News & Notes

News & Muse (February 2021): Hints of Spring, A Little Writing Advice

We had some snow the other day. Just an inch or so. As usual in the Willamette Valley, it didn’t last long. Otherwise, I’m seeing hints of spring everywhere—both in reality and metaphorically. The days are getting longer. On my daily walks, I’ve started to see crocuses and other plants start to bloom. A new President in the United States has brought a palpable sense of relief to those of us who believe in decency, democracy, and at least an attempt to adhere to the truth. The vaccine roll out, while bumpy, is picking up steam. We’ve lost a lot of good people to COVID-19, and the winter of this pandemic isn’t over by a long shot, but at least it feels like we’re heading in the right direction.

Productivity has been pretty good lately, mostly by just sticking to a daily word quota and staying off the Internet until after 5 p.m. Funny how straightforward it is, really, and how I have to keep reminding myself of the basics year after year. I feel like a Zen Buddhist coming back to the breath. Read a lot (breath comes in), write a lot (breath goes out). When I’ve taught writing courses, I generally start out by telling the students that if they stick to a daily word count of new material no matter what, plus read at least a book a week, they’ll probably get good enough to eventually develop an audience. If they don’t, no matter how many classes they take, they probably won’t. I tell them if half of them quit the class right now and did just that, while the other half went on to MFA programs but didn’t commit to being at least moderately prolific writers and voracious readers, I would bet on the half that quit my class. I usually got a lot of shocked expressions, but it really is true, I think.

Here’s a last little thought on this, to illustrate that being “moderately prolific” is not as difficult as some might suggest. A lot of people consider Robert B. Parker, a grand master of crime fiction, a fairly prolific writer. Now, we don’t know if he wrote under other names, or how many manuscripts he had to throw away, but if you take him at his word (always a dubious proposition for someone who makes stuff up for a living), he was a light outliner who mostly wrote one draft and he didn’t write under pseudonyms. He published something like 70 books that he wrote himself (I’ve probably read half of them), which amounted to about 4 million words. His books were fairly short by modern standards, so keep that in mind, but few people would argue about the average quality (he has duds like all long-term writers). He had about a 40-year career before he passed away. If you do the math, he would have had to write . . . about 250 words/day.

One manuscript page.

I know that’s pretty amazing for a lot of folks, and yes, these weren’t epic fantasy tomes we’re talking about, but still, he just did the work day after day. Certainly there are writers who have written much, much more, but I mention Parker because few would argue that he didn’t leave behind a substantial body of high quality work. Because when you get right down to it, being prolific is just another way of saying you’re consistent.

A Bit of Whimsy

That’s a quick five-minute sketch of an Irish Setter from one of my drawing notebooks. Not long ago I committed to at least a drawing a day. Some days I only do one, some days five or more. They’re not really meant for public exposure, but I thought it might be fun to share one now and then. The goal is very simple, whether I’m drawing something I see, something from a magazine, or a picture that I bring up on my tablet: to recreate a sense of what I see (the fundamental skill of all visual arts, or so it was explained to me by a very good professional artist and teacher once) in just a few minutes.

Scott Recommends

The Roadside History of Oregon by Bill Gulick. Back in my twenties when I owned a used bookstore, I used to dip into this book when it passed through the store, but I’d never taken the time to read it cover to cover. When my daughter gave it to me as a Christmas gift, I figured now was the time. I’m glad I did. Gulick’s sprawling history of my home state, using the highways as a loose structure, is full of fascinating anecdotes of the many colorful figures who populated Oregon’s early days. It’s particularly wonderful since I’ve visited the majority of the cities listed. I’ve always said that Oregon is like a microcosm of the country as a whole, since it has a little of everything: high desert, lush valleys, coastal regions, mountain peaks, all within a day’s drive, all the regions very distinct from one another. There’s a climate and style of life for just about everyone in Oregon, which makes it such an absolute gem. 

American Hustle. I missed this David O. Russell’s film when it came out in 2013. A New York grifter and con man (a nearly unrecognizable Christian Bale) is forced to work with an FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) to perform an elaborate sting operation to avoid jail for himself and his lover (Amy Adams). Loaded with other stars (Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Robert De Niro), it’s the kind of film that often loses its way when too many actors ham it up on screen, but that didn’t happen here. Great acting, great writing—it was a fun film with some nice twists.

Love Just Screws Everything Up by Lynn Johnston. The 17th collection of the popular For Better or For Worse comic strip, following the life and times of the Patterson family, this strip ran for 29 years and ended its run in 2008. I’d caught the odd strip here and there over the years, back when I was still mostly reading the comics via the funny pages in a newspaper, but I’d never bothered to read a full collection. It’s great stuff. Unlike most strips, Johnston ages the characters (not quite real time, maybe a a third of real time?), so you follow the family’s many ups and downs in life just like the rest of us.

Bad Business by Robert B. Parker. Spenser starts off investigating whether a woman’s husband is cheating on her and ends up uncovering corporate malfeasance on a massive scale, a very unorthodox love triangle, oh, and several murders to boot. A fun read, and the extended cast (the beautiful and intelligent Susan, the inscrutable Hawk, and others) always help bring the story to life. While I enjoy Parker’s spare writing style, this was a bit bare bones even for him. It really is the bare minimum, I think, and there were scenes with almost no setting whatsoever. Still, it’s always a pleasant afternoon I get to spend with Spenser and company.

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane. A books that begins as a fascinating character study and picks up steam as the suspense, and twists, mount, Lehane’s book chronicles the story of Rachel Childs, a once-promising journalist who becomes a shut-in, and the mystery of a husband who may not be what he seems. I haven’t read too many of Lehane’s books (mostly the Kenzi and Gennaro P.I. series, which I’m a big fan of ), but I will definitely be looking for more. My issue is that I seldom want to read a book if I’ve seen the movie it’s based on, and since I’m seldom reading what’s popular now, I’ve often seen the movie before I get to the book. Certainly a problem for me, not Lehane!

News & Muse (January 2021): A Very Rainy Christmas

It’s that time of year in Oregon’s Willamette Valley when it’s mostly rainy and dreary. Will we get snow? Some years we do, some we don’t, but when we do it usually isn’t much and it almost never sticks for long. I usually don’t mind the rain, of course, being a writer and a reader, but usually by March I’m ready to see more blue sky. My hunch is that feeling will come even sooner this year, considering how trying 2020 was. But then, every place you live has its pros and cons.

As grim as the pandemic has been this winter, and it’s been plenty grim, the vaccines are rolling out, though, so life feels like it’s getting better. While it will take quite a while to vaccinate the entire world, the most vulnerable, and most likely to be hospitalized, should get vaccinated much faster, which means both the death toll and the strain on our hospitals should start to lessen more more rapidly, I should think. We shall see.

My immediate family is all in good health. For me personally? Just working away, on two books at the same time, actually. Not something I usually like to do, but it just worked out that way. Kids are approaching the halfway mark of the school year, and we’re all hoping that by Fall 2021 that face-to-face classes will be the norm again.

Hoping. I find myself using that word a lot lately. While it rained all day on Christmas for us, the sun came out in earnest the next day, which seemed symbolic.

A Bit of Whimsy: A Very Rosie Christmas

Here’s Rosie at 7.5 months, looking adorable as usual. Of course, her cuteness hides the fact that she’s often known around these parts as THE TERRIBLE RED BEASTY, for her propensity to steal socks, chew up shoes, and destroy tree ornaments.

Scott Recommends

Uncle Frank. This Amazon Studios production is just the sort of movie that makes me so optimistic about the future of filmmaking, despite the fairly grim future I foresee for movie theaters in particular. It’s doubtful this poignant drama about a gay man from South Carolina, and his relationship with his family as he returns from New York City in 1973, would have seen much time in a theater—especially now, but probably not ten years ago either. And yet, it’s one of the best films I’ve seen this year. Great writing, great acting, highly recommended.

Sunset Express by Robert Crais. Another great entry in the Elvis Cole series, a Los Angeles-based private investigator with a wry wit. What I admire about Crais, just as I admire about writers like Robert B. Parker and John D. MacDonald, is how easy it all goes down. I don’t mean the story, which in this case involves an extremely rich restaurateur accused of murdering his wife, a police detective accused of tampering with evidence, and a powerful celebrity attorney, but the writing itself. The voice is strong and bold and grabs you from page one. It’s always a pleasant few hours I spend with Cole and his assorted friends and associates.

M*A*S*H. This has been one of my go-to shows during the pandemic lately, something I can watch for thirty minutes while folding laundry or just a short escape before bed, and I’m amazed at how well it still holds up more than thirty years after the final episode aired (1983). Sadly, it might have something to do with how evergreen the subject matter is (war). Lasting eleven seasons (and eight years longer than the Korean War in which it was set), it has just the right balance of pathos and humor. I could do without the laugh track, of course, but that’s my one small nit. The whole series is available on Hulu.

News & Muse (December 2020): A Year as a Full Time Writer, Three Lessons Learned

It’s been twelve months since I gave up the day job to give full-time writing a go. And boy, what a year. A global pandemic that we still haven’t climbed our way out of yet. One of the most divisive Presidential elections in the United States of my lifetime. And here in Oregon, devastating forest fires that ravaged many of the small cities east of my hometown, starting just a thirty minute drive from my house.

But with the fires put down, encouraging news on the vaccine front, and an imperfect but at least decent and empathetic human being soon to be in the White House (sorry folks — if you still don’t know what a threat Trump was to our country, please go read about what happened to Hungary, as just one recent example of how a democracy dies) hopefully 2021 will be a better year. Still, it was another reminder that life happens, and sometimes life happens in a big way, and when it does often all you can do is hold onto the raft until you get to smoother waters.

Still, I kept at it throughout it all, and I’ve learned a few things along the way:

1. I’m more at peace being an Internet Minimalist. 

A couple months ago, I decided to recommit to being what I call an Internet Minimalist. Unless unavoidable, I don’t get on the Internet or check email until 5 p.m. every day. And yes, I really do mean I don’t go online at all unless there is some specific task that can’t wait; and it turns out that the vast majority of time, it truly can wait. I get my news from NPR via Alexa as I’m brushing my teeth in the morning, so at least I’m aware of any major events, but otherwise I’m completely off-line until 5 p.m. This not only made me a lot more productive, it made me happier, too. I’m still free to do whatever I want online after 5 p.m., and I certainly don’t want to be totally disengaged, partly because I need the Internet for my business, but in practice this translates into me being a lot more efficient online. I’ve read more books, produced a lot more practice drawings, and also started doing the Run of the House cartoon again—so that energy is going where I’d rather it go.

Why 5 p.m.? It’s a “habit stacking” technique I picked up from James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits. The basic idea is you connect or stack a new habit on top of an existing one. I already have a pretty firm rule that I don’t watch TV or drink alcohol before 5 p.m. It’s so entrenched I don’t think about it much, so adding the “no Internet” rule to it was pretty easy. It also ensures that I’m using my freshest, most productive hours of the day for my creative work. I’d tried using 4 pm in the past, but 5 pm does seem to be working better, so I do think there is something about pairing existing habits that reinforces both of them.

2. Having an easy production quota I followed every day, which I could exceed if I wanted, was better than having a more ambitious quota I only followed five days a week. 

When I tailed up my word counts for the last twelve months, I did about 20% more than my best year. It’s not bad, but since I don’t have a day job anymore, I was expecting better— certainly not double, I’ve been doing this too long to expect that, but perhaps 50% more. And then I noticed something else odd: my second best twelve month stretch, the one I’d beaten only by 20%, was actually the first year I got very serious about being a writer. In all those years, I’d never topped that year until now.

Here’s what baffles me. I had a very simple rule I followed that year: write at least 500 words, or for 30 minutes, whatever comes last. I’d gotten fed up with my low productivity and I bought a little digital kitchen timer. I told myself that no matter what, I could always write two pages of fiction. I made it my goal to stay completely focused for the thirty minutes, only checking the word count when the timer went off. (Having the timer actually paradoxically freed me up not to think about the time.) I’ve written about this before, recommended the technique to lots of others, and I’ve come back to it lots of times over the years as a way to jump start myself, but it seemed far too low a production quota for a full-time writer. So I decided to write 10 pages a day instead.

And while that resulted in some big word count months, there were other months where I …wasn’t as productive. Here’s the thing about that first year long ago when I got truly serious: While there were many days I squeaked by with 500 words, there were many, many other days I kept on writing because I was in the flow. Since it was only 30 minutes, I could always find the time for it. No excuses.

I recently went back to the 30/500 rule a couple months ago, and while the jury is still out on whether I’ll produce more, so far I am, while also having more fun. I can quit if I want, after all, and that feeling is very freeing. When I ran into a jam with the bigger book I’m working on, I just started a new story while I was figuring out what to do. I’ve already gotten three short stories that I wouldn’t have written otherwise, and I love the variety, too. Which leads me to …

3. When I stopped thinking of writing as a job, I was not only happier, I worked harder too.

That was the third major lesson I learned in the last year. When I tried to make writing into a 8 to 5, Monday through Friday sort of job, it became exactly that … a job. This added a bunch of emotional baggage that’s not helpful. The only way I could go back to writing every day (as well as cartooning and other creative efforts) was to not to see it as a job, because a job is usually something you do so you can do other things in your spare time. I don’t work a job any more. This is just what I do. It’s what I am. Along those lines, I also decided to just trust myself with the time and not worry too much about the schedule. The production quota has always been the key anyway. 

Some weekdays I mow the lawn in the afternoon. Run an errand. Read a book. Walk the dog. Help the kids with their homework. Many Saturdays I write all day long. The point is, there was no reason to give up the day job if I was just going to make this into another day job, and the way I broke free of that mentality was to at least write a little something (two pages) every day. It allowed the joy to flow back in a big way. Rosie is now six months old, and already starting to grow out of some of her puppy behavior that took so much of my energy, but breaking free from the 8-5/M-F mentality also made it easier with her as well. Now, like the 30/500 rule, the jury is still out on whether this is sustainable, but I think it is. When I told writer friend of mine about this, he said, “You mean you never give yourself a day off? My God!” But that misses the point. Why would you need a day “off” from something you love? 

While I certainly have to push myself to the keyboard some days, this is no different than, say, a professional basketball player who loves their sport but still has to push themselves now and then to get in the gym and shoot five hundred free throws. You push yourself not because you don’t love what you do, but because you love it so much you want to get really good at it. 

A Bit of Whimsy: Me at the Pumpkin Patch

This one was from a little over a month ago, when we visited a nearby pumpkin patch with the kids and Heidi took a few photos. And yes, except for when she took this photo, we were all wearing masks and engaging in good social distancing practices.

Scott Recommends

Defending Jacob by William Landay. As usual, I’m late to the party on Landay’s excellent novel about an assistant district attorney whose own son is accused of a horrific crime: stabbing a classmate to death and leaving his body in a nearby park. Is his son innocent or guilty? And how far would you go to protect your own child? Those are the questions Landay tackles in this riveting legal thriller, which was recently made into a miniseries for Apple TV. I haven’t seen the miniseries, so I can’t vouch for it, but I can say that the narrative voice grabbed me from page one and didn’t let me go.

You’re It! by Alan Watts (the audio book). My daughter described me the other day as nonreligious but still somewhat spiritual. That’s close, but I’d clarify that I’m generally repulsed by religious dogma but open to spiritual thinking — as long as you describe “spiritual thinking” as being intellectually curious about the nature of reality and what it truly means to be human. I stumbled upon the recorded lectures of Alan Watts on YouTube a year ago, a man who described himself as a “philosopher-entertainer,” and was adamant he was not a guru even though many of his ardent fans in the sixties who attended his lectures at college campuses and other venues might have thought of him that way. You’re It! gathers many of his best lectures, and while the format means there’s a little bit of repetition, I found that actually helps drive home some of his main points. If you want just one book, I’d recommend this one, but you can certainly listen to many of his lectures for free on YouTube as I did.

The Mandalorian. Just to prove that I’m not completely out of step with what’s popular right now, let me echo everyone who’s said that the Mandalorian, a show set in the Star Wars universe on Disney Plus about  a mercenary (in the same vein as Bobba Fett) and a Yoda-like child, lives up to its billing. Now in its second season, it’s one of those rare shows that our whole family watches together, and there hasn’t been one dud yet. Just pure wide-eyed fun … which is something we all sorely need right now.