of those, ‘I have no idea what to write day…’
Truth be told, the only way to overcome any sort of procrastination; veg’ing out, wish this was me-staring out the window thinking-I need to be perfect, and what am I afraid of, it must be someone else’s fault, if only I had a better pen-chair-house-journal-if everyone would stop bugging me or my favorite; I need to clean something to clear my mind.
The real and only way to get rid of procrastination is to just write. Let the phone go to voicemail, don’t look at email, leave all research for later, then just write horrible stuff. Yes write the worst stuff! Because the first thing you write is not wonderful, it is awful crap.
That crap is the start of the editing process. And you just wrote it, time for a … {{HAPPY DANCE}}
Write then edit out the crap. What you write at first needs to be written, from start to finish, and then you fix it. So by the time you have three-four edits under your belt, what you wrote at first is no longer visible.
You just need to get your thoughts out on paper.You will know how you want it to sound. After it is set on paper, in your computer or carved in a pew…well, not carved into anything, you can’t erase it- if it is set in stone or wood.
Don’t delete. Just rewrite.
So the best productivity secrets on this planetare ‘doing what needs to be done.’ Then, double-check and edit it into what you want your words to say.
What I do is write it out. Then I start reading it I edit as I read it Adding what is missing from it Changing words around it Adding words to it Chucking out ridiculous words within it Fixing paragraphs to form it Adding whole paragraphs to it Or, just a sentence or two …to it
Then, I read and do it again, and again. I walk away; have a cup of coffee and clean something. When I come back I read it again, editing as I read. I will do this, three or four times, until I post it. After I post it I will see other things that need to be changed.
So I change them.
Obsess much? Well, yes and no. I allow this type of OCD to take hold after I write out that first draft, that idea.
There is a pointwhere I step away and leave the rest of those glaring errors for others to find.
Let’s reiterate. The best productivity secrets on this planet is to write horrible copy from start to finish, then edit like an obsessed, well-dressed gnome directing a flitting editing fairy.
I was watching ‘Fresh Off The Boat ‘ the segment ended with, Jessica and Louis Huang swinging around Bug Zappers the size of a small Ping-Pong racket, with the look of a tennis rack’s weaved mesh with the added benefit of a stun gun.
I did an online search when my husband insisted that if they were real they would be dangerous. He said, “imagine if you had one of those things and you were standing next to me.” Then he stopped and waited for my answer.
Crickets Chirped
Pexels.com
A thought bubble appeared above my head, smoke came out my ears, thenI saw his point. I am very clumsy. I will walk into a closed sliding glass door, -even if it plastered with stickers of giant pandas holding up stop signs,- I would still run right into the door.
I have walked under a beehive then tapped the dirt off my shoes at the base of the tree.
I have tip-toed around animal burrows when thought I was out of the woods, I turned and then stepped into a freshly made burrow.
I have tried to catch my cat, who I believed had gotten out of the house, and it wasn’t my cat but a skunk.
Speaking of skunks, I had pulled my dogs away from the fence and got a full on spray from the skunk they were harassing.
I drove the tractor into a wet area of fresh mud
I walked upon a sleeping buck.
I still have nightmares about the forty-pound raccoon that attempted to eviscerate me
So this interesting bug zapper, -which to me seems perfectly logical –I want it. But… my husband stood his ground with a, ‘no way’he said,‘ he can see me heading to the ER.’ His point… is that if I start waving that racket around, he could see me hitting my own leg, or him.
Can you hear those Crickets, again?
Hmmm! I hit him a few times and knocked his coffee cup out of his hand. It wasn’t my fault I was chasing around paper wasps and yellow jackets.
Pexels.com wasp
Okay, I see his point.
Back to my online search, I found them. They are real. Yes, I was shocked….
Oddly enough, someone made a comment that this was clean fun. Excuse me, but a bug zapper fries a bug, spreading its remains around. And my flyswatter spatters the bugs… pick your weapon warm weather is just around the corner.
I think I will keep my regular flyswatter.
There is one on Amazon called The Executioner it uses 2 C batteries
Amazon
Another one uses AA Batteries advertising 3000 Volts, ‘Preci Shock ‘
Am I missing something here, because, “AAA, AA, C, D batteries all are rated at 1.5 volts” According to Education.com
Chicago Tribune I am not sure who owns this photo it is everywhere.
Twitter Tweet
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I remember the first time I heard his name; I was looking down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun that was being held by a guy between six and twelve years older than I was. I remember thinking how black that gun was and wondering why it was wrapped with dirty, ragged tape.
“The tensions are not between the races, but between the forces of justice and injustice; between the forces of light and darkness.”~ Martin Luther King JR.
I was trying to get home without running into anyone. I had just left school, Ryerson elementary. I was in full sprint and had stepped off the curb when a car screeched to a halt in front of me. My heart skipped a beat, knowing that if I had taken two steps, instead of one -off that curb, I would have painted the hood of their car. I froze.
An ugly looking blunt sawed-off shotgunwas stuck out the back window and was pointed at my abdomen. I took a step back. I couldn’t escape; the car and the gun, I had nowhere to escape to, they had blocked me in. I was to close. I went out of my way to avoid being trapped, to dodge getting within arm’s length, of anyone. To be this close, meant I wasn’t in control. Where I stood, I knew that bullet had changed the length of my arms. If I ran I was dead. If I stood here I was dead. I felt dead.
(I am cleaning up the dialogue so I can post it here)
The guy in the front passenger seat spat out, “Shoot her, so we can get outta here.”
“Wait! Why are you shooting me?”
“You know, just shoot her.”
The kid in the back seat was holding a gun, he was sweating, we made eye contact, and he looked away.
“Wait! You can shoot me- after you tell me why” I said as I made eye contact with the eyes connected to that gun.
A steady disembodied voice, called out, “Shoot her!”
The guy with the gun said. ”Naw, I’ll tell her.”
I felt the seconds pass. I could see and taste the thick, black smoke rising above the houses to my left. I heard the sound of the corner store’s screen door open behind me, it creaked then slammed as someone ran back inside; whatever they were saying was lost in the pounding of my heart.
I focused on the three guys in the back of the car; there were three more in the front. They were excited, talking fast, yelling. “Shoot her!” I kept my focus on the kid in the back seat. The one with the gun, it was heavy in his hand, I saw the tape on the gun, on his wrist. He pointed it down at the cracked sidewalk. I exhaled.
The guy in the front seat raised his hand and flipped it, everyone went silent, then he said, “Okay- we killn’ you. You killed King’
“Who is that?”
“Don’t be stupid, ya know him! You killed him!” one of the guys in the front passenger seat sneered, “Shoot ‘er!”
I snorted and took a stance as if they didn’t scare me. I loosened my hold on my schoolbooks; relaxed my body, and then I took a step sideways. That gave me a better look at the front seat of the car, besides taking me one step further away from that gun. I considered a run towards the front of their car. Except, if that guy in the back seat decided to raise that gun up and pull the trigger, I knew, I couldn’t outrun a bullet. If I ran I would be a moving target. I had a chance if I could get their minds off that gun, maybe, just maybe I can move that target off my stomach. I asked, “How could I kill him? I don’t know him!”
“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”~Martin Luther King JR.
“He don’t know you,” he gestured to the guy behind him, “He’ll kill you.”Front passenger seat guy laughed, the rest of the guys followed suit and laughed, except for the kid in back with the gun. He was as scared as I was.
“I didn’ kill anyone. Wait! Tell me who he is”
“wha’?”
“Who is Martin Luther King, what’d he do? Who is he? Why are ya trying to kill me in his name?”
The guy in the backseat touched the back of the front passenger seat with the gun. “She don’ know him, I don’ like dis man. Let her go.”
“Aw! Come on! We is here t’kill a….”
“I thought ya wanted to kill King’s killer.” I said.
“Shutup!”
Someone else said, “This ain’t fun nomo. -Listen kid ya go find out who King is and we gonna be driving around. When we come back u dead-if we see ya. Gonna be no talkin. Got it!”
I nodded.
“It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”~ Martin Luther King JR
They attempted to squeal their wheels as they took off; instead, they left a trail of black smoke and tire marks. Before the car pulled fully away from me, I sprinted around the back of the car took a right at the corner and slipped into my house, where my parents were staring at the television. I could hear the warnings to stay indoors due to the riots. Black smoke was settling in the alley. Sirens, screaming, horns were honking, shots sounded.
I was born and raised a couple of miles from the apartment building where Martin Luther King, moved into as a protest. That area was burning. My neighborhood was burning. And this was just the start.
“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.” ~ Martin Luther King JR
What I learned later that day, from my father, was that, Martin Luther King was a peaceful man, who wanted everyone to be equal all the violence in his name didn’t make any sense. Not then. Not now.
In this Blog Post,I will give you an update on January 10th post, ‘Looking for Something I can’t see’ I had redone experiment one, ‘The Dude Abides Principle’.And started experiment two.
I asked the universe for a sign, any sign – no later than January, 12th at 3:32 PM.
At 3:20 PM I was standing at the kitchen window, looking out over the moving sea of dry winter grass. The last few days- before the 12th – temperatures had hovered over the freezing mark then spiking to over 50 degrees; before that, sub-zero temperatures had slammed us again and again since late December. It had, for a moment, warmed up allowing the snow to start melting into heart attack snow, then slowly disappearing. By the 12th of January, the snow on the deck had melted and the boards had dried up and the weather was once more January cold.
Looking out my window
“Do you know how the naturalist learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, of beasts, of reptiles, of fishes, of the rivers and the sea? When he goes into the woods the birds fly before him and he finds none; when he goes to the river-bank, the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. His secret is patience; he sits down, and sits still; he is a statue; he is a log”. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I was staring out the windowwhen I glanced up at the clock. It was inching close to 3:30 PM. My attention was captured by movement on the glass a fluttering of tiny grey transparent wings moved around the ‘outside’ of the glass. An insect, no longer than an eighth of an inch, with wings that folded up, cloaking its entire body. When it settled on the outside of the window. I looked past it to the ice that had formed on the railing and deck flooring, to the snow appearing and disappearing, floating past the tiny bug. I watched it shake its wings open and flew. It flew! It flew away from the window and out into the cold air, taking its chances, enjoying this moment-its moment- one moment.
I blinked. Checked the time, it was 3:32 PM. When I looked back, It had disappeared. Now, this wouldn’t be unusual if it were November or April. But in January, after we have had the worst sub-zero weather I have ever seen. Even with the usual warm up the day before, when it had been 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12.7 Celsius). Even with that warm up, there was no way any insect was going to hatch and then hang around the window.
But it happened.
I got my message for experiment #1
What about experiment #2? Those bright green leaves on a tree? My indoor plants don’t count, besides I don’t have an indoor tree, well not anymore.
Pexels.com
I will give that one until tomorrow at 3:32 PM to show up. I can’t wait to see what happens.
Yes, I admit it. I am having a brain fog day. So, I ask myself, where will an idea immerge from- for today’s blog post. I can pick up a book, I muttering and pick up my cat, Karou, and wander aimlessly around the house. Futzing with this, straightening that. Then I unscrew the top of the cat food container. I had ordered some cat food yesterday, from PetSmart, but it won’t be delivered until Tuesday.
What! What!
I lift off the top to look inside, then Karou looks inside. Her ears go back, then up, then they swirl around. Her eyes grow bigger and she got a look that said, ‘Oh, no! We gonna starve.”
What! We need to buy more food, Now!
At that point,the Russian Blues, Kenji and Enishi, saunter into the kitchen like a couple of at ease looking-for-trouble kitties; until Karou leans out of my arms and sends out a silent, yet very loud, call for them to come and take a look. Which they did, with a silent leap up to the counter, where both of them, take turns sticking their heads in their nearly empty cat food container.
If you have cats,then you would recognize that look… ‘We all gonna die’ panic that takes over when their cat bowl is showing a smidgen of the bottom of the dish, even when their food container is filled to the brim- they will still panic. And now, with a couple of cups of food left, they could not believe their eyes or their noses. They look not-once, not -twice, but five times- then the panic set in. Then the depression.
So sad
At first, they stare at each other; doing that silent talking thing they do, then they leap off the counter and race around the kitchen checking and counting bowls. (Yes, real cats can count)Two of their dishes were missing. One was in the dish drainer. The other in the living room, where, Tomoe had me bring it earlier, she had gotten hungry while watching Hercules (She does need her fix of Kevin Sorbo)
I love Hercules
I had to stop their silent callfor a new commander in chief/head honcho/ President/ a new alpha. They were in a hyper state of panic. Their food bins were two cups short of empty. Call out the troops! Everyone, pack up we are being kicked out! Quick, someone grab the catnip! Where are my toys! EEEEK!
I am upset
Then,Michael walks into the kitchen. He looks around and snickers, picks up the empty dish, adds food to it, then sets it back on their table. He disappears for a moment as he retrieves the cat bowl from the living room.
The panic vibration level drops instantly.They shook off the worry as they start eating.
Mmmmm! Food
Nowin my mind, I hear him saying. ‘You were right, their food should have been ordered last week’.
Instead, he looks straight at me and says, “It’s your fault,” then he adds, I’ll go to Jewel and pick up some Iams tomorrow”
My eye twitches and I ask, “Why not tonight?”
“I still have one coke left.”Karou chirps. Michael scoops her up and heads back to his Xbox.
I looked at my writer’s toolbox of writing books and I pulled The Weekend Novelistoff my shelf. My copy has a copyright date of 1994. There are newer versions, but this is the one on my bookshelf. A bird in hand.
My Writer’s Toolbox
This book has created book clubs, writers groups, Blog posting and the creative fuel to start a writer, writing. I figured it would make a great post and it may just add fuel to my creative muse. Hear that muse! I hope you are paying attention!
My Muse, Karou, American Shorthair Rescue Kitty
According to the book, the first weekend I am to do a character sketch.
The last time I pulled this book off its shelf, I made tiny marks along the side margins pointing to books to read. Some I have read and will read again and again. I still have a couple left to read. For this post, I listed out those books referenced in the ‘getting started section’ page 3 thru 10. I may have missed a few.
Woman of Letters: A life of Virginia Woolf by Phyllis Rose
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
Timetables of History ( An author wasn’t specified. See below for the links I found)
The Art of Fiction by John Gardner
The Craft of Novel Writing by Oakley Hall
Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway
The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker
Screenplay and The Screenwriter’s Workbook by Syd Field
The hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
Max Perkins: Editor Of Genius by Scott Berg:
The Writer on Her Work by Janet Sternberg
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
For the first weekend’s instructions are to do a character sketch. In my 1994 copy you are told to make up a character by using a real person, maybe using someone you see at the store, use specific details; height, sex, hair all the basic descriptions, then go on to how they move, walk, sit then go into your imagination and wonder at where they live, their favorite things, hobbies, vehicles, motives. This is where you are to imagine and let your drama mind take over.
If you read Lesson 3 of David Mamet’s Masterclass, or you are taking that class, then you’ll get this. It is all drama to me.
My thoughts on creating a character:What are your character’s extraordinary talents? If you are writing a fantasy story your character may be able to read minds, or fly, or is telekinetic. Maybe they can solve puzzled, or a mystery. Maybe they are just very nice and can talk to everyone they meet. They can climb trees, whittle, great with babies, or gardening. Keep in mind that no character sheet is set in stone. Feel free to make it up as you go along
Try to imagine what makes them tick, or ticks them off in their own world. By the time you finish the sketch your character should become real. In the meantime that the person who you are staring would have gotten the heebie-jeebies and moved on. Wouldn’t you if someone was staring at you and frowning, tsk-tsking then laughing?
If a year is too long, and you want to write faster, I found this great link at The Guardian for ‘How to write a book in 30 days’. This link will take you to a page with authors; you have to scroll down to find all the links to the book. How to write a book in 30 days’ Each page provides you parts of the book and a free PDF of the worksheets from the book. All for free.
Extra links I found online.
Timetables of History:Have fun searching through these
