Yes, Daughter, there is still a Santa Claus

Late night thoughts on Childhood Beliefs

Note; It’s been nearly 6 weeks since I’ve written anything of substance. The cycle repeats. Inspiration, Dedication, Insecurity, Shame, Confidence. If I’m lucky, sometimes I’m able to replace Shame with some Editing. I shouldn’t feel insecure about what I do, I know it’s good. But I lack validation and the desire to seek out the validation, so I have let my dreams sit for the summer, enjoyed it with my children, for the summers do go fast and they are both starting school this year and my memory is slipping faster than they are growing.

I love my daughter. She’s nine. She told her mom a few days ago that she’s starting to have suspicions about Santa Claus. She didn’t say that directly, she was making an observation. “You know, Santa seems to only have toys that you could also buy in Walmart.”

I’m like… wow. But you, as a parent, have to keep that dream alive, you know? What do you do? Bring down the house of cards that is Santa Claus? 

WIP Inspiration 3

I encountered the word kismet yesterday and feel it deserves some recognition in the book - currently basing it as a discussion of kismet vs karma. Perhaps between Steele and Ruby. However, that confrontation isn't part of Karmageddon but more on Steele's spin-off - the Book of Steele.

I'd like to return to writing that but if I did I'd never get Karmageddon print-ready in case the traditional publisher rejects it.

Sad I'm already thinking it's going to be rejected - In Michener's the Novel, he insinuates only 3 out of 900 slush-pile books get referred up the chain.

I don't know how this surging of self-published books are affecting that pile - maybe it's less to pick through? I don't know. Either way, a lot online that a writer's yearly income is lucky to break $10,000/yr.

I am thinking of getting out of the self-publish forums, too self-defeating. I read about someone who is making thousands a month, read a sample of their work and think 'are you kidding me?' Most of self-published I've read seems to simply be the slush pile.

But back to editing...

WIP Inspiration 2

One thing that has been bothering me throughout the X amount of months I've spent on this book is the attempt to make 'smoking' Karma sound legit. In a day of edibles, pipes, bongs and god knows what else, using the word joint, or simply the act of my characters smoking a joint seems so ... juvenile and crass. Yet, calling them Karma cigarettes - which I often refer to them as with packaging, social habit etc seems too ... dated.

So today I was editing K2 when I had the idea to call them Karma Sticks. I realize just as I write this that smokes have also been referred to cancer sticks so ... I like it.

Now, I just need to do a simple search for every use of the word Karma or Karmajuana in K2 and determine if it justifies adding stick to the end of it.

And that's part of my process.

In other news, I spent 3 hours on Sunday guarding someone who was run over by a train. At least, the parts that were left of him. Right now I think I have some PTSD going on so at least I have that going for me...

Our debriefing included a man who told us there is a difference between remembering and revisiting what happened and to watch how our brain reacts to being normal in an abnormal situation.

Takes me back to these thoughts which I will probably be revisiting with a therapist later.

'Where do your ideas come from?' a short bonus feature for the next WIP

Not that anyone asked me this yet, but the question does bother me. Writing isn't easy for me. It isn't easy because I don't write generic genre stuff. I don't write about the good guy chases the bad guy in the world of global espionage nor do I write about On Golden Pond stuff where boy meets girl, boy marries girl after difficult romantic courtship. I don't think I write much about great insights to modern behavior or society.

Anyways, I digress. I wanted to remember this moment as I'm having trouble with a story and this could be part of an 'extras' feature, like they did with DVDs, some bonus content at the end of the book. Maybe this is a turning point (nah) but I guess it does help give a hint or two as to my process in writing this stuff that I question people would want to even read in the first place.

I have a man returning (under extenuating circumstances) to the town where his ex lives. People think he ran out on her, as he simply disappeared one day and never came back. They had a fight over procreating (she for, he against) and that was the last they saw of each other. 

Now, he just came out of the woods to discover the world went full-nuclear. There is no more society as we know it anymore. Nobody wants to tell him 'the news' and thinks it should be her to tell him.

That's not really a spoiler as that is pretty much the first thing he finds out so he's already adjusting to that. 

The question was, what could be so hard to hear after he's been told that the world is basically a radioactive wasteland that nobody wants to tell him?

Now, the immediate thought i think readers would have is that she is pregnant. I don't want to do that because it's completely cliche, and the man has had a vasectomy. I mean, it creates drama, it's part of the reason why he disappeared and adds in the 'well, whose kid is it then?' But then again, he's only been gone for maximum three weeks, so she really wouldn't be showing or anything yet.

So I've been racking my thoughts as to what could be so important that he has to be told personally by this woman but yet the whole town appears to already know.

It took me about three days idly returning to this question.

Then I got it today, just driving home from work. It might change but this is the best I have so far and I'm looking forward to writing the confrontation these two wind up having when he finally finds out what nobody else would tell him; she's dating someone else. It's such a paltry thing in the big picture of the Nuclear Apocalypse. I had thought perhaps maybe she got a couple of cats. But that doesn't seem worthy enough of everyone keeping that info away from the guy.

Yeah, this could work.

edit; I'm liking the idea she has a few cats better...

My bookshelf

I have a bookshelf. Everyone should be so lucky.

Actually 5 bookshelves. They are the length of closet doors, because that is what they are. That is also why I can't call it a bookcase. The shelves are full, with books I have read. Most of them only once but liked enough to keep, thinking one day I will read them again.

I think what you read says a lot about if we could be friends. I think my books say a lot about me.

Let me check out your bookshelf and I believe I will get a glimpse into your soul.

Look at my shelf and it's a clusterfuck of authors, subjects and genres... which is appropriate.

I am barely holding on here.

At one time, I built these shelves, for the specific purpose of making a home for my book collection. They were organized in some way now lost. Was it by author or subject matter?

The shelves, like myself, have become disorganized. I look back on these shelves, dissecting them, much like my life, what choices made me do this? Why are they there? When did I start stuff books anywhere there was space?

What was my original intention with that top shelf?

Perhaps that was where the 'classics' were to be. There was my Steinbeck, Asimov, Hesse, Wolfe. But then again, why is there a Mastering The Tarot book, sandwiched between a single serving of Tolkien (a hardcover 74th printing of The Two Towers (1983) I bought for a quarter at the Mission 2nd hand store) and Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch (better known as the Tarantino movie Jackie Brown)?

And why is 1 Harry Potter book and a Richler book on top of two Terry Pratchetts? Why are they with the Winston Churchill biography trilogy? The only thing separating the two is a sci-fi 'Hall of Fame' anthology (1971) I keep solely because it has Flowers for Algeron in it, a legendary story I only read a couple of years ago and was kinda 'meh' about.

At least still perchedon the top-right corner are my memories; about a dozen notebooks from years past, story ideas and memories waiting to be re-discovered, analyzed, considered. There's also a copy of the Joy of Sex under all that, because... I was single once.

Is that good those notebooks remain untouched, when so much of the rest has been tampered with?

On my second shelf, the 'eyeline' shelf for me, which I would think should be my favourites, are books organized again mysterious to my reasoning.

From the left there are a few hard-cover books, most over 75 years old if I go by their spines. Great, I get that - high enough to imply value if I ever become a book-collector/seller and also to keep out of toddler hands. But then there is a pile of financial books which I doubt I will ever read (again). It takes money to care about keeping money.

Then a few pretentious names to keep you interested; Philip Dick, Chuck Palaniuk, Ayn Rand. A couple books on accepting I'm a writer and how to deal with it. Dead center of the shelf is my current fav contemporary writer, Patrick DeWitt and his three books.

Beside him, my humour section. Woody Allen, Carl Reiner short stories. Will Ferguson devolves into a Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. That is bordered on the right by my 'spiritual section' in case I ever want to read more about Taoism or How to Win Friends.

Third shelf - I remember this is for my pocket books as the height is quite short. I'm thinking this uneven spacing needs to change if I am going to organize this mess. I have a lot of Discworld on this shelf, altogether. A sign of respect for honestly most influentialBut then I have some Vonnegut and Brave New World. A bunch of Malcolm Gladwell books separates the books from the few cassette tapes I have remaining from that part of my past.

I'm getting tired. So much to dissect.

Fourth shelf - the bigger books, too large to fit on my paperback shelf. These range from The Shining (2 copies) to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Anthology.  I recall this was to be my 'books made into movies' section, which explains why Gone Girl is beside Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Princess Bride beside American Hero (rebranded Wag the Dog for Hollywood purposes). There's also Silence of the Lambs and Cloud Atlas and my in-joke copy of God Hates Us All, the meta-book within a TV series, Californication, written by 'Hank Moody'. 

But that segment is cut off by the few Ender saga books I have found in bookstores by Orson Scott Card. Then it goes back into my over-sized Vonnegut, a copy of Geek Love found under the Free Books Tree in my neighbourhood. Fencing that off is my stack of sports-related books, mostly hockey. Now I'm seeing the subjects; the social consciousness pile, Shock Doctrine, a Leonard Cohen biography sandwiches some Noam Chomsky and 2 wildly different biographies of Howard Hughes. A Pat Riley Life Coaching dips into my Pierre Burton historical Canadiana books. I enjoy historical fiction but don't go out of my way to find it. Beside Burton is the collection of James Michener books/volumes read and still waiting to be read. Chesapeake, Alaska, Space, all bought for 50 cents each. As for cost per word, you can't get a better deal than this.

I am getting OCD just looking at this... 

Finally, on the bottom shelf, there are my textbooks, coffee-table books too large to fit elsewhere. My collection of Calvin and Hobbes, my Star Wars trilogy storybooks, which is probably worth quite a few bucks nowadays. Yet, there they are, bottom shelf. Surprised they weren't destroyed by curious fingers yet. A quick Internet search reveals some for sale on ebay, roughly $10 each.

Guess that new sailboat will have to wait...

Beside the fantastical X-Men anthology, Macbeth adaptation and V for Vendetta (graphic novels, not comic books I remind myself) there is a very interesting illustrated book called Great Moments In Medicine. The corners have been nibbled on by mice years ago when I had so many of these in storage as they waited for me to put down roots. This is where I learned they used to put boiling tar into bullet wounds during the American Civil War until some doctor decided that probably wasn't helping.

There's always a lesson if you read long enough.

My last two books are Lady Cottingham's Pressed Fairy book, a book I never gave to a long-ago crush and a textbook on Criminal Behavior. Perhaps there is a link? Then it devolves into photo albums, another nostalgic memory from decades ago.

But then... stashed behind those snapshots is another memory vault. My collection of childhood hard-cover Hardy Boy books, twenty-some in total. Back when I thought Franklin W. Dixon was a real person and had no idea what a coupe was, no matter how many times it followed Frank and Joe. Turns out it was a type of car. Memories. 

I thought at one time I would be giving them to my son. Thankfully, life made it so I have two. However, my first doesn't live with me and is a great reader, probably too far ahead of the pop curve what with his Harry Potter series, anime and Youtube channel. I doubt he would ever get hooked on two teenage detectives.

Perhaps my younger will be interested. However, that is many years away yet until he will be able to read.

I really need to organize this... but there you go - a quick glimpse into my book shelf.