When do the satellites turn green?

My host in Easton told me of her first drive through Boston. She had to ask for directions and was told "Go down two satellites and take a right. Then you go through a flashing satellites when you get to a rotary..." and so on.

She spent the longest time looking for Sputnik or at least a Direct TV dish.

Noncomforming Use

Anyone who has seen one of my flutes will know I'm a nonconformist. Anyone who meets me in person can see I'm a nonconformist.

It seems a contradiction to be a shy and somewhat solitary person and to be nonconforming enough to stick out like crazy. I don't want to be different, I simply won't  be one of the crowd. Maybe that's the same thing but it is visceral and I have a hard time refusing it. In grammar school I had a "John Lennon" cap that no one else would have put on their heads. In middle school I wore my brother's navy issue shirts and huge bell bottom whites. It wasn't that I didn't fit in - I stood out. I still wear unusual clothes, go barefoot and sit alone to write in a crowded bar.

Same goes for my writing, my flutes and other creative expressions. I write books using a popular genre to capture an audience and then take them in a new direction once I have them. My flutes are a wild tangle of artwork mixed with precision and music. I read quantum physics so I can redefine gravity. Living my quiet, fairly asocial life would not suit most but gives me great comfort.

Many people call this part of an artistic temperament. A nonconforming gene? I may look at the world through an off kilter lens but why would that demand of me that I appear out of place? Typically an intensely creative person ignores their outer shell letting the physical world wash over them with whatever comes along and leaving them somewhat disoriented and disheveled. Me? I run in the opposite direction from whatever is deemed popular and decide for myself all the things that most others let society choose for them.


In many ways, it has defined my life, in others, I've struggled to fit in. The older I get, the easier it becomes to accept the strange along with the good fortunes and I look forward to what quietly crazy square peg I'll be tempted to hammer next.

Homeward Bound

I think I'm done here. This afternoon I rounded out the structure of my stories and realized I've accomplished as much as this retreat can offer. Certainly, staying on and delving into the writing wouldn't hurt, but the isolated concentration that I've been immersed in these past 2 weeks has run its course. It's time to go home and mow the lawn, pet the dogs and, most importantly, snuggle up to my wife.

New England October is rolling in with cold nights, slashing rain and leaves exploding in bright colors before tumbling from the trees. Summer's lush, long, warm days and chirping cicadas help me forget the impending seasonal change that brings the dark frozen branches of winter. But as soon as it gets cold, I start counting the days when spring will throw buds back on the trees and bring the birds home.

I survive by sticking my cold feet in the stove and focusing on my creative projects. The work I got done these past two weeks will be the backbone of my winter's writing while I wait longingly to hear the peepers in the creek. 

When a writer takes a nap...he's working

After so much pacing and talking to myself and rearranging files, ideas and chapters, I finally have 3 stories that all hang together and still have their own tale to tell. I'm now ready to really focus on the writing itself.

It is strange how much of a writer's work is spent in thought with no visible signs of productive activity. When I was a flutist and musician, my day was consumed by practice and honing. When I sat at the piano to compose, I would fiddle with motifs and musical concepts and listen as they came together. In metal art, a concept is hammered into the silver and there, through a thousand blows, the idea is formed, raised and revealed.

Writing is words and words are a direct expression of thought. For the abstract writer to shape those words, we must first shape the thoughts in our minds. While putting those words to paper in a creative and well constructed way can be a difficult task in itself, just forming complex stories in my mind takes a lot of concentration and real work, too.

I've been here in this ivory tower for 9 days now and have been sweating day and night to form and build this story. I take breaks to teach 3 students, I've spent maybe 90 minutes a day with online TV and spent time getting to know the library director. The remainder of my day and restless nights is spent in pursuit of coherent fiction. When I exercise, cook, stare at my page, rework a scene, I'm chasing down ideas, plot and character.

Is it worth it? What becomes of it when it's done? Does it end in a drawer along with the others that amounted to zilch? Get published and read by a small but content cadre of readers. Maybe it goes on to rip a new one on the bestseller list. I guess that's not the point for the creative thinker. We do what we do because we're driven to do it, regardless of any potential use. Kind of like the theoretical physicist who makes a breakthrough in scientific comprehension. Someone else will find a use whether a bomb, a heat source or delicious cheese dip.

All I can be sure of is that if it stays in my head, I'll go mad.

There's one in every town...

Yesterday afternoon, the library hosted a concert in the garden of the Queset House that featured the Sharon Concert Band. A really good orchestra that put on a good show of concert faves and a few unusual pieces as well. The weather was perfect, popcorn was free and wine and beer were available. Couldn't ask for more on a Sunday afternoon.

Halfway through, the next door neighbor started mowing his lawn on the other side of a thin line of trees to deliberately disrupt the concert. It turns out, he has a gripe with the town and vents his frustrations in completely inappropriate and infantile ways. Ruining a concert for 100 people had no connection to his issue but this wasn't his first childish act and certainly wouldn't be his last. Fortunately, an audience members with a cool head walked over and succeeded in getting him to stop where the library staff knew that their involvement would only make it worse.

It is amazing and incomprehensible how grown people can act in such a way yet, if you think about it, we all know someone like this in our town.

And we wonder why we can't find peace and consenus in a world full of confusion.

Countdown to Stupid...

This is a reprint from my SF blog "planckscaleblog". If you want to read more, click on the link on the right column. Enjoy!


If life was like the movies, in order to capture all the bombers in the world, Homeland Security would only need to track the sale of large digital timers that beep a red countdown to zero before the blast goes off. There could only be a couple of reliable companies for this product so the feds only need follow their sales and our problems with terrorism are over.

In movies, SF, thrillers, and mysteries are all guilty of overusing this corny and really outdated device. "The explosives are ready, Bob, but I haven't finished designing the oversized timer." Give us a break. Even bombs strapped to chests have these stupid clocks on them like a bomber has to let their victims know how many seconds they have left.

Here's a SF twist. What if we all wore digital countdown devices wired to our quantum biorhythms that told us when we are going to die? Imagine it starting at 90 years and beeping it's way along. You start smoking and it drops a couple of years. Cancer? Suddenly you have 5 years. Go into chemo, it adds another three.

You're walking home and it drops to 10 minutes. Realizing you're 10 minutes from home, you imagine a killer is waiting there. You cell 911 and tell the cops to meet you there. On your way there, you get hit by a bus and die on the way to the hospital on the 10 minute mark.

Would it convince us to live healthier lives? Not likely. No more than the disconnect Americans seem to have between gun violence to guns.

A day off.

I’m on my way to visit friends overnight in Boston. I'm stuck on the plot line of the story I'm doing and hopd the break may free the jam. Sometimes I can overthink an idea and need to get some kind of Google Earth type perspective. Not that drawing back is easy. This series of stories has a common subplot and backstory threaded through the whole thing which makes it tough to create a separate story line for each chapter that incorporates everything.

It's great when the right story idea comes to me. But when it doesn't...my mind constantly circles around like a shark smelling blood but unable to find the meat.

I guess it isn't a day off after all.