Waking the Writing Monster

A thousand words on the theme Waking the Writing Monster. That's all B. Nagel asked for. Surely, if I can do it (and I did, below), you can, too. Post yours to your blog (or in my comments if you don't have a blog, but seriously, why don't you have a blog if you're going to be writing a thousand words in response to a blog-based writing prompt), then comment here and on B. Nagel's site with the link. I can't wait to read yours.

If you read this story, leave a comment. Even if it's just to say, "I read it." You don't have to be witty or pithy or sublimely erudite or whatever. Just let me know you came.

Then come back this weekend, when you'll get to listen to me do a truly over-the-top melodramatic reading of this story. It's gonna be fun.

UPDATE: B. Nagel has the roster of those who played. Play along! Even though the deadline has passed, let us know if you write & post something.

The Wind Cries Mary

I never imagined the thwump of a desk clerk’s dispassionate stamp could be so electric.

Six years. Six years I’ve wormed my way through courtrooms, slimed through the seedy lives of distant relatives, and sifted through the midnight dirt of forgotten, overgrown plots. All to win the legal right to force my distant relations to give me the finger.

The middle finger. Of my third cousin, six times removed: Mary Shelley.

The parts are assembled. The solar panels are on line and capacitors at full charge; I can tell because my iPod fills the lab with the raw guitar riffs of Hendrix. I wonder what my Artist will think of Purple Haze when I drop the switch.

The bones are true, but I’ve taken creative license with the flesh. I had planned to use whatever fresh meat came my way, but advances in cloning not yet legal back in the States are proving ... fruitful. It was a simple matter once I thought it through--wait tables at a few writers’ conferences, swab the used cutlery. Voila! Instant Genius! Just add agar.

Such excursions have brought me the biceps of Stephen King, the hair of Dave Barry, the heart of Garrison Keillor, and the jowls of Evil Editor. Or, more accurately, have given my Artist those physical attributes.

The rest, stuffed between the bones and leathery skin of the legends, is flesh taken from med school cadavers at ten dollars a body. I don’t know who the poor souls were, but they all died in delightfully violent ways after desperately hard lives. Thus the restraints you see on the body.

I hobble on my crutch across the room, humming with silent electricity. The acute bite of my missing toe, attached to the Artist only minutes ago, gives me sweet elation. My creation, the greatest author ever, soon will rise from my operating table.

The cameras roll, and my sweaty hand grips the switch. Tight chest, quivering breath, weak knees. I pull with the weight of my entire life, yanking the handle from its cradle and smashing it to the circuit. Lights flicker, sparks fly from the transformers, and electricity arcs across terminals for effect only. It’s all very dramatic, to be sold for a lot of money to The History Channel. I’ve already sent in my proposal for the screenplay. I will insist that I be played by Matt Damon. Or Colin Firth. Either is fine.

I relinquish the switch, drop my crutch, and thump-drag myself to the side of the table. I fight the urge to touch his skin and feel the warmth and life filling him. There are also three million volts filling him. Soon--ten point six seconds exactly--the buzzing and lightning subside, and the lights warm to a smooth fluorescence.

I pant in the way I probably would if I had just made love to a beautiful woman. My forehead is slick with sweat, and my jaw trembles. I’ve never been so nervous.

There!

A flutter of Chaucer’s eyelid! And a tremor in the left forefinger of Cervantes! I run my fingers along the rugged thigh of Melville, Hawthorne’s knee, Beatrix Potter’s shapely shinbone. All the way to my toe. I imagine wiggling it on the end of my own foot, and it quivers where it now lives, then curls along with the toes that walked that road less traveled through that yellow wood.

O! My heart thumps, my blood boils within me.

It’s alive!

I revel only a moment and shake myself back to my duties. I loose the restraints and shuffle to the desk. Quill, pen, paper, typewriter all sit ready to receive the combined genius of my Artist.

It convulses. The blood has begun pumping, oxygen is flowing. Oh, it’s glorious! His head lolls left, right. His mouth opens. A groan rises into the lab, harmonizing with psychedelic guitar riffs.

It sits up.

It swings its legs around, off the table, thumps to the floor. Wobbly, it swoons around until its blank gaze lands on me with lightless eyes. It considers me for a full minute. Can it see me? Does it recognize its creator?

I put my hands out, then sweep them to the desk with its beckoning tools. “For you,” I declare. “All for you!”

The creature surveys the implements. A perplexed frown darkens its brow. “Aaarrrghah,” it growls, and stumbles to the desk. With one deafening swipe, it crashes the assembly to the floor.

In despair, I cry, “But you must write! Do you not want to write?” Assembled before me are the greatest writers that ever graced the planet. I do not understand.

“ARREEGHH,” it spits at me. “Asshole.” The creature looks clumsily for an exit, then pushes past me to stumble to the door. “I need a drink.”

Barging through the door, it pauses long enough to glare at me one final time. The finger of my third cousin six times removed, rises slowly, backed by Hemingway’s toothy grin.

The Writing Monster, now awoken, shuffles away to Cap’n Salty’s corner bar.

Stunned, all I can do is retrieve the fallen implements and set them back on the desk. My missing toe throbs in agony as I stare at the blank page, mocking me from the platen of the ancient manual typewriter.

Almost against my will, I right the fallen chair and sit. My fingers hover over the keys. One click, then another. Soon my fingers fly as fast as the machine can handle.

I have swept up the broken pieces of yesterday’s life, but those lives that lived are dead.

The wind gusts through my open window, billows the curtains, and whispers all their names in my ear. As the breeze passes on into the night, it whispers one final name.

Mine.

is it possible to look MORE bald with a goofy helmet?

(Apologies to my facebook friends, who may already have seen the photos I posted there.)

Our last full day in Bend, Sam and I went off with dear friend and wonderful hostess Tiffany and her son to climb a rock.  Of the four of us, I was the only one without any time in a climbing harness.  Sam had completed his Climbing merit badge at boy scout camp.  Suffice to say, I was excited and nervous.

We set off for Smith Rock, about 40 minutes north of Bend, Oregon.  This is a gorgeous river gorge and huge upthrust of stone in the middle of the high desert of east-central Oregon.  From the outside, it merely looks like a setting for one of those old Western movies where everyone dies of dehydration.  Then you get up on top and into the gorge, and my god it's beautiful and dramatic.

From the parking lot, hiking off into Smith Rock State Park.

From a switchback along the trail into the park.  The river gorge is simply spectacular.

This was taken from the base of our climb, across the river.

We hiked in about a half mile.  It starts with switchbacks to descend into the gorge valley, then a pleasant hike along the river and an ascent up various steps to the base of the route our guide had picked out.  Did I mention our guide?  Aaron, from Chockstone Climbing Guides, was our mentor and guide for the day. He'd picked out two routes for us, spanning 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.  The first, Cinnamon Slab, is a 5.6 climb. The second, Ginger Snap, is a 5.8.  I had some idea of what this meant because Big Bro had explained this to me the week before.  5.6 sounded OK but tough.  5.8... we would see.

Long story short:  Climbing was fun but much, much harder than it looks from the ground.  The Cinnamon Slab climb looks like an easy jaunt up a sloped surface, but when you're fifty feet off the ground and have a 14 inch wide surface you're clinging to at a 75 degree pitch with no footholds, it takes a little focus to keep your cool.  On top of it all, you're wearing this really goofy helmet that, you're thinking at the moment, will only serve to keep your scalp from getting lacerated as every bone in your body breaks as you bounce down the rocks to the bottom.

But then you remember you're on belay, and if the person on the ground likes you and your guide has properly anchored the rope at the top of the climb, you're pretty safe.  So you carry on to the top, sweating like a cold beer on the tar in a Las Vegas parking lot in August.

Here are some photos from the Cinnamon Slab (5.6) portion of our day.

Aaron, our guide, setting up the route.  Relax, ladies.  He's married.

Sam belaying, with Aaron as backup.

Sam nearing the top of Cinnamon Slab.  The point he's climbing in this shot has a surface only about a foot wide.  There are holds on the outside of the rock, too, but I found those not as tempting as maybe they should be.

Me at the bottom of Cinnamon Slab, taking my first steps up any climbing route ever.  I look pretty manly in this, don't I?  Except for the dorky helmet, of course.

Me about halfway up Cinnamon Slab.  Here it's about two feet wide, maybe a little more.

When we had just all finished on Cinnamon Slab, a group of 7,000 experienced climbers arrived and started loitering about six feet away from us.  OK, maybe it was more like 12 people in climbing gear, and I don't know how experienced they were.  The way they hovered, though, it appeared they intended to climb the routes we'd set up already.

No matter what they were there for, I was certain of one thing:  I was not excited to have an audience.  I knew I would make a total fool of myself.  43 year old doofus in a goofy helmet slipping off the rock and ending up dangling upside down from one foot caught in a tangled mess of rope.  I was sure that was my future:  a future filled with laughter from below and blood rushing to my head.

I did go up the Ginger Snap route.  It starts with a little scrambling up some boulders until you get to the flat part.  I stood on that last ledge for maybe five minutes trying to figure out how the hell I was going to go up even one more inch.  I sortied and retreated a number of times, frequently thinking I had made it as far as I could for my first day.  But Tiffany, the evil slave driving torture dragon lady, "urged" me on from below.  And up I went.  And damn, was it HARD.

Tiffany used a zoom for this one.  You can see my right foot is on a solid ledge, but tell me where the hell I'm going to put it next when I hoist up onto my left foot?

Another zoomed shot, as I step up off that ledge on my way to the top.

Sam struggled a little with this route, too, but he made it all the way.  You can get a sense of the route here.  Sam is roped in, by the way--it's just hard to see the rope in this shot.

After we were all done, we headed off to the Terrabonne Depot for cold beers and dinner.  Highly recommended after an exertion like climbing or a long hike.  The black ale was outstanding and the service very friendly.

It's funny how, that day, I thought I enjoyed climbing but never really felt a need to do it again.  As I get farther from the event, though, I begin to think about how I'd love to go out and challenge myself again.  I learned a lot on Ginger Snap as I found or missed footholds, held my body close to the rock, used one or two fingers for balance as I stepped up.  Clearly this won't be a lifestyle sport for me, but I would not be surprised to find myself on another wall sometime in the future.

Especially since Sam seems to love it so dearly.

Missy Higgins and Harlan Coban

I don't go to concerts often for the same reason I don't ski much: It's usually too expensive, and I'm usually too busy. Tonight, though, we took time to go to a unique show at the Lark Theater offered by Corte Madera's Book Passage.

Recently, my wife heard a song while she was waiting overlong at the Verizon store in Walnut Creek. She wrote down some of the lyrics and later googled them to find out the song was by Missy Higgins, an Australian singer we'd not heard of before. It wasn't long before we had bought most of her recent album on iTunes. The next week, we saw the advert for tonight's show in the Book Passage newsletter. Neither of us had ever heard of Harlan Coban, the author appearing with Missy at the theater. He's a crime fiction author, and we don't really hit that genre. We weren't sure what a crime fiction author would be doing at a concert, but my wife liked the music enough to tolerate his presence, and I like my wife enough to go to a concert with her.

We got into downtown Larkspur, a quaint little downtown just a mile off highway 101 but you'd never know it. One parking spot and one taco-to-go later, we arrived at the front of the theater, collected our tickets and not-yet-signed books, and headed inside. They served wine! Perfect. The theater is small, seating 246 but feeling more like a large parlor. It's wide, and even the seats near the back seemed close to the stage. We sat about eight rows back. (Later, as we exited, we realized there were several empty seats. General admission at the door was just $15, an amazing price for such a cool event.)

What we got was one of the coolest concerts/author speakings that I've ever been to. Harlan kicked it off with an introduction and a description of how the two connected to put this together. Apparently, Harlan had been inspired by a line from one of Missy's songs, so as a sort of tribute he named her and the song in one of his books. Later, Missy's mum was reading the book on a beach and discovered her daughter referenced. Thus a friendship and collaboration was born.

The night was a combination of about a dozen songs and a dialog about writing and the writing process. They even stopped to answer audience questions at one point. And it was clear that the whole thing was ad-lib because at two different points, Missy played a song shouted out by the audience. The first time, she seemed at odds about what song to play, and someone up front asked for Sugar Cane. She said, "Yeah? OK," and played it.

So, anyway, it was awesome. Harlan is very cool, seriously funny, and clearly a talented speaker. At some point I'll read his book and decide if he's a talented writer. Missy is a genuine treat to see live. Cute, sincere, terribly talented. Go buy her albums.

prop 8... the musical!

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black

Evanescence ROCKED

I'm glad I got my 3,200 words done early yesterday because we went all the way south to San Jose last night to see Evanescence in concert at the San Jose State arena. They rocked. Amy Lee is awesome. We saw them when they were in San Francisco, but this concert was better--I think the band seemed more into it, and the opening group (Sick Puppies) also rocked like crazy.

Some observations from the concert:
There was a surprise third group that opened before Sick Puppies, and although they were fun to listen to, they were surreal in a Spinal Tap way. I don't even know the name of the group, but I couldn't tell if they were taking their image seriously or not. The singer had a good voice, reminiscent of Depeche Mode, and technically and technologically they were good. But their image was just... weird. Part heavy metal, part new wave, part "too sexy for my shirt." It all added up to a Spinal Tap experience.

I was surprised to see quite a few young girls, like 9 years old, in the audience. The concert did not end until 11, and Sick Puppies in particular dropped the F-bomb numerous times. The kids looked like they were having a good time.

It's weird to have pretzels and hot dogs and popcorn at a rock concert like this.

There were tons of older, bald guys. So I fit right in. While the San Francisco show had a lot of teenagers in goth outfits and heavy black eye liner, this was a much more suburban looking crowd. There were a lot of women showing off big cleavage, though (mostly bouncing around above big, round bellies, not the type of stick-figure-with-fake-boobs you might see at a country rock concert). Some black lace gloves and taffeta tu-tus, the occasional bustier, but mostly the same type of crowd you might see on the street at lunchtime or going to a Warriors game.

Speaking of the Warriors, it's hard to believe someone might spend $60 a seat for one of those miserable games when they could have spent just $35 a seat for this totally awesome rock-out extravaganza.

The only problem with the whole night was that I didn't get to see Sam trying out for the winter select soccer league. It was his first-ever tryout for a team, and I really wanted to watch it. Won't know if he's selected until next week. I'm cautiously optimistic--he's younger and smaller than most of the other kids and only 50% make the team, but he's also very coachable and eager and actually a good little player.