I was having major problems with writing my plot synopsis. Major–Problems. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the structure. And it seemed the more sources I turned to for help, the more confounded I became. Every book, every article, every writer told me a different approach, a different layout. They all told me what to do and what not to do, and every single one of their rules conflicted with someone else’s. Apparently, there’s no blueprint for one of these things, no set way of doing it. And, to make matters worse, agents and publishers appear to have their own undisclosed preferences for how it’s done.

Every time I valiantly sat down to hammer it out, a clamor of voices arose in my head, telling me, “Don’t forget this!” or “You don’t need that in there!” All the while another, much more irritating voice chimed in, bemoaning the lack of interesting content. This voice is my constant companion when I write, the one that absolutely refuses to let me get out a rough draft before starting in on me, the one that gets its rocks off by making me feel short even next to a grain of sand. Six times I started the summary. Six times I threw it all away. In between disastrous attempts, I ran back to the internet and to my pile of books, wondering what in the world I did wrong this time.

Yesterday, in utter desperation, I cast aside all of that hard-earned, shared knowledge and turned off my brain. Yep. Shut down the whole operation. I turned myself on auto pilot and didn’t let my consciousness come back online until about thirty minutes ago. And, you know what? The rough draft of my outline is done. It seems I work best when I listen to no one — not even myself. Now, before I begin the self-congratulations, I have to admit I haven’t read over it, yet. There is still a small chance that I was speaking in tongues, or channeling some dead housewife who’s afraid her husband is letting her mink stole go to the moths, or that I was engaging in some sort of Jack Torrence-esque tirade. But, barring any of those, I think I just might have enough decent material to make the agents not want to use my pitch package as fuel for their next beach bonfire.

I was four, maybe five, and it was May 30. Not only was it memorial day back in the seventies, but it was my birthday. The memories of the entire day have hazed, most likely the truest, clearest parts have been woven into my memories with the aid of our family photo album. But, I do remember waking up very early and very excited. I must have bugged my sister, because she went into my parents room and asked if there was something she could give me — presumably to shut me up for another hour or so. She came back with an oddly shaped package in thin tissue paper. I tore it apart, breathless with anticipation. It was a sandbox play set, complete with sifter, rake, shovel, and a bucket with eyes on it. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t go out to play in my sandbox for hours, or that there was little to do with it other than comb the shag carpeting with the rake; I was happy — for a while.

The day wore on and my impatience grew. We had to wait for my grandmother to walk the mere distance of two houses to join the celebration, and I guess for the neighbor kid who was my sister’s friend to come over (he’s in the photos, but I don’t really remember him being there). I can’t recall what we had to eat, or what kind of cake I had. I don’t even remember (parents and Mom Mom forgive my poor memory) any of the other gifts. I only remember one. The One. It was the most perfect, amazing present a kid could ever have —

The Weeble Tree House.

I tore off the paper and it was as if angels had suddenly burst into song and rolled back the thick gray clouds to let the golden rays of the sun beam down upon me. Along with the two, properly choking-sized (hey, it was the seventies, man), hippie Weebles, the tree house came with a yellow basket swing hooked to a wench, a picnic table, a hidden door in the tree’s trunk, and — silly seeming to my preschooler brain — an orange window set smack in the sunshine yellow roof. It wasn’t particularly large, or elaborate. There were no batteries, and very few moving parts. But, man, it was cool.

I played with that thing all day, and for many days after. It is the gift that immediately comes to mind even now when I think of my birthday. It is the one that, despite my young age and underdeveloped memory-retention skills at the time, has managed to stick in my mind as the present of all presents. And it is the day that all other birthdays must hold their own against in comparison. Every year I move farther away from that day, from being that elated kid with the incredible new toy. But, there will always be something inside me that hopes to have just one more birthday like that, one more Weeble Tree House day.

It’s beautiful out, finally. I have all the windows open and a cool breeze is blowing in. The birds are chirping and — for a short period of time — I have to pay for neither heat nor air conditioning. It’s really wonderful, except for one thing. Neighbors.

I live in a small historic district where graceful Victorians with secret doors and turreted rooms lord over the smaller, more economical boxes of the nineteen twenties and thirties. The yards range from reasonably large to postage stamp. Many people with the latter have chosen to sacrifice their sole patch of green for a driveway. Our own house is long and narrow. The front yard barely qualifies as such and the side yards are barely ten feet each. There is no backyard, only our garage and then a small gravel driveway leading to the next house. We’re on a corner, so a long sidewalk extends down one side of our yard, passing over the brick driveway, and on to the next two houses that are so tiny and close together they look like a single structure. The quarters can be tight sometimes, and with a window on each side of every room, I generally feel like a fish in a bowl on days like these.

Charles wrote a good post yesterday on distractions, and it was as if everyone in the neighborhood came out to remind me of my omission of them in my comment on his page. Picture me here, diligently writing with a window at my back and a screen door to my face. In front of me, two kids are playing on their scooters, too busy looking at my cats in the window to mind where they’re going. Of course, one plows directly into the side of someone’s car, and the screaming of bloody murder ensues. At my back are two tiny yapping dogs. Their owners, also outside, are yelling at one another. One has a voice with a pitch that will grate down your spine like steel talons. The other is deaf. Or mostly deaf. So the yelling is not just loud, it’s supersonic. And all the while, “Bark, bark, bark. Bark, bark, bark, bark. Bark-bark-bark.” Pause. “Barkbarkbarkbarkbark.” There are three big churches one street over (two of which are pictured above), and each has it’s own electronic chime. The dogs finally stop, but it’s now six, and the bells start. I’m hit with a cacophony of “Nearer My God to Thee,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and some other song unidentifiable to me because of my stellar lack of participation in church. That gets the dogs going again. And I head for the nearest, biggest glass of wine.

I dream of a big modern house with a Japanese style interior courtyard, secluded gardens of gnarled trees and mossy rocks, and a water feature that edges the foundation like a mini-moat. I dream of sitting outside and not having someone see my movement through the fence and start talking to me. I dream of people not addressing me in my house just because they’re walking by and — by virtue of the ridiculously short distance between my door and the sidewalk — can see me sitting inside. Still, I know when I leave here, I’ll miss it. Maybe not the distraction level, but the nice peace that manages to settle in when the kids are at school, the neighbors are at work and the dogs are sleeping happily in the sun. Then, I can hear the birds chirping in the trees and the seagulls crying high overhead. Sometimes I can even hear the wind rushing through the massive pine tree in the side yard. Then, it’s actually pretty nice.

God’s a funny, funny dude.

The transmission in the truck is now shot.

Can you hear me laughing?

I’ve been reading Inkheart, the young people’s book by Cornelia Funke. It’s a tale about a man who can read characters out of the pages of books. The story seems to be heading in the direction that his young daughter can do this, too, and is at some point probably going to have to do it to save her dad (that’s all speculation; I’m not very far into it).

This led me to wonder just who would I want to conjure out of the pages of a book if I had the talent. Below is my short list, and the reasons for doing so:

1) Merlin. I mean, hey, it’s Merlin. How could I not want to spend some time getting to know the wizard responsible for King Arthur’s ascent to greatness? I’d have to pick two of him, though, from both The Once and Future King (fun Merlin) and The Mists of Avalon (cool, Druid Merlin).

2) Castle Rock sheriff, Alan Pangborn. That man could chill the blood of legions of partygoers with his stories. Plus, why not hang with the guy who’s seen it all? He’s got to have nerves of steel by now.

3) Hamlet. Although I’m sure I’d regret almost immediately. “Jeez, would you just shut up for two seconds, Hamlet? Just two? No? Oh, okay. Then just do it! Just go kill yourself, already.”

4) Elphaba from Gregory MacGuire’s Wicked. That much attitude shouldn’t be restricted to the pages of a book.

5) Aragorn, but only if I could read him out of the book earlier than when the book started, when he was a Ranger. I want to know what all that was about, how one became a Ranger and what the job entailed. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t checking fishing licenses and stopping people from getting their freak on in the woods.

6) Jules, the Fat White Vampire of Andrew Fox. He’s a vampire — cool. He’s also morbidly obese (aiding in my ability to run away) and doesn’t like the taste of blood from people outside New Orleans. So, the whole meet-the-vampire-but-don’t-get-eaten thing is a lot easier with him.

7) Rumpelstiltskin. It’s a old, childhood thing.

I’m tempted to list some of the Big Bads like Pennywise, Voldemort, or Randall Flagg (The Walkin’ Dude), but, they’d smear me all over the wall before I’d get my chance to play twenty questions. They’re better off where they are. And so am I.

Now for the list of who I don’t want to come out, ever:

1) Laurell Hamilton’s Anita Blake. That woman has magic-related issues where she just has to have sex with whoever is at hand. Don’t want to be standing there when it’s just me and some Quasimodo pizza guy.

2) Hannibal Lecter. I really don’t think I need to explain. I think I’ll chuck Buffalo Bill/Jame Gumb in there for good measure, too.

3) Carrie’s mother. She’s not the one with the telekinetic power, I know, but she’s waaay scarier in her own right. You just can’t reason with people like that.

4) Dracula. For all the opposite reasons of wanting to meet Jules Duchon (above).

5) Any of Poppy Z. Brite’s characters. I’ve seen enough goths, thanks, and Chartreuse is totally overrated.

What about you? What character would you dare draw from the pages of your favorite text? For fun’s sake, I’ll also allow movies, TV shows and video games.

Since we’re doing that, I’d like to add Sidney Bristow and Julian Sark from Alias. They’d be my own private Rock’em Sock’em Robots.

It’s a movie star!

Yep. My Explorer (before the dented hood) was in Tuck Everlasting.

Okay. Watch the boring preview for the movie that’s already been out for years. Wait until almost the end, after they show the title. The horse drawn carriages start to fade to cars. Coming up the street, straight towards the camera, just as it starts to fade away — is my truck. Ahh, the fame and glory.

The location was Berlin, Maryland, a small town here on the eastern shore also known as the location of The Runaway Bride. Because of a contact in the movie industry, The Architect and I got to sit on the set on one of the hottest days on the planet and watch a car-load of teens drive our truck in circles around the block as they filmed shot after shot. We got to see one set hand call another a “Primadonna prick,” and that was the highlight of excitement for the day — well, that and getting to eat from the craft services table (Twizzlers taste so much better when they’re intended for famous people). Sadly, the only person anywhere a near celebrity was the stunt double, who drove the hero’s motorcycle while having a spectacularly bad wig planted on his head. At the prompting of barked orders over a megaphone, sweaty extras walked the street acting casual and then went back to walk again. Cars were lined up and sent down the road via my most excellent car wrangling contact only to later loop around the block and repeat the tedious process.

By the end of the day, I was hovering near heat stroke and wondering what would drive any sane person into the movie business. So much work went into shooting a tiny scene that the audience would see for only a second or two. And the repetition! It was like a bad re-enactment of Groundhog Day (now that I think of it, that movie must have been horrible, shooting over and over the already repetitive scenes). Still, it was a unique experience, and one that fixed my little Explorer onto the timeless glory of celluloid.

Sometimes it seems all we’re doing is sitting on this planet, waiting as it spins. Whether we’re waiting to become its next crop of fertilizer, or if we’re waiting for some other, greater, reward, at times it feels like we’re only here long enough to eventually be forgotten. Only the great can make their mark. Only the powerful or the truly gifted can rise from the masses and etch themselves on the face of history. Only the elite, the seemingly pre-chosen few, can alter the course of others’ lives. And those people know who they are, and by the time we reach a certain age, most of us realize we’re not one of them.

I thought about this yesterday while sitting in the memorial service for a friend’s ninety-nine year-old grandmother. As one-by-one the mourners stood to say their goodbyes to this seemingly ordinary woman, it became evident she had forever reshaped numerous lives with her mere presence. The Big People in the world like to say that it is they who make the largest difference, that it is they who mold the face of this world. They’re probably right. Still, many times the more important — the more deeply felt — change comes from those around us, from the ones striving to make their own life a better one. Whether its a parent determined to give their child what they never had, or a spouse desperate for a marriage to work when their own parents’ before them failed, it’s these alterations in the fabric of our existence that add up to a far greater whole than the history books can ever relate. The reverberations of these private efforts are the ones that hit us the hardest, that make us in turn want to place our own stamp during the short time allotted us on this twirling globe.

So, we spin, wait, and work. Even if we’re not consciously aware of it, we are indeed working to better this life we’re given, to improve the quality of the fate that’s been handed us. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we don’t. But it’s in trying that we shape ourselves, and others. I saw proof of this yesterday in the kind, wrinkled face of a bespectacled woman in a hazy photograph. I heard it in the quavering recollection of a motherless young woman raised and nurtured by her already aged grandmother. I felt it in the sadness hanging in the air around me, in the deafening silence of a roomful of people’s acknowledgment that a changing force had departed this earth for good. It was a humbling experience.

Yesterday reminded me that in my rush to take on the world, I need to remember everything is relative, and it won’t be the American definition for success that will make my life worth recalling when I’m gone, but rather the smaller, less widely noticed of my actions. After all, nothing is eternal. And what’s the worth of going down in the temporal pages of human legend if all of those who could actually remember me as a person couldn’t put their heads together and come up with one good thing to say?

I thought writing a book was tough. Well, it is, but nowhere near as difficult as writing the pitch package. I like to pretend I’m an interesting person with the ability to communicate very well with others via the written word, but if that’s the case, why can’t I figure out how to compose an engaging query letter than will make an agent less inclined to chuck the entire packet in the trash after the first six words? And why, oh why, can’t I manage to summarize my book in a way that takes up less space than the original manuscript?

It must all hearken back to grade school when we learned how to outline. Or, I should say, how the others learned to outline and I learned how to write numbered and lettered paragraphs. It’s true. I had (and am finding out I still have) the rampant inability to pick out the key facts even in my own work. I start out with the best intentions. I have a partially formed, hazy, single sentence hovering in my head, perfectly embodying the contents of the entire chapter. As soon as I try to put it on paper, though, my hand (or hands if typing), go into overdrive, flinging paragraphs onto the page while part of me is saying, “Stop! Stop! You’re doing it wrong!” while the other part screams, “But it’s all important!”

As my frustration with this new phase of my writing career grows, so does the nasty little idea that I’m somehow in over my head. But, if I take a step back and think about it, it’s the exact same feeling I had when I started writing the book, too. Once I get a handle on how to do this, it’ll be easier for me next time — just like with the novel (I’m hoping, at least; it’s not really a proven theory at this point). This is simply something new, and new things always take a while to work out. To be honest, the only time I’ve ever truly been in over my head (and it was way, way over my head) was when math was put in front of me. And this isn’t math. It’s a couple of letters, a few numbers and maybe a bullet point, or two.

I think I’ll view this experience as taking a hike up a long, difficult hill. Not in that cheesy, inspirational poster sense, but in the sense that it will suck the entire time I’m doing it, but, when its behind me and the aches and pains are gone, my brain will have managed to convince me that I had fun.

It’s funny how the universe works. I ask, “Should I be doing this now? Should I still be trying to get this book together? Or, should I give up this dream and find more gainful employment?” I sacrifice the requisite number of goats, and — with all the bravado of one who clearly knows nothing about the universe’s sense of humor — I clear my throat, push out my chest and say, “Give me a sign.”

The engine goes up in the Explorer.

The interesting thing about signs is they’re hard to read — both when one is a half-blind octogenarian attempting to drive down a one-way street and — as is the point in this case — when one is expecting to hear an answer from The Beyond. See, most people would assume that little trick meant I was clearly barking up the wrong totem pole. They’d argue that the high cost of replacing said auto, or its pricey broken bits and pieces, would clearly require one to abandon all hope. They’d tell me the gods are obviously frowning down upon this household — on one member in particular — and that I should remedy the situation immediately. For a moment, I kind of thought that too. For a brief, sweaty-panicked instant, I could even hear those gods’ voices in my brain.

“Donneth thy visor and get thee to McDonalds!”

Yeah. Maybe not.

But, the universe was indeed telling me something. “Get going,” would be the polite way to put it. “Stop fucking around,” would probably be more accurate. In the light of this I’ve done what any other normal, cowering peasant would in the face of an angered mass of imagined, yet feasome, gods — I did what I was told.

The short story — entitled Toothless, for the curious among you — was electronically submitted to the Writer’s Digest competition after about a hundred heart-pounding re-reads. Committing to actually pushing the ‘send’ button was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve done so far — the simple act of sitting at this desk and clicking the mouse suddenly turned me into the guy in the bunker getting ready to turn the red key. Happily, though, I survived, and am well enough to finish off and submit to magazines the second short story in the queue. But, the best of all is that Resonance is done. Yep. I actually mean it this time. I’ve turned my back on the endless parade of revisions and am now working on getting the plot outline and synopsis written. By the end of May, I’ll have had the first round of queries out to agents.

I suppose it takes a kick in the ass now and again to keep us on track. It gets easy at times to fall into complacency, to become comfortable saying, “I’m a writer,” while spending half of the day surfing the net, watching the cats sleep and taking trips to the refrigerator. The world outside is scary — and I remember it well. That big, ugly mess beyond the safety of my front door is what drove me here in the first place. But, in here there is nothing for me but the promise of an eventual cobwebby, cat-gnawed corpse propped in a no-longer new desk chair, desiccated fingers still clutching the mouse because they weren’t given anything more substantial to hold onto. Here seems safe because there are no goals to worry about failing to achieve. Yet, here sucks because there are no rewards — unless there’s some random trophy out there for a record number of times in a week a wool rug has been maniacally vacuumed. And the suckiness of Not Being outweighs any perceived safety of that cocooned existence any day.

So, I asked and I received. I said, “Is this right?” And the wise universe gave a roll of its eyes and an irritated snort, and then said, “For the last time, yes. Now hurry up or I’ll break something else.”

The car should be fixed by the end of today. We might have been able to swing car payments again. But, I like it that my old friend will be coming home. Others might look at my late-model, blue Ford Explorer with the dented hood and see just another of a hundred thousand exactly like it that have cruised the highways in the past eight years. I’ll look at it and know that beneath the fading paint and the slightly rusted ding rests a shiny new engine — an engine that signifies not a new start, but an extension of a beginning already granted, an engine that will now take it farther than it thought it could ever go.

I’m in a much more grounded place than when I wrote my last post. I apologize for dragging back into the light the thoughts of others that would have been better left in the dark from which they were spawned.

Part of my new mood is due to the total kick-assedness of Grindhouse. Rose McGowan was awesome in Planet Terror, but my admiration goes to (big surprise) Quentin Tarantino, who managed to take a girls-get-revenge movie and make it spectacular. The dialogue wasn’t as strong as it was in Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill. There were even some semi-funny/trying-too-hard references to Pulp Fiction thrown in. And, as usual, Tarantino’s cameos were hammy and cheesy (and probably any other breakfast sandwich reference one can come up with). Still, Kurt Russell pulled off the psychotic serial killer role with amazing ease, and the twist on his character at the end was perfect. Tarantino deftly split the movie into two separate stories, bound only by the thread of Kurt Russell and his Death Proof car, neatly dividing the film between the sad tale of the victims and the story of unflinching heroes who refused to be killed.

I can’t even explain just how much fun the whole experience was, with the flickering sound of movie reels, distressed film, funny-as-hell ‘previews’ (the pilgrim serial killer in Plymouth on “Thanksgiving” was hilarious). You just have to go see it.

But, the real reason for the elevation of my spirit comes from a more unlikely place — Steve Jobs, via his commencement speech for Stanford University grads in 2005. It kept me on track, reaffirmed the correctness of my decision to be here, doing this, just when outside events tried to shake me off.

I hope it gives the rest of you the same lift.

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech