Category: blog

Day 17

What is one place you need to see to feel like your life is complete?

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I can’t think of any one specific place that would make me feel this way.  There are so many places I want to go and things I want to see and the list would probably be always changing anyway.

I do want to go to the King Center in Atlanta, the National Civil Rights Museum, and the Shabazz Center.  The National African American History Museum won’t open until next year and I really want to go there.  I want to go to Goree and the Kunta Kinte Memorial in Annapolis.

Never been to the Blue Note, nor to the Kennedy Center for Jazz.  Haven’t been to the American Jazz Museum or the National Negro Leagues Museum.  I wish I’d had the chance to go the Negro Leagues Museum while Buck O’Neil was still alive.

I want to drive the Pacific Coast Highway, at least in California.  Big Sur, the Bixby Bridge, Malibu, Oceanside, all that.  I want to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.

I’ve still never been to Grand Central Terminal.  I’m looking forward to the new Moynihan Station.  I want to go to the Transbay Terminal once California High Speed Rail is complete.  I want to see some of the great European railway stations like St. Pancras and the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof.

I might even want to go see Mt. Everest one day.

But still, visiting any of these places won’t give my life a sense of completion.  Maybe once I’ve said everything I think I want to say, I’ll feel complete.

Day 16

Pretending you have the expertise to make the product a reality, what do you wish you could invent?

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One or both:

A cure for cancer
A torus space station

Day 15

More Notes on the trip

I hadn’t been to Penn Station NY in a while and I’m glad to see New Jersey Transit put up seating along the back wall on the upper part of their concourse opposite the 7th Avenue exit.  It used to be a mess with people standing and sitting on the floor there.  Restrooms are still really small, but nothing much they can do there.

They did put in new electronic train boards screens, but the process is still a huge cluster.  They don’t announce train assignments until like 5 minutes before departure and huge crowds still form to go down really narrow escalators.  I think it still has something to do with slots for trains returning from Sunnyside Yard, but it’s still a mess.

My system worked perfectly.

• If I’m taking the 1 (or 2 or 3) when I get to New York, I try to ride in the head of the train on the way there.  If I’m taking the A, C, or E, I ride in the rear.  Train pulled in, I was right near the up escalator.
• On the way back from New York, I always use the furthest west escalator or stairway.  If taking New Jersey Transit, I never, EVER try to board from their concourse.  Most people are doing the same (see above).  Fewer people board NJ Transit trains from the Amtrak concourse (I wonder when I see obvious tourists if they’re even aware that it’s possible to do so).  Much easier to grab a seat.

Taking the 1 instead of the N or R at 42nd Street meant a longer walk to the workshop from the Subway along 28th Street, but that walk underneath 42nd Street station is no fun.  It’s always very hot down there and the elevation changes a lot.  It wouldn’t be so bad if I were used to it, but since I’m not, no thanks.

On the way back, I got pushed into the uptown 1 train but the person who pushed me in wasn’t ready for the wave of people getting off at 34th Street.  She dropped something, was searching for it on the floor and everything broke down.  Not a pleasant moment.  Hopefully she had things together by the time the train got to 42nd Street.

The boards showing upcoming 1/2/3 departures are a great touch.  When I got to the fare area, the downtown 1 was 2 minutes away.  I knew how long I had to get my single trip and get upstairs.

NYC Subway needs a card like Washington Metro’s SmarTrip card.  Touching a card to a reader is much easier than swiping.  For that matter, both systems need an app for fares.  NJ Transit has one that’s really good.  Buy the ticket, show the ticket to the conductor when he or she comes by, and that’s it (a QR code for their faregates at stations like Secaucus is part of the ticket).  You can even pay with PayPal

Amtrak could use that too, if they’re going to be scanning tickets at boarding.  Let me just hold my phone out instead of needing an extra piece of paper.

Day 14

Already Alive

If I came alive the last time I was at a writing workshop, this time, I was reminded how alive I already am.   And how alone I am not, both in life and in the writing.  Other writers there were thinking about and writing about some of the things that I’m thinking and writing about.  It’s good to get a fresh take and talk some things out, even if you get tripped up and tongue tide and unsure of yourself.  It’s all part of the process.

Second person POV was one of the larger topics.  I’ve tried it only a few times and sucked, but given the samples that we read, it can be a delightful change of pace from the usual 1st or 3rd.  As I said in the workshop, I liked the particular distance that 2nd person offered.

As an exercise, we had to write in second person about a birthday.  With no pressure, the writing flowed.  And the subject wasn’t one that should have been easy to write about.

Details were the 2nd larger topic.  Which ones most serve the story, which ones need to be cut.  Or as it’s often discussed now in writer circles, “killing your darlings.”  In my practice, I’m going to work on tightening up my details, making them more specific, more concrete.

I brought pen and paper and my Chromebook and ended up using both, pen and paper more for notes, and my Chromebook more for the actual writing.  It’s still weird often composing first drafts on a laptop, but it’s less weird than it was.  And I can always go back to the notebook whenever I feel like I need to.

Just like last time, the rest of the prompts were good.

One was to write a response to yesterday’s horoscope.  I’d never heard of that one before, but it’s one that I intend to use in the future.  That produced the hardest piece of writing, because of the subject.

Another prompt, we used a song from a different time, to take us back to a time when we heard it, to produce details the song brought up in us.  That one was really fun.  We used the Nostalgia Machine.   We supplied the year and the leader supplied the songs.  I suggested 1985 for the year.  The song I ended up writing about: Everybody Wants to Rule the World.  I’m such a sucker for the 80s, still.

I always enjoy these workshops and bootcamps.  I’m looking forward to the next.

Also, I really need a regular class and a desk.

Day 13

Describe your ideal day off. What would you do with your time?

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Sleep.
Write.
Eat.
Write.
Play video games.
Watch the box.
Watch stuff on Roku.
Or take a train trip somewhere.

Day 12

If you had a personal assistant who would do your most dreaded tasks, which items from your to-do list would you assign out?

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I think when people consider the answers to these, they think of things like laundry and cooking, but I like cooking.  I write while I’m doing laundry.  I keep my calendar on my phone.

I can’t think of anything I’d delegate right now.  I imagine if I became as busy as the CEO of my job, I would need an assistant to keep everything sorted and in place, but I do a pretty good job of that right now myself.

Day 11

What was the last thing you fixed or built?

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An app in Salesforce.

Built.  Developed.  However you’d like to describe it.

I’ve also built up a love of kefir.

Day 10

What is the hardest part of a big project: getting the energy to begin, finding the time to work on it, or feeling down that it’s over?

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For tech projects, it’s always been getting the energy to begin.  The Salesforce project has been ongoing, just in different “modules” we’ve done, over time.  Getting up for the next one has always been a challenge, regardless of any sort of feelings of accomplishment for the previous part of it.  Once we get some momentum going, once we’re in the thick of things, it’s easy to keep going, especially when the finish line is in nearby.  And once we’ve completed on a part, the biggest feeling when it’s done is relief.

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For writing projects, it’s always been the energy to begin.  I get excited when I get the first idea, but once I outline and think about it and think about it and sometimes even talk about it, I feel the initial feeling of excitement and enthusiasm less and less.  That’s one of the reasons I’m doing NaNonFiWriMo.  I needed to just get going doing something.  Forget the stopping and the procrastination, I just had to go.

Once I get going, it’s pretty good.  Unless I write myself into a corner I don’t think I can get out of in the way things are going, I’m usually good.  These days, my idea is to just skip whatever I’m feeling blocked by.  We’ll see how that goes.

I don’t feel complete with anything until I get to a few drafts in and by then, after writing and rewriting, I’ve felt some accomplishment and I’m ready to move on.

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The last time I directed, it was the first time I’d directed something by myself.  I’d only co-directed a play the year before.  So many fear bells were going off.

Do I really know what I’m doing?

People might see this.  What if I screw this up?

I wrote this play.  Am I too close to it to properly direct it?  Is it even any good?

As is pretty much always the case with play projects, there were definite start and end dates, so when it was time to go, I had no choice, no matter how much I wanted to run back screaming into my comfort zone.

Once it was going, things were easy.  I had a great cast and I didn’t have to give much direction, just make sure things were going the way I wanted and when things went better than the way I wanted, that I followed the way they went.  Those moments were great.  My actors were going to make me look better than I was.

I was down when it was over.  My actors did what I thought was a great job.  I was wishing we could start an ensemble and just keep doing plays again and again, but that wasn’t realistic.  Plus, I didn’t know when I’d get a production again as a writer or even, possibly, as a director.

Besides, I’ve always had fun working on plays and I’ve been sad pretty much each time the project has ended.  Each one has always been a small chapter in my life and completely rewarding.