Today’s inspiration:
Today’s joy:
Just getting quiet in the evening and breathing and writing.
A past joy:
A couple of years ago when I went out to Liberty Reservoir for the first time. I enjoyed taking pictures out there, but I left wishing I’d had a boat.
Today’s inspiration:
None as of press time.
Today’s joy:
O’s won. Messed around with my mic and mixer to get the audio for streaming together. Got out of the house for a few hours.
A past joy:
Again, missing just going down to the Science Center and hanging out and writing there.
Also, when I was really young, they used to serve really good food. I think there may have been a Friendly’s inside of the building or some other restaurant I liked as a kid.
Today’s inspiration:
Today’s joy:
Reading poems. Reading maps. Watching some storm chasing.
A past joy:
A bunch of times, I’d take my notebooks with me and sit outside of the Maryland Science Center and write for hours. Take some food with me down there, eat, and get busy. That one, I need to do again.
Today’s inspiration:
Today’s joy:
Sleeping later than usual. It meant a late start on all the writing I had to do, but it felt good to sleep as long as I could. It was a cold morning and I appreciated staying under that comforter until the last possible minute. I felt a lot of gratitude to be able to do that.
A past joy:
In my younger years, March 1 was always the beginning of baseball, whether it was tryouts or getting into the mindset of actually playing baseball. I never, ever stopped thinking about baseball, but as with all things, there’s a time for it and by this time of the month, high school ball would be almost about to start and before then, I’d be taking my glove out to oil it, getting ready to check my cleats out, all that. Even when really cold out. I think one year, it snowed in April and we had to postpone games. That didn’t matter because just being there in uniform and playing was all that mattered.
It looks like Baltimore City Public School System is going forward with Spring sports, but with plenty of rules and regulations, given the state of things. This year, there won’t be any fans at any sporting events, not even parents, from what I understand. Participants will have to adhere to masking and some other rules; I didn’t read them all. The main thing for me is there won’t be fans present. I enjoyed going and taking pics of games the other year and I was hoping to go to at least a couple of City baseball games since sports are going forward, but that’s not happening. There’s always next year for that. I can still keep up with scores and root for the current generation of Knights via Twitter. The still reigning and defending Baltimore City champions.
Today’s inspiration:
R&B and Soul music. Specifically, 80’s and 90’s R&B and Soul. The stuff I grew up listening to. I’ve been keeping a running list of essential 80’s and 90’s R&B and Soul love songs and writing from that list. I need to get back to my play-in-progress, but it was enjoyable spend all night listening to some of the music I love and writing.
Today’s joy:
I started writing as soon as I woke up this morning and spent as much time as I could, writing. No resistance, no writer’s block, nothing. That felt good. Plus, it feels like spring is close. By this time next week, it’ll be lighter longer, ushering in my favorite time of year.
A Past joy:
The chicken parm at Trattoria E Pizzeria Da Enrico in Columbia, Maryland, is still probably the best chicken parm I’ve ever had. When I was dating somebody out that way years ago and we’d order food, that was by far my favorite. I might roll out there and get carryout one of these days.
I wrote last night and this morning about some resistance I had to being vulnerable in my writing. And yet, by the time afternoon rolled around and I’d been inspired some, I was able to get down what I needed to get down. I’m on the fence about how much, if any of that stuff, I’m going to share here. I may later in the week after I’ve had some time to reread and edit some of it.
I was happy to receive a couple of notes in my email yesterday, informing me that I was a semifinalist in the 2018 ScreenCraft Play contest. I’ve been sending out my latest full length play, North Avenue, to most places that I can find that are accepting full length scripts (the numerous submission calls I’m seeing for science-themed plays, I’m unfortunately having to pass up at this time). Suffice it to say, I’m excited and grateful for the acknowledgment and the opportunity for my play to go on to the next round.
My only regret is that I didn’t send more than one play, as I saw at least one other quarter finalist had.
Thank you for selecting my play to go forward in this competition.
Also, congratulations and good luck to all of my fellow quarterfinalists.
— Christopher A. Kess (@kesschristopher) November 16, 2018
I went full-speed ahead with a yes when my sister asked me to look at her book-in-progress. Or, to say it more accurately, we did not ourselves settle on a specific word to describe what I would be doing. I figured I’d do what I usually do in these situations, some mix of proofreading, copy editing, line editing, and maybe rewriting a thing here or two (though at this stage, it was pointless, since she’ll be doing a lot of rewriting herself). It’s what I often do when I look at something for someone, depending on my relationship with the person, when we haven’t agreed upon exactly what I’m doing. Since it was my sister, I thought I’d try to just be as helpful as I could be.
So, without a definite mandate, I jumped into the document. I changed spelling errors. Ignored most of the things I felt might be grammatical problems because: 1) I’m not an English teacher and; 2) I don’t want to intrude too much on her voice. She has a strong, authoritative voice. She’s not pulling punches. I liked that. Besides, issues like that, she could fix herself once she read it out loud. They can be dealt with in a later draft.
She repeated herself in some areas and I pointed those out. Some things, I felt she hadn’t emphasized enough and could benefit the story. Some, I thought she’d lingered on or didn’t need. I told her those.
I finished in a couple of hours and I texted her.
Then, I got nervous.
Some of the possible usual worries, some not. Concern over whether I might have been too harsh. Should I have gone more general in my reading and not been as thorough? Was my own reading of it BS? I did my best to look at her and the people she discusses in the story as characters –not as people I know and have definite feelings about– and try to not impose my own perceptions or desires into her story.
That was the hardest.
For instance, I know my father, but not in the way she did. She grew up with him, in his house. I only spent one summer with her and my other sister and her mother, and while I remember a great deal of the events, I was just five. I probably misunderstood a bunch of things I did see, forget about the things I could have missed because I was five. She’s already told me about a lot that went down.
The rest of my time while my father was alive, I talked to him on the phone or saw him during his trips back home to Baltimore. Or, as technology progressed, via webcam whenever he felt like being bothered with firing up his computer (I wish he’d gotten himself an iPad before he passed; I tried).
I wanted to know more about the father who she said encouraged her to follow her passions. I never felt at ease having that conversation with him. We talked about what I was going to do, more than what I wanted to do. She says she received so many lessons and so much wisdom from him. I want to know what he told her. Life, being the way it was, he could have only told me so much.
I wanted to know more about her friends I only saw in passing as a kid. I remember them only as much as I remember the sherbet and the cake we ate on my birthday.
I wanted to know the adventures she went on before and after helping to watch after her younger siblings that summer in Diamond Bar. Some of these events are key in my own life. I’m writing about some of them.
The hope is that as much as I wanted to know more as myself, if she ends up following any of my suggestions, her eventual readers will benefit from knowing those things. That I, as a reader of a story with characters and events, have given suggestions that serve the story. More than I might ever serve myself and my curiosities. Or even my sister, for that matter. The story is bigger than the teller. Even in my own work. Especially in my own work. Even in what you’re reading right now.
According to Google Drive, by the time I’m finishing writing this post, she’s read at least some of the comments. Who knows if the suggestions will ever make it into the final product? If they’re helpful in making the story more successful, I hope they do. Otherwise, she should pitch them into traffic.
I am looking forward to the final product. And if there’s any value for her in what I’ve suggested and wants me to read it, the next draft.
Off and on during parts of the day, I would ask myself, “what do I want to write about when I get home?” In the auditorium after being talked at and shown PowerPoint slides with long blocks of text. When I felt fatigued and my irritation growing with the pain in my feet on the way back from lunch. At 4:30 when I literally had nothing else to say because I’m not an expert like the people I was with in the room.
Afterwards, I got back to Union Station and sat down in my seat, I thought, “when you get off, ask the conductor if they use Kawasaki trainsets on the Camden Line.” Then, I wondered what I’d write about.
I never decided what I felt like saying.
I did, however, pose my question to the conductor. After I climbed down the steps, I stood near him and waited, the other passengers filing around me to cross the tracks towards the parking lot.
The answer, once everyone else had disembarked: only sometimes, he said, readying to command the train towards Camden Station. The Kawasaki trainsets are used almost exclusively on the Penn Line. The Camden and Brunswick lines use the newer MARC IV Bombardier sets. I wish I had more reason to be on the train and ask railfan questions to the conductors. I wonder why I never did it more often in New Jersey.
This morning, I finally got a ride on a Kawasaki 7000-series Metro train. Much cleaner. Video screens showed news, like PATH trains. Digital message signs displayed the next and future stops like newer cars on the NYC Subway. Everything a subway car should be in 2016, even if they’re lacking the charm of 70’s chic, which some folks still like.
I didn’t get home until 8. And I have to be in bed already for tomorrow. But I got to write about trains before I went to sleep. It was a good day.
Tomorrow, I’ll be on the Penn Line. Maybe I’ll get a Kawasaki set. Tomorrow will be a good day, too.
I was back in D.C. For my job. The details of that aren’t of the greatest importance. Conference at a government building. Lots of exuberant participants. Surrounded by them in an auditorium, classroom style meeting space, a meeting space that looks more like a foyer. Somewhere you could stage skits, but not a play. Horrible acoustics. Then again, it wasn’t built like that.
My aunt reminded me, in response to the unexpected amount of fatigue I felt when I got home, that the last time I’d run around, commuting to D.C. and worked a full day there, I was 24. Fifteen years ago. No wonder I was bone tired.
It did all come back to me.
Passing Ivy City Shops, where Amtrak stores and repairs their trains. The station a little up the line at Laurel Race Course, the one place I remembered from my first time on the Camden Line. I was coming home from my first day at work at my very first internship in D.C. One of my high school friends had invited me to an O’s game and I hopped on the train after work. A freight train passed us at high speed and shook the train so much I thought it might tip over onto the platform.
The hard right after you walk down the platform at Union Station. It takes you straight into Metro. It can get clogged with commuters, so you instead make the right at Sbarro and the left at what’s now a clothing store, but used to be a bookstore, and down the escalator. Fewer people take that way. Easier to get down to the mezzanine and buy a Metrocard. Or reload your SmartTrip.
Red Line trains still oppressively crowded. The surprise at being able to get into the first train that comes. Having to usher someone into the train before me because I was only going one stop and I needed to be right near the door.
Masters of the Universe types eating lunch on Pennsylvania Avenue, the wonder at what they might be doing in their offices or in their cars. Maybe they’re like Raymond Reddington, running a worldwide operation, seemingly always from a moving vehicle. Sleeping in their suits or pants suits.
Protests. This time, school kids marching down Pennsylvania Ave, to register their own disdain for its soon-to-become landlord.
Still, there was room for surprise, discovery.
NoMa/Galludet Station really close to Union Station, closer than I thought. It’s almost like you could walk it, just like the short tunnel between Gallery Place and Metro Center. You can stand in one and look down the tunnel into the other. If not for the connections to other lines, they shouldn’t be spaced that way, I figure.
The new parking garage at Savage. It didn’t look like a bus stop this time. Perhaps a bus stop with a large parking garage, but still an improvement.
And yet, the thing that grabs and holds is this: Bombardier multilevel rail cars.
When I climbed aboard, it was like Jersey. I’ve lost track of the number of miles I’ve logged going to New York, Secaucus Junction, the occasional disembarking in Newark for the PATH. That equipment had become as familiar to me in some ways as the seat of my car. And more welcoming as I could sleep in them.
It was like a small reminder of one of the things I’ve missed. An echo from the part of me that feels as home there as the place where I grew up. From that space inside that misses the feeling of connection and awe from going into New York for an acting class, a writing workshop. To the burrito shop in the Village. Watching trains race by Hamilton.
The train back was Bombardier. The Penn Line train on the next track over was made up of the old Kawasaki bilevel cars that were being rolled out when I was commuting daily into the District.
I slept, as I had so many times on New Jersey Transit and MARC before then.
I’ve thought so much about home lately and what and where it is. I haven’t concluded anything yet. And maybe the whole point is to always be learning and creating and growing it. These glimpses of the joy up the line tell me I haven’t lost what I was trying to build there. Those dreams are still alive, waiting for me to get my ticket and come back. That’s comforting.
Day five, the final day, is in the books down here at the Chesapeake Writers Conference.
Kids and Food
The boys were present at lunch, dressed in their khakis, blue shirts, and ties. Highly presentable, very tasteful. As usual, they sung at dinner. I’m glad I was sitting in the back, since the baritones were back there again. I always enjoy hearing the baritone and bass parts in choral music.
I haven’t mentioned what I’ve been eating during these forays into the dining hall, but at dinner, I had tilapia and a couple of burgers. I was the only person at the table not eating any salad, but I’ll be certainly doing so once I’m outta here. I have not kept keto this week, but I’ve done my best to go crazy on protein. When I get back home, I’ll add the fats back in, the coconut and MCT oil. I’ll be on track again quickly.
Craft Talk
Angela gave an awesome talk this morning with tips on revising your work. Some of them like reading your work out loud and taking some time away from your first draft, were things I’d heard before.
But things like cutting the word “feel” from your writing, was one I hadn’t heard and I thought about it, it made perfect sense. Show how your character feels through description and verbs. You don’t have to say how your character feels.
Also, her tip on cliche ideas was well worth the price of admission (LOL). Write towards something other than a resolution that everything is okay. She talked about the inner plot and the physical plot and all the lovely things I like about drama (we just use slightly different terms for the same thing; I use Richard Toscan’s terms “emotional plot” and “suspense plot”. I’m a playwright).
She also talked about removing parentheticals (which I obviously love) as well as clauses inside of dashes –I love those, too–. I consider myself a dashmaster. I’ll go into the kitchen and get a canister of Mrs. Dash and sprinkle it in my notebook. I love dashes. It’s going to be hard to wean myself off of them.
Great way to end a week of craft talks.
Workshop
Today was my essay’s day to be workshopped. I submitted a lyric essay. Without going into everything that was said –because I took several pages of notes I haven’t transcribed and don’t plan to post them anyway– the process was one of the best workshop processes I’ve ever been inside of.
One of the issues I’ve had with workshops is people stating their critiques with the proviso, “if I were writing this.” I hate that. You’re not writing this. I’m writing this. I’m not interested in where you would take the story because it’s my story and I’m interested in where you think I should take it, given what you see and where I might think I want to take it.
And what I got in this workshop was exactly what I wanted — people’s thoughts on what they read and where they thought I could take it to make it better. And most of my fellow participants’ comments were right on the money. I’d originally written the story during my Creative Nonfiction online class and I was on very strict word limits. The essay ended up being quite bare, even as far as lyric essays go, but Angela and my fellow participants gave me some great ideas for how to flesh it out and make it into something more full, especially now that I’m not on any particular word limit.
One question I did have was this: in terms of narrative structure, I thought the lyric essay eschewed the normal structure. However, we did discuss the essay in those terms. However, Angela made the point that instead of following a strict arc, what might be desirable is to increase in detail so that the reader gets a broader view of what’s being discussed (and in terms of this essay, hopefully a raison d’etre). That’s something I’ve had issues with in my own lyric essay practice, so I’m grateful to have a specific answer from someone who is practicing the form professionally right now.
Lecture
Instead of straight lecture, Matt Hall sang some songs, read us a children’s book he wrote, and gave us a presentation on Dada. Since he mentioned the Neo-Dadaists, I told him I wish he’d do John Cage’s 4’33”; he told me he’d thought about it, but didn’t have the time.
Patricia Henley read from one of her stories. I wish maybe she’d had a few folks read from her play. I know we were here for fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, but Matt Hall was up there singing songs. Why couldn’t have had a few pages or perhaps a whole scene of a play read?
Other good stuff …
Since craft talk started at 10:30, I had time to sleep in and write morning pages. I got some breakfast then sat outside of the Daily Grind and wrote several pages longhand. Yes.
I’ve been typing all my freewrites and with all the typing for these blog posts, it felt good to get back to handwriting my thoughts and not just taking notes.
As I was walking very slowly on the path towards the dining hall for dinner, one of the student staff members working for the reunion stopped her Cub Cadet next to me on the path and asked me nicely if I was looking for something.
Normally, my reaction to such a question is to get ornery because hell, I paid my money to be here like everybody else. However, I told her I wasn’t looking for anything, but I would take a ride the rest of the way to the dining hall if she was going in that direction. She was.
Too bad she wasn’t going back and forth when we came out of lecture.
My co-participant’s 7 month old was in the dining hall at dinner. On the way to lecture, I took off my hat and showed it to him and asked him if he could say “Orioles.” He looked and grinned at the Oriole bird. Another converted, confirmed, passionate O’s fan. And while mommy was wearing a Nationals shirt. Sweet.
Not so good stuff …
During workshop, one of the participants, who’s also been acting as a student staff member, received a call from the conference director, looking for me. I’d been parked outside of DPC and the events staff was upset that a car was blocking the area behind the townhouses. They were trying to unload items needed for the setup for this evening’s concert on the townhouse greens.
I wasn’t back there, but he asked me to move anyway. I go over to DPC and there are eight other cars over there, a few of which weren’t even inside of parking spots like I was. I figured it was some personal bullshit and just moved it because I wanted to get back to workshop and didn’t feel dealing with anybody who might have had some static.
I noticed that there was indeed a car parked directly behind the townhouses.
By the time I’d gotten back within sight of the building, I noticed that somebody had indeed parked in the spot that I’d just vacated and none of the other cars had moved. I noticed the car behind the townhouses was still there.
I went back to workshop and cooled off, both inside and out. Then I finally got the email about the car that they were looking for and a text that it wasn’t me they needed to move. Right.
After workshop, the same car blocking the rear of the townhouses was still there. A couple of spaces on the side of DPC had opened up, though. So I put my bags in the flat and walk up to Lot R to get the car and put it back on the side of DPC.
However, Public Safety was blocking the road going back directly to DPC and were guiding people to Lot R to park for the concert. One lady tried talking to the officers for several minutes and she got turned away.
I thought about going the other way around campus, but I didn’t know whether Public Safety would let me back on campus on the other side of DPC and if not, whether my good parking space where I was would be there. I let discretion win instead of emotion and just left the car there. It was a good spot and with people arriving for a reunion as well as some Boy Scout thing I saw signs for, leaving it right there was the better play. In the morning, I’ll just walk up and get it and put it right behind the townhouses to load up.
I hope it’s not this complicated every year.
Now that it’s over …
I don’t want it to be. A few of us walking up the path from dinner agreed on this feeling. All of us would love to be able to wake up, write, learn about writing, write some more, etc. on a daily basis. This was a wonderful week and I do not want to go back home. I told our HR director at work I probably wouldn’t want to and I don’t. Tomorrow, I want to wake up, write morning pages, find some food, do more writing, go to a lecture, something. I don’t want to get back on the road and leave this place, doing these things. It’s probably going to take me some time to get back into my usual routine, such is the momentum that I built up here, momentum that I don’t want to lose.
I’m so tired right now, but it’s that good tired. That tired when you not only know you worked hard, but you worked towards something that you really wanted. Accomplished something. I don’t know, though, if I’ll sleep well because I’m tired or if I’ll be excited and sleep fitfully because I’m so ready to get back up and write again.
I think I’m going to keep waking up at 6:30 daily and write, but I’m going to work on my projects much more than I do and not rely on that after-work time to complete them, as that hasn’t been working the best for me.
Now that I have some better pointers for revision, I’m going to revise some old projects (perhaps I’ll reserve the evenings for blogging and revision) because I see now that I have to get more work out there, including a book. It’s a goal I’ve been working towards, but now I need to go even harder.
These are my initial thoughts on the week now that it’s over, but I’ll still be writing a full postmortem, which I’ll begin on Saturday at some point.