Anthill

I feel there is a calm right now, a stillness this mid-spring day that may be signaling turbulence ahead. I've been feeling stationary, inert, unable even to crack the file open on Drum, just to see where things are. Of course I know where they are. Of course I have every intention of moving past this stage, but I feel so damned under-confident, inept. I am fearful that I will open Drum only to find an an anthill of issues. I've built this thing too big in my mind and now it's spilling over the edge.

My house in Sri Lanka had an anthill growing in the back room out of a crack in the concrete, an edifice of hardened soil turrets and spires. Occasionally, I would spot one or two of the kingdom hustling a grain of sand along a developing edge to be lodged by mysterious design into structural relevance. I would wait for others to arrive, knowing full well that all were busying themselves along their intricate corridors, their staterooms and in the larger cavities I had witnessed momentarily before they were sealed from view. I learned not to disturb this little encased society. Breaking its train of thought brought a chaos to the house that would drive me away for hours.

And so it is with my writing these days, some vast honeycomb of a story building in the fractured recesses of my mind. I fear to disrupt this inner toil; and yet I'm fully cognizant of the need to break this thing open to see where these tunnels lead, where they might end.

What the blog?

Right-o. I've been away from this blog for some time, three months. I've had my reservations. First, it's tough to blog when there are no followers. One reason there are no followers is that I have not promoted Brackish Currents. And why is that? Fear. Lack of confidence in my own writing. The bigger reason I have not sought an audience is that I'm not sure anyone would want to peer into my world all that much.

After all, as Experimental Honesty implies, what I have to say may not follow a coherent path. On the other hand, without readers, this blog is neither experimental nor honest.

So, onward. This blog explores two interweaving currents:
In one stream is the progress of a novel I'm writing, Drum. The book loosely follows the story of a disappearance in my family in 1976. Several elements of the story are factual, but the plot articulates a different path than mine, travels to places the writer has not. It is fiction, and I stand by that fact.

The other stream is my own progress as a writer and as a human being. I have implicated myself deeply in the novel, and even as I endeavor to pull myself out of the story, it is more and more a reflection of my own tenuous existence. I have questions--we have questions that we choose not to answer. How is it, for instance, that we live past a moment in time, but continue to exist within that moment? Yikes, did I say that?

Together, these currents create a certain mix in which a finite number of organisms can survive; some perish, some flourish. We live in the past as much as the present, and how we reconcile one with the other is one of the bigger questions we ask.

So, I've not been writing in Brackish Currents because I wasn't sure where I was going with it. Now, I'm seeking a readership who will give me some affirmation that I'm headed in the right direction.

The preceding entries have recently been uploaded from my journal as a gesture of commitment to keep going. I invite you to meander my mind, become a member of the blog and leave thoughtful comments.

Adventures in Metaphor

Late March, 2013

There are too many ways not to write. Here's one: worry. Worry about everything that is not within your grasp to control. That said, I believe I am coming to that point in my present bout of writers block in which the inevitable is about to occur, well, as it always does.

Drum is at a stage of a complete rewrite with an emphasis on organization. This is where I am having the most difficult time. But as usual, my difficulty is in rising to the task more than the actual task. Every time I begin thinking of synthesizing Jade's story with the M&C story, I dive into escapism. This writing I am doing, even though it is writing and therefore a step in the right direction, this writing is essentially a distraction. I focus on this because I feel the other is overwhelming, burdensome; I long to be free of it. And it is for this reason that I must plow into it.

But when? Now, of course.

Later: And of course I went sailing, instead. I think the impasse I am experiencing is in some way linked with my son's. As a fifteen year-old navigating the choppy riptides of that age, he is moving passed some rocky points (to whip a dead metaphor). And why do I feel that I am also riding in these same conflicted seas? The reason is that his lack of self-confidence and perhaps the alienation he feels from his own expectations of himself is also my own anxiety and woe. What he is going through reminds me so much of my own trailhead to the lengthy, circuitous, and mostly daunting path into the alpines of adulthood.

And as I think of it, isn't this also Jade's path? She seeks out and erects every blockade she can muster to prevent herself from uncovering her truth. And isn't this the story I want to tell: the story of personal redemption? Is Jade's story not a Moby Dick, a Pilgrims Progress, a Beowulf? Hers is story that must resonate, I think. But it is the story that matters and not any agenda I'm wont to ascribe it. It is the story that must be told; I'll leave the resonations to the reader.

What I see, or what I'm beginning to see, is that the story of Drum, like my life, is being hampered by obstructions that are largely imaginary, like Alice allowing her anxiety to run away with her to Wonderland. The naysayer in me--even as I write this sentence--is at his table drafting plans for yet another artful mechanism that will pry or pulley or sail me away from what increasingly imposes on me to get the story out. The design is impeccable, the lines without flaw. Here I am again, my inner engineer drawing myself into another elaborate cage.

How will this story end?

Living the book out

Mid-March, 2013


Heard a fantastic interview with Jamaica Kincaid last night. She has a new novel out, See Now Then, which she staunchly defends as fiction, despite the assertions of some who read it as non-fiction. What she has to say about this is certainly inspiring to those of us who write simply because we have something to write. When the writing is true, the reader feels it because the writer also feels it's truth. This is the essence of real fiction. It transports us to who we are--the authentic person inside of ourselves--and from that renewed vantage, looks out upon the world to see it anew once again. Kincaid scoffs at those who demand that she reclaim the book as non-fiction: "it is what I say it is," she states. "If I say it is fiction, it is fiction."

I find this delightfully affirming of what I have arrived at in my own hesitations around Drum. If I say it's fiction, then damn it, it is fiction. Of course there are certain aspects that are factual, but I take these now more as circumstantial than critical to the heart of the story. By living the book out through the eyes of another, I am giving myself permission to tell the story that I feel is most true. Drum is not a story of a family "wringing their hands" over the uncontrollable events of the past. Drum is the story of dealing with the past in a way that forges the future; it is essentially a clean break, just what Michael and Cordelia were doing, and just as I am trying to do through protagonist Jade. Yes, the story still burns.

I've applied for a full-time, tenured position at Clark, and though I have no way of knowing what my chances are for an interview, I'm guessing none-to-slim. I think what's going on with me psychically is some process by which I need some huge distraction to keep me from what really needs to be accomplished. Not that it wouldn't be a fantastic thing to be called to do this job, I simply think I'm using the likely rejection as a final sign that my future really does hang on completing this novel. It needs to get out there; and I need to get on with the rest of my life.

Nothing I have written this week feels more true.

An exercise

Mid-March, 2013

The other evening I submitted my application for a tenured position at Clark. It will likely go to the shredder based on my relative lack of experience teaching adults at the community college level. So, not getting my hopes up.

It was an excellent exercise, however, in getting a bit closer to what I believe of myself as a teacher, or what perhaps I think I should believe of my self. For instance, I mention under the question about my philosophy of teaching that I try to focus on Stephen Krashen's idea of "i+1" under his theory of language acquisition that basically say a student doesn't "learn" a language so much as he or she gradually produces more of it over time and exposure, or "input." A teacher introduces material at the critical moment in which a student shows a certain mastery, thereby expressing a "readiness" for new material. The new material is just beyond the student's current capability; and this, my own thought here, can cultivate a certain ambition to succeed. I say "can" because without being sensitive to the student's "readiness" or stability in the prior material, "+1" can just as easily become "-1". That is to say, an L-2 learner who has not yet mastered the full range of, say, an adjective clause may only flounder when challenged to produce participial phrase. In order for the spark of a language concept to ignite authentic production, there need to be fuel and the proper conditions. It is the cultivation that matters: the careful blend of tinder and oxygen that every new fire needs.

So, one point I did not touch on in the description of my teaching philosophy was the blunt fact that I teach what I need to learn. Or rather, if I were to apply the above, I teach what I pursue. And what is it I pursue? No surprises here: to make sense ouf things, let things reveal themselves to me so that I might capture them in a few choice words, and to leave these words lingering for someone else to ponder and develop. And I suppose this is what I teach: read, write, contribute.

And this gets even closer to what I pursue. If I am to be engaging in these paths, then I am also to be focusing on giving, serving the community to which I belong. The community to which I belong. What is that, anyway? A fascinating question because I've been struggling with it my whole life. More on this later, I suspect.

Same old same

Early March, 2013

What point is there in wondering what the hell I've done? How trite, self-indulgent.

Okay, yeah. What can be more self indulgent than writing a novel? It is an investment in time. If we are limited by what we see and do by our sense of the passing hours, than what better way to repel that illusion than with the world that lives in spite of it.

I'm speaking here of the inner world that I carry around, the dialogs and constant chatter, the patchwork of images and the look in the eyes of the individuals with whom I work every day. How do I make these things click in their own time, their own beat? What I carry is what I need, and what I need is what nourishes me.

There is something that pulls at me today, today of all days, something that has gripped me this morning deep in my gut. Is it the sense that all this time has passed and here I sit, struggling even to put a sentence together? Is it that I have placed such a high value on writing that not even I can attain the standards I've set for myself?

I try to teach students to find their inner drive, the little monster that pushes them through the day, what causes them anguish, gratitude, ecstasy? How is it that they have come this far in their lives? What roads have they travelled and what roads do they see before them? I try to teach my students to write these things without judging them, write without steering the authentic experience into common stereotype and dismissal. I try to get my students to celebrate, honor, dance unabashed in the center of these things without fear of judgement. I try to teach them these things because they are what I need to learn myself. Again and again.

A Catastrophic Reveal

Late February, 2013

Just made a reference in an email to a friend to the "full catastrophe," a favorite expression in Nikos Kazantzaka's novel, Zorba the Greek. It is a term that I had not quite understood when I read the book, what, thirty years ago? I was too young to realize exactly what Zorba was actually talking about, but I have carried it in me these many years, turning it over in the quiet moments in my life to see it anew.

In a few words, full catastrophe might be boiled down to living with eyes wide open. So much in literature, philosophy, religion points to the absolute need to wake up, look around; stop thinking, live. I have been getting these very messages quite explicitly in the last 24 hours from an old dream I'd written down (my own dead father sitting backwards on a church pew delivering this message); to a note from a friend; to some recent advice on writing; to my own recollection just now of dear old Zorba, bellowing out in the wild heat of his life: Opa!

So right now, I've got to scale my own fear, rise to the craggy peak and work there until this thing is done. This in fact is what it feels like to be so close and so far from completing Drum. It is a struggle more against myself than the actual story, a struggle to meet myself half-way. This is the idea, I think that I need to maintain. It has not been enough to maintain that "Jade is me"; this has been inadequate, inaccurate. To say that Jade's life is my own, or in some way parallels my own, does not articulate the entirety of her experience; in fact, it neglects Jade of her own experience.

Jade lives in her own world, and while she and I have some shared experiences, her life is her own. I need to make this much more clear, but what I am also struggling with is the fact much of the story is based on fact. So what? This, too, I need to let go of. What isn't based on fact? I'm telling a story, damn it. Stories come from authentic places in the human psyche. The story I choose to tell is not my own. It is Jade's story, and if her story overlaps my own, so be it.

I would also like to develop the character of Tran and to a lesser extent, that of the web-sleuth. These two characters are those supporting cast whose job it is to complicate and clarify Jade's struggle. To this end, these characters need to be more consequential, more of an electric force moving Jade to the brink. So this is something I need to work on in Drum.

Question

February 7, 2013

50 today. The phrase "a half a page of scribbled lines" comes to mind from Pink Floyd's Time/Dark Side of the Moon.

What's it all for?

Grimm news

Mid February, 2013

Went to bed worried last night. There's a five year old kid being held hostage by an idiot paranoiac in Alabama. The man got on a bus and shot the driver after he tried to protect the children. The man grabbed the child and ran away. He's now hold up in his storm shelter on his property for what is now day 3 of this standoff. Of course cops and swat are swarming, unable to do anything other than hope for negotiation. It's a desperate scene becoming more so with every minute.

I'm thinking about this child. He is feeling alone and afraid with this strange man, who apparently has not harmed him. But what I am interested in is the relationship that is building between them: the monster and the child. It is an old story Grimm-like in its theme of children falling prey to adult insanity. I can only reach with my heart and soul to both of these individuals to tap into their inner reserve of humanity, plumb what's there, be present and alive.

There is a finite set of scenarios that may unfold in this story:

Scenario One: the child is released unharmed, and the man gives up to the authorities. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being most likely, I give this a four. He's well known for his paranoia, bullying and brutality. This is a sociopath whose world view is himself, only. Everyone else simply exists to torment him, including, I'm afraid, this child.

Scenario Two: He kills the child and then himself. I give this a likelihood of six. The man is sick.

Scenario Three: The child manages to escape while the man is sleeping. I give this a two. The boy has Asbergers and may not be capable first, of hatching such a plan, or second, making a sustained effort to follow through with it. Also, the boy has witnessed the man killing someone, and may well be in grave shock over the incident and his own peril.

Scenario Four: The man kills himself, leaving the child unharmed but an emotional wreck. The police storm the shelter to find the boy alive. I give this a likelihood of eight.

Scenario Five: The police storm the shelter, provoking the man to murder/suicide. Likelihood: Five. The police may be overcome with a desire to end the stand-off.

Scenario Six: The police try to tunnel into the shelter, also provoking murder/suicide. I give this a likelihood of three.

So, I think that either today or tomorrow, we will see what happens. grim, distressing stuff, this.

UPDATE: four days later. Scenario five is the closest, though the man, Dykes, was apparently killed by troopers. The boy emerged unscathed in order to celebrate his 6th birthday this week. He will have much to contend with, but he is young and resilient and will likely have a great deal of counseling. He's a very lucky kid.

Where do I get off...

Late January, 2013

Where do I get off thinking I can teach anyone anything? How is it that I have come to this position of authority, and how is it that even now I am questioning my direction in life? I'm almost 50, that's how it is.

I have so wanted these many years to be teaching classes just like the night class I have right now, full of diverse backgrounds and various voices. These are the students I remember of my own community college days, young, un-trained, anxious to get going with their college years. I was one of them, and perhaps, even now, I still am.

It feels that way. I feel that I have invested, am investing a huge chunk of my life into this endeavor at the cost of many other aspects of my life which frankly are far more relevant to who I am today. The novel Drum must come out. I am committed to that; and yet I have decided to pursue this other branch of teaching which seems to be placing me right on the edge of my competence as a professional. It is also draining my energy to focus on the novel. It is these two challenging elements that are pushing right up against the person I have become.

My students want to be present and engaged, want to achieve what it is they need to achieve from the class, driven by their own sense of direction in their lives. Am Im, the newbie, in some critical way, letting them down? My attitude about this class reflects my attitude about teaching in general: it waffles from feelings of elation to feelings of ineptitude. It is the latter that I'm trying to climb away from at the moment.

I turn the big five-oh next week. I'm trying to see it as I have see my age all my adult life: a number like the one before it, the one after it. I will continue to live my life the way I see fit, and I will not attach myself, as so many do, to their age. This I resolve: to wander in my life as have I always. It is the wandering that keeps me awake and curious (this in the grinning face o' the jester).

So, advise I to myself, work through this class O teacher. Listen to the students, read them. Keep what they value close to your heart so that what they know and learn becomes your own growth in time.

Abysmal

Late February, 2013

What am I achieving with my life? A dangerous question since if the answer is nothing, then the reasons for going on are questionable. And yet this deduction is so rife with pitfalls, I must wonder. What do I mean by achievement? What does "nothing" mean? Why must achieving nothing be reason for "not going on"?

First of all, to put any evasiveness to bed, I need to say that implanted in me is a deeply goal-centered person. I am one who identifies what needs to be done and goes after it, sometimes bullheadedly, sometimes covertly, but always with a conviction that what I am doing is in someway the best track to take.

There are moments, days, months in which this conviction becomes entangled with self-loathing and a tenuous malaise, a foreboding sense that nothing really matters and that nothing is more interesting about my own path than a that of a pebble down a cliffside or the lost goose I once listened to, flapping helplessly above me in the fog. A fish has more of a sense of direction than me.

And yet. And yet even as I feel along the side of the long cave in what I take to be the way out, I know somehow it is the true path. Not always the correct path, but true. I stumble and wander. I blunder and fall. Long now in the dark, I create my own light. It is what I do, and I endeavor it to be a credible light, one that brightens as I take my steps, one more or less confidently than the last. And it does brighten, and it does dim. And I sometimes whiff the outside world upon a sensory thread that vanishes just as I grasp its origin. A green, buzzing inspiration lost immediately but lightly planted in the lung of my mind. Am I losing you? Are you following? O, dear poet Blake.

So what is it I'm getting to here? I'm getting to the "nothing." It's dawn outside, but awake now for over an hour, that green buzzes in me like a bowl of mating mayflies. I live in part for these early hours alone and to myself. The nothing sitting somewhere in the dark room, waiting. Is it a Poe's raven? is it a Hamlet's ghost? Is it my own death yawning there across the room, waiting for some damn thing or another from me?

Achievement. Bleh.

Teach Thyself

Mid-February, 2013

In last night's class, I had the interesting experience of being so exhausted that I brought all to bear on a lecture about pulling sources together for the synthesis paper I have assigned. There were some sleepy people in the crowd, but at least they were there. I'm not certain how many in the classroom I actually was reaching, but I did manage to get some feedback. One student said she liked the class, but could she please take off early? Another, sort of a scruffy guy with a short curly beard and a backstory of medical failure sauntered back into class after everyone was gone to reveal the following to me:

"So I gotta say something to you about this class."
"Yeah? What's up?"
"Well, I gotta ask you a question. And don't take this the wrong way--I mean I like you, your a great teacher and you're covering the material well, but..."
"Uh-huh?"
Well, I gotta ask you. Why do you tell us to just 'bring whatever you have?' I mean you're just telling us basically that we can bring in whatever we want, and there's no real expectation for a complete assignment."
I nodded. Knew what he was talking about. "Yeah, I hear you. I need to hear this."
"Yeah." Well I think it's the reason--well maybe not the whole reason--why some of us aren't  coming to class."
Ouch. "Right. Not the whole reason. But you're right. So let me tell you that respect everyone in this class. They're coming in after a full day of work, kids, etc. and it's all they can do to be here. So I guess I'm learning the tricky balance of knowing how much to expect and how much slack to cut."
The student started to move toward the door. He reminded me of someone I knew once. "You remind me of my dad," he said, and I got the impression he felt in some way damaged by kindness. An interesting thought.

So, coming away from this conversation, driving down the freeway towards home, I started thinking about how I may not be expecting enough from others, because I may not be expecting enough from myself. In some way, I have learned to lower my expectations, and it may have taken this student to let me know that it isn't helping anyone.

So what about it? Am I or am I not holding myself to too low expectations. Very possibly, for expectations are not standards. The former is the set of objectives that I carry around in order keep working towards achievement; standards are those thresholds that I use to measure the effectiveness of what I achieve. Neither is particularly helpful to actually getting anything done.

Milking it

Late February, 2013


Excellent feedback from friend and writer, Cody Luff yesterday on Drum. I never know what to think about my writing, and he is one person who consistently indicates his confidence in the story and the way in which I weave it. My problem is that I am always in a pickle with (by?) time as I seek ways to incorporate my writing into daily life.

The next thing I do after writing this, is to accept an offer to teach 097 in the Spring, a class that I am much more confident with now but I know will demand more of my writing time. Anyway, it boils down to reconfiguring the time I have available. Or perhaps the energy I have available.

It isn't that I don't have energy to write. In fact, I find that even though I'm working more than ever, I have an interesting level of creativity at the end of the day. Surprising, really. I need to monitor this, see if I can milk it.

All for now.

Teach or Write, Both?

Mid-February, 2013

I've been putting considerable energy of late into my teaching, organizing, constructing rubrics, finding the fastest way to turn papers around. Between Clark and Marylhurst, I have about 75 students, each of whom I am trying to reach at an individual level. This is a huge challenge, especially when a third to one-half of these students are in high-production, or should be.

How does this shakedown with my writing? First, I have not been blogging--nada--for nearly two weeks. Second, I was so wiped out over the weekend that I could not attend out monthly Janes meeting. Third, I feel that Drum has once again found its way into the box. I am not journalling, and in fact, tis bit is the first reflective writing I've done in about two weeks. I've been swamped.

And now I'm considering another offer to teach at Clark in the Spring. That class is an 097 class again, and only on Tuesdays. I think I may be able to swing that, though with the caveat with myself that I start writing again.

Drum must be finished.

To Complicate or not to Complicate

Mid-January, 2013

So when the rain came back this morning I realized we're on the long curve back to Spring, even though it's only the first half of January. There seems to be more light in the morning, too, which of course could be a figment of my imagination.

Dialoged some more last evening with [deleted]. via email and was actually heartened by some of his recollection. He remembered, for example, the meticulous side of Michael, his guitar playing and his confident way with rigging and his boat. There was much in his personal style that I have either locked away or neglected to consider in his character. This contact is in many ways the perfect view of Mike, as he describes himself a "friendly neighbor rather than close friends." This brings a certain objectivity to his observation, more credibility.

I find that it's time now to go back to the story, see where this character may be living. It could be a little later; I'm thinking after Jade finds herself cornered by this theory of the sleuth's and unable to put up much resistance. She *knows* the sleuth is wrong, that is, she thinks she knows. He needs to make another appearance, provide more of his theory. Also, the new character might be seen directly after, just as he appears to me, a lurker, an acquaintance, someone with a bit of relevance that perhaps even he isn't even aware of.

My worry, well, one of my worries, is that the book is becoming too crowded. There may be too many minor characters vying for the spotlight. We have three worlds: a) Jade in the present with her present entourage; Jade in the past with her past entourage; and Jade in and out of the distant past with M&C in their own world. This may be getting complicated. Too complicated?

I need to start writing out two distinct scenes. First, Seamus Irvine, the websleuth, needs to make more of his theory available; and second, the new character needs to speak with Jade over the phone (email is too removed--I need this character to be sympathetic, again, a friend). The clues need to be building through both interactions.

Jade, too needs to be revising her ideas about M&C, based on what she is learning. How does she do this? I think it needs to be tied in with her own challenge--pulling herself out of the hole she is in. She needs to be building herself up for the bigger climax--the end--which gives her the opportunity for release that she's been looking for. I still think I need to see her knocking down the walls in the family cabin.

There are some mis-placed files I need to find from my thesis that were along these lines.

New Character

Mid-February, 2013

The development of the added source is a challenging one on several levels. First, because the new source is of especially poignent timing and appears to be so willing to contribute valuable information on M&C, there is the added responsibility of incorporating the information. Another challenge is that of retooling my plot to embrace yet another source, this one with actual credibility to understanding who M&C were at their time of departure, and what their state of mind was. And another new aspect that needs addressing with respect to the book is how Jade is to relate with this person.

I think these challenges will all culminate into a very positive dynamic in Drum. The additional character poses a nice balancing perspective to the outlandish theories proposed by the websleuth. I have not yet received information from [deleted], but he has responded telling me it is on the way. I've told him to take his time. Memory needs to unfold itself.

That in mind, I think I will send [deleted] a couple of photos to see if he can add to their context, if not simply be inspired to push more detail into his recollections.

This new source excites me. I'm revved to move into the story now with new detail. Unfortunately, this coincides with a very full teaching schedule this term, which begins in two days. This winter is going to prove tobe a very busy time, but productive.

A New Beat

Early February, 2013

So what I find particularly amazing right now is that is that I have found yet another channel of information for the Drum story. It seems that the little notice I had posted on Cruisers Forum has yielded some interest. There are more than enough small items to deal with in the story right now, but as I ponder this new avenue, I see yet another aspect of the story developing which can provide a certain balance to the discovery aspect of the plot. There is Jade's story, the one unfolding out of the sort of cascading effect that most of our lives are subject to; and there is the narrative arc of discovery--the emotional discovery--which is the necessary component of the plot. This late development is something provocative if not game changing.

An individual by the name of [deleted] called me yesterday to let me know he had known Michael and Cordelia in Hawaii. He had built his own Brown Searunner 31 at the same time as Mike, and had sailed over to Hawaii sometime within the same window as they. This insider knowledge is compelling for several reasons:

1. having someone to talk to about the specific characteristics of sailing the these boats is invaluable. One big question is how easy it would be for Drum to pitch-pole and under what conditions would this occur.
2. a description of the marina where [deleted] shared moorage with Drum. I'm especially interested in the date Drum left for Kauai.
3. He mentioned Mike not working much, what did he do during ghat time? Was Cordelia working? I'm interested in Anderson's characterization of their partnership?
4. How seriously were M&C taking their upcoming voyage? Why did they choose to leave from Hanalie Bay? Were they provisioning there or waiting to stock the boat in Kauai? Do you know if any other boat was accompanying them to Kauai?
5. Does he recall any other friends or acquaintances from that time?
6. Is there any particular image he has of Michael, Cordelia or Drum that  stands out? Something telling of who they were, what they were about?
7. Did he ever sail his tri back to the mainland and if so, can he share any written account of the voyage?
8. Was he ever interviewed by the FBI regarding M&C or does he know anyone who was?

These are questions that I have already sent to [deleted]. What is encouraging is that he seemed very easy to talk to and was not at all unwilling to participate as a source. No reply yet, but I'm confident he will.

I have let him know that the novel is developing very much along the lines of the discoveries I am making and that with his permission I intend to make use of the information he can provide me. So what can I use this information for?

Assuming that [deleted] will reply to my message, I expect I will have a wealth of detail to work with. At this point, I see that his perspective can some lifting against that of Seamus the websleuth in Drum. Jade may well "discover" that in fact there is no conspiracy, that Seamus is in fact off base entirely.

One thing I need to do is peruse the letters and photos for [deleted] and/or his boat. I believe it is the "big sister" that Mike mentions in reference to a photo of a bigger tri under sail.

So, regarding the balance of "source material" that Jade is using, the material can actually serve as personal ammunition against Seamus, whose theory is gradually taking over her own perspective. Her own perspective is what is at stake. She needs to move on with her life, and this connection with a potential ally represents a new connection to her past, a reboot.

It is this revival of her memory that she is looking for. It is this connection that she needs in order to effectively sever it, releasing herself not only from Drum, Michael & Cordelia, but from the tyranny of the story over her life. These observations can work to alleviate Jade's sense that Seamus is effectively hijacking Drum away from her again, handing it back to her so that she can claim it, more consciously now, then release it.

Invisible Elephant?

Late January, 2013

Here, as usual these days, am I trying to gather some sense of direction. I've been so busy lately, with no real time to to commit to Drum that it's depressing me. I feel that I've got to let a class go, although that would mean a drop in salary, something I can't afford to do right now. However, when I see what I need to be doing balanced against what I am doing, I see that something's gotta give.

When there isn't enough time for the writing I want to do, I tend to internalize the consequences, almost as if I were punishing myself. I see myself getting older and having not written anything, really, to show for all my passion. This is something that must change. How is it that I can keep moving in one direction without grasping or even attempting to grasp in my mind the many signals along the way pointing out the road ahead?

As I've mentioned before, I have set myself up in such a way that only one major goal can be achieved before any others. Publishing Drum is that goal. Yesterday, I was musing over something my mother observed of me once: "you've always done exactly what you've wanted to do." This is a true statement, though perhaps not in the way that she meant it, which was probably as a rebuke for my selfishness or reclusion.

It is this major goal of finishing and publishing Drum that is slowing me down, though, making me trudge and putter through my own mire of self doubt.

And there it is the evil elephant in the room. What are the ways I can kill it, or at least prod it back into its cage? It is this constant voice inside of me telling me how ridiculous--how ridicule-ous--that I would even attempt to be thought of as a writer. What claim have I on reality? Have I really suffered enough to have anything of value to say? I don't know what I'm doing so I should give up, spend my time on other pursuits. What the hell do I think I'm doing, anyway? This is the voice that haunts me. It is the voice of my mother, and perhaps my father; and even as I write those words I don't believe them. And yet, and yet.

And what of this elephant killing I mentioned? Interesting that the elephant, a symbol of memory, should be the thing that we ignore out of necessity. Here, reader, is Drum in a single drop.

My parents were always supportive of me the directions I chose, even when I began to part ways from their ideals. The unconditionality of their love remains a rock-solid model for me as a parent. But as their son--their youngest--I am ever under their thumb, as are we all of our parents. I suppose the trajectory of my life has been set largely as a result of my squirming out of that control into my own free range. Now, even at 50 years, I am wrestling with my mother over her incomprehension of me as a person. And Dad, even as we approach the 19th anniversary of your death, I am still trying to reach the expectations I know you had for me. Perhaps this, passive onlooker, is why you remain in my dreams.

And so, I suppose my self-doubt arises in part from the parental expectations within me to find myself and do something consequential: leave a positive mark on the world. At its core, this is what parenting is all about; on the other hand, there is my own struggle that must be borne out through action, and this, at its core, is what my writing is all about.

So, the elephant, perhaps less evil now though still in the room, has made his presence known.

Only child

Mid-January, 2013

There are mornings that present ideas to me, bright sparks in the undersea of sleep, that burn impossibly into wakefulness. The sheer insistence of their being is reason enough to get up and write them down.

Other mornings, the ideas are drowning embers. I am forced into wondering what the hell it was they once held to be so remembered, what it is to have once lived as an idea then to have vanished.

Is an idea alive? I pose the question morphologically. An idea is borne of of other ideas, progenitors, whose own existence is the natural consequence of a cascade of other thoughts based on observation, conditioning, desire.

The sun is rising and I have had only this idea in my head.

Nano post partum

Mid-January, 2013

Oh how I do miss Nano, though not sure why. I had been writing every day focusing on my wordcount, getting excited about making the progress I needed to make. Then it ended. I took my prize of 50% off the Scrivener program and then dropped off the edge of the written world.

Actually, I feel in a funk right now. I have a mounting obligation to plan for my English 101 class and as every day slips by with nothing being done toward that end, I am more and more perplexed with myself and what I call myself. So, here I am working out the the details as they appear to me. I'm not even certain that I have a grasp on these.

Feeling lost and incomplete at the moment. I need to spend some quality time in the next few days regrounding and rediscovering the direction I so recently had unearthed for myself.