The Comeback From My Most Recent Comeback

So this is yet another "I'm getting back to my writing" post, but, as has been the case in the past, we'll see. I recently purchased a laptop computer, which, some time after my previous computer purchase I realized would have been the better choice than what I purchased in that previous purchase (a desktop computer and an iPad). This will give me the full mobile functionality of a computer than my iPad gave me which, as I regrettably realized in the afterglow of the purchase, was little more than a glorified iPhone without the phone capability.

Anyhoo, this latest push to return to writing reflects a few new things on my table. Obviously, the laptop. Also, in April I started a new job with the same employer I started with in November of 2016, and am now the Executive Secretary to a department manager. There really isn't much to add about that. It's a desk job moving papers from one pile to other piles.

Late in the summer I started a modest fitness regimen. Seeing as how my foray ten years ago (TEN YEARS AGO?!) into the results-driven world of P-90X resulted in double shoulder injuries which my non-insurance-having status prevented me from getting properly diagnosed or treated, a reader could safely assume I'm not going in that direction again ...unless said reader assumes I'm stupid ...which I am, but I'm not that stupid!

No, this time around I'm getting my cardio in the form of early-morning, hour-long walks at roughly a fifteen-minute-mile pace, three days a week, and a fairly easy routine of weights work two days a week. The specific aim is to strengthen my shoulders, hoping that the injuries I sustained were due more to weak joint muscles than actual tearing of tissue; the general aim is overall fitness and muscle tone, as I have officially reached senior citizen status and I don't want the last vestiges of youth to escape me without a fight. In other words, late-stage mid-life crisis.

There are a few other new things to expound upon, some of which I haven't shared with my regular crowd(?) of friends or family, which will be revealed to the world here.

At first (he says, not exactly fully confident that he will return to Blogger again before another year has passed), this regrettably will amount to little more than an online diary of "whut I been up to," as, admittedly, the years of Facebook and being away from regularly blogging have affected my skill of contemplation. It is my hope that, as I think about writing and write what I think, my thinking will return to thinking and not just thinking about what I will write about next. Contemplation. Reflection. Word craft.

It's an odd thing. For nearly three years, I dated Donna, a perfectly lovely woman with whom things went sour and definitely not perfectly lovely, at which point we split. Upon parting, she requested that I not make our breakup public, or at least not make it fodder for Facebook posts. Out of respect for her, I honored her wish. However, I realized that, as a creature of Facebook, most of what I had posted during our time together revolved around our relationship. I had stopped, for the most part, parsing my day-to-day experiences to the world and had turned my focus to us. When there was no longer an us, I realized I had forgotten how to share. However, seeing as how, prior to my relationship with Donna, I posted SO MUCH on Facebook, I saw my distance from it as a good thing. The problem was that, as Facebook had taken me away from blogging, Donna and the aftermath of our relationship had taken me away from the practice of daily contemplation and reflection.

I have been desperately trying to feel that drive again.

I hope this new toy will rekindle it.



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A Matter of Suspense

I signed up for Netflix last week. It’s a two-week trial, but I know I’ll keep it. When I was married (still am, technically) we lost the desire to go to see movies. What’s the point of spending twenty bucks on tickets and getting raped for what amounts to a scoop of popcorn and two cups of bubble-y sugar water, only to sit in a room full of rude, noisy people who can’t shut up when the actors are talking?

And then, while we had the time and energy to sit and stare at the TV set, we didn’t want to set our favorite shows aside to watch movies. At least not that often.

But now I’m in a determined effort to catch up on seven years of missed movies!

And that brings up what I’ve been thinking about for the past few days, probably the most important element to making a successful book or film or television show: the suspension of disbelief.

People have been writing fiction and other people have been lapping it up since the first ink was set to papyrus in the Old Testament, and beyond. What magic it is that a skilled wordsmith can use the same letters as you and I, the same words in our collective vocabulary, and spin a tale to make our hearts race or our hair stand on end, or bring us to the heights of laughter or the depths of sorrow!

We’ve all been there; anyone who can read has read, and has experienced a world of sensations beyond anything we’ve done, yet entirely contained within our brains!

I’ve never watched the action-adventure serial 24 on television. I’ve only experienced the program at my whim via DVD player. I know the people I see on the screen are merely highly paid actors following a script. I know that the setting is a mocked up room within a much larger room, and that none of the computers or phones are hooked up to anything beyond the walls and in the real world. I know that the scenarios presented to me are the products of a group of very active and clever imaginations and, further, stretch the boundaries of plausibility. And yet, the story that script tells the actors to tell, the scenarios in which the characters find themselves, grab me by the throat and pull me in! The program can be addictive, and I will sometimes sit and watch four episodes back to back! On a school night!!

At what point in the expository scenes do we accept the terms of the tale? What determines the breaking point where an implausibility is ignored or is dwelled upon, where the story is moved along or it is ruined for us?

As an aspiring writer I find fascinating the challenge to imagine a scenario that is interesting enough, and to string together the right combination of words in the right order to bring a reader into my story and ignore its flaws and stretches and fantasies, and to BELIEVE. And to stay to the end.

May I someday meet that challenge.