B.M. Simpson's Blog, page 2

Write Here and Write Now

My wife flew back to the USA today and I’m following tomorrow. This of course means that tonight I can either snack on whatever is in the cupboard until I’m too full to eat dinner, or I can go out to eat. I chose the latter. So, I walked across the parking lot to Casa 43 and planted myself at the bar for a quick bite to eat and drink or two. This got me thinking about how many places I’ve eaten by myself over the years. And that led to me thinking about how many public places I have written over the years. More often than not, when I go somewhere by myself I end up writing. It’s just what I do.There are at least a couple cafés in northern Italy that I went to while visiting family. That was pretty cool and will never be forgotten. And, being we spent over three years in St Kitts I ventured out many times when the other half was gone. I can think of at least four or five bars/restaurants on that lovely island where I partook of food and beverage and then proceeded to bring out the paper and pen. We spent a couple years in Anguilla and I frequented the Ferry Boat Inn more than a few times on my own. But to be honest, there was more beer and friends than writing at the FBI. I don’t think I could begin to make a list of all the coffee shops I’ve visited all over the country through the years. And airports? I’ve lost track of all their echoing hallways and terminals where I’ve sipped coffee, or maybe a beer, and scribbled a few words or pages. NYC, LA, Baltimore, Washington, Austin, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Denver, San Juan, St Maarten, and a few more.Once upon a time I needed peace and quiet to write, but as the saying goes, I had to adapt or die. I adapted. When I’m in a bar or café or airport, I simply embrace the feeling that I’m part of the décor. The noises that were once an irritation now flow through me like the sounds of wind or rain on a warm summer day. When I eventually stopped trying to tune out the sounds, and I stopped trying to create the correct environment to write in, I started feeding off the energy that constantly surrounds us. After that, writing in public became easy for me. Music and clinking plates and waitresses calling orders or flight announcements or people carrying on conversations and a thousand other sounds are now not only not distracting, they have become my inspiration. Even a bartender asking me if he or she could get me something else to drink does not bother me in the least.So these days I don’t wait and search for the right time and place to write. The time is now. The place is here. And tonight, “here” is Casa 43 on Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman. And the guy in the picture is a minor super hero of sorts. His name is Taka and he brought me beer and tacos. What more could I ask for? Food, drink, a nice place to sit, and words to write. Nice.So, when and where is your favorite time to write?

Write, Here and Now

My wife flew back to the USA today and I’m following tomorrow. This of course means that tonight I can either snack on whatever is in the cupboard until I’m too full to eat dinner, or I can go out to eat. I chose the latter. So, I walked across the parking lot to Casa 43 and planted myself at the bar for a quick bite to eat and drink or two. This got me thinking about how many places I’ve eaten by myself over the years. And that led to me thinking about how many public places I have written over the years. More often than not, when I go somewhere by myself I end up writing. It’s just what I do.There are at least a couple cafés in northern Italy that I went to while visiting family. That was pretty cool and will never be forgotten. And, being we spent over three years in St Kitts I ventured out many times when the other half was gone. I can think of at least four or five bars/restaurants on that lovely island where I partook of food and beverage and then proceeded to bring out the paper and pen. We spent a couple years in Anguilla and I frequented the Ferry Boat Inn more than a few times on my own. But to be honest, there was more beer and friends than writing at the FBI. I don’t think I could begin to make a list of all the coffee shops I’ve visited all over the country through the years. And airports? I’ve lost track of all their echoing hallways and terminals where I’ve sipped coffee, or maybe a beer, and scribbled a few words or pages. NYC, LA, Baltimore, Washington, Austin, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Denver, San Juan, St Maarten, and a few more.Once upon a time I needed peace and quiet to write, but as the saying goes, I had to adapt or die. I adapted. When I’m in a bar or café or airport, I simply embrace the feeling that I’m part of the décor. The noises that were once an irritation now flow through me like the sounds of wind or rain on a warm summer day. When I eventually stopped trying to tune out the sounds, and I stopped trying to create the correct environment to write in, I started feeding off the energy that constantly surrounds us. After that, writing in public became easy for me. Conversations and clinking plates and waitresses calling orders or flight announcements or people carrying on conversations and a thousand other sounds are now not only not distracting, they have become my inspiration. Even a bartender asking me if he or she could get me something else to drink does not bother me in the least.So these days I don’t wait and search for the right time and place to write. The time is now. The place is here. And tonight, “here” is Casa 43 on Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman. And the guy in the picture is a minor super hero of sorts. His name is Taka and he brought me beer and tacos. What more could I ask for? Food, drink, a nice place to sit, and words to write. Nice.So, when and where is your favorite time to write?

Island Girl from the novel, Island Dogs

Warm exotic raindropsdripping sweet from island skiesgently landing, easing painon salty, sun drenched lips.Tropic breezes caress the blueas blackbirds lightly skimthen gently kiss the rising mistof the foaming white capped world.Complicated yet simpletangled blurry clarity.Her long and slender fingers pointto angels in the starsas whispers cut the silent darkand temptation lingers on.Fragrant scents of Jasmine lightdance thinly in the airwhile enchanting tones of coffee bronzeflow richly through her skinand salient flavors of passion fruithang enchanting from the limb.Cool nights set in,the warmth remainsDreams are vivid, yet come and go.Reality's perhaps illusionImagination perchance to know.

Walking On Water

My wife and I lived on a 35 foot sailboat a couple years ago. It was a great fourteen month adventure and we met a bunch of wonderful, or if not all wonderful, certainly unforgettable characters. I could easily fill page after page with funny stories that would befuddle normal folks.For instance, there were these two younger sailors (who will remain nameless to protect the guilty), who both had sailboats just a few slips away from ours. One day they decided to take a cruise around the bay in a ten foot sailboat that one of them used as a dinghy. The winds were up, the skies were blue, the water was flat, and all in all it was a great day for an afternoon sail. It’s worth mentioning that prior to the sail there was likely a generous amount of beer and/or rum consumed. And there is more than a 50/50 chance that something may have been smoked, just to get them into the proper sailing mood. So, they climbed on the tiny boat, pushed off, raised the sail, and off they went toward the not too distant horizon.The boat healed to the side and skipped along the top of the water. The sails were full and life was good as they cruised across the waters of Tampa Bay. Larger sailboats drifted off in the distance. A cruise ship plugged slowly along the channel heading under the Skyway Bridge to the Gulf of Mexico. Powerboats buzzed around off in the distance. Their tiny boat was only a few hundred yards from shore, staying far from harms way. The winds were warm and life was good. That’s when something strange happened. That’s when Brendan, (Forget anonymity. I’m outing them.), that’s when he looked over the bow and stared at some unexplainable phenomenon.“Hey man. Look at them birds standing on top of the water,” Brendan said as his watched the strange, magical birds that could stand on top of the water.“What,” was all James could muster.“Right there. Look at them,” he said again as the magical birds continued their Jesus walk in Tampa Bay.“Oh SHIT!” was all James could spit out before his tiny boat ran aground.It turned out that the Jesus birds just had ten inch legs and were standing in four inches of water. The good news was that after the two master sailors stopped rolling around the bottom of the boat and after they stopped laughing and regained their professional sailor composure, it only took a few minutes to push the tiny boat off the sand bar. The Jesus birds paid them no attention.

Life... It's Easier Than You Think

I was doing some research on the internet for my next book and something caught my eye. Have you ever noticed how many times we are told that just about everything we aspire to do is “easier than you think”? If we’re not told in those exact words, we’re told in a message that says the same thing. You know, like “Flying To The Moon Made Easy” or “The Simple Way To Fly To The Moon” or some other overly simplistic explanation of how to accomplish something that appears, at least in my mind, to be quite difficult. I could be wrong, but after spending only fifteen or twenty minutes of digging I realized that unless by some slight chance the internet folks are mistaken or just blowing smoke, just about everything you could ever imagine doing is easier than you think. That’s the message I got.“Building You Own Web Page Is Easier Than You Think.”, “Lowering Your Blood Pressure Is Easier Than You Think.”“Getting A Job Is Easier Than You Think.”“Becoming Wealthy Is Easier Than You Think.”“Losing Weight Is Easier Than You Think.”"Understanding Religion, Running a Non-Profit, Going Green, Burglary Protection, Marriage, Learning Russian, Meditation, Blogging, Gaming, Cloud Integration (I don’t even know what that is), Green Nanotechnology (that’s right. Whatever that is, it’s easier than you think), Starting A Business, Buying A Home, Staying Healthy In Barcelona (I didn’t read the article, but it sounds as if staying healthy in Spain may be different than staying healthy in other parts of the world), Learning To Fly, and my all-time favorite, Life Can Be Easier Than You Think."I could do this all day because creating a list of things that are “easier than you think” is a whole bunch easier than you think.What seems to be a lot harder than creating an “easier than you think” list, is actually doing the things on the “easier than you think” list. I’ve built my own webpage. In fact I’ve built a couple of amateurish ones and I’ve yet to build a particularly good one. You wanna know why? It’s because building a GOOD web page can be harder than you think. I’ve got naturally low blood pressure so I’ll skip that one, but getting a job is a bit like building a web page. It’s easy to get a lousy job. Getting a good job may be harder than you think. It takes work and perseverance. It usually takes having a bit of experience or a college education, or both. It would seem to me if becoming wealthy was easier than you think, there would be a lot more wealthy people. Jus sayin. America is at an all-time high for obesity and according to the internet, we’re fat for no other apparent reason. After all, losing weight is easier than you think. After that one, the list just took off and it didn’t take long for me to realize that I could make a fifty page list that encompassed just about everything imaginable, and guess what? It’s all easier to do that I thought it was.The best one was “Life Can Be Easier Than You Think.” The same life that is filled up with things like families and jobs and religion and wars and integrating into the cloud and losing weight and building a webpage and learning Russian and starting a business and of course Green Nanotechnology… it’s all easier than you think.So the next time you get overwhelmed and you are looking for a way to make things simple, just go to the web. All the simplification answers are out there. And finding them is “easier than you think.”

The Search For Home

A place to lay my head I searchto dream my dreams so sweet.A bough or branch for me to perch,to rest my weary feet.For endless time it seems I’ve roamedto places near and far,to find the dream I’ve heard called home,I’ve wished upon the starsI’ve drifted west and then back eastand the wandering goes on,the wandering in me.Yet in northern snow and southern heatI’ve found no home,no home to be.But still I look and look I willpast mountains and valleys and waters so still.And if by chance I find that placewhich God above has blessed with grace,where in my heart I find just a traceof peace and hope and love,then I’ll close my eyes and rest my headand be joyful that at last I knowI’ve reach the place which I often dreamtI’ve reached the place called Home

Cliff Diving and Writing

When I was in high school I spent some unforgettable afternoons jumping off the cliffs at an old abandoned rock quarry in my hometown. The sky was blue, the sun was bright, the air was warmir hands went together and into the water with the precision of an artist. Amazing. , and the water was nearly frozen ice cold. The cliffs were forty-feet of jagged granite edges and boulders, and there were some spectacular dives. Some were spectacularly good dives. Others spectacularly bad.I was one of the not so spectacular dive guys. My style was to run hard to the edge and jump without stopping to think about it. Off the cliff, into the air, loud scream, and then splashdown. No frills. No spills. Every once in a while someone would dazzle us with a beautiful swan dive. How they could become airborne with arms spread like wings, and then (this is the part that amazed me) they somehow got their body to move in the exact arc that at some point they aimed perfectly straight towards the water was mind boggling to me. At the last moment, theThe divers the most fun to watch were the newbies and the show-off’s. The newbies would jump with their arms sticking straight out into the air hoping the move would help them maintain their balance. From a hundred yards away, you could hear their arms slap hard against the water. A few seconds later the instant red sunburn on the bottom side of their arms looked like some sort of strange red tattoo. The typical show off’s mistake was classic. First they came to the edge of the cliffs, looked around to make sure all of us were watching, and then they leapt into the air showing their perfect swan dive. They would go airborne, spread their arms like wings, form the perfect arc to head straight for the water, but then more often than not, their dive kept arcing and before you knew it, they landed flat on their backs in the water from forty feet above. Anyone watching couldn’t help but cringe. It wasn’t a mistake the same diver would make more than once.In a lot of ways diving in the quarry wasn’t that much different than writing. First, we prepared. We got beer and ice and took the journey up the mountain. In writing we get pen and paper or laptop and journey off to wherever it is that we write. Then we would climb to the edge of the cliff and look at the water below. In writing we sit down and look at the blank page. And then the most important step. We either leapt into water or we didn’t. And once we leapt, there was no guarantee of the results. Something amazing or horrible were both possible, but the only way to find out was to step off the cliff and give it a shot.Far too many writers look for the perfect moment or perfect phrase or perfect word to start their writing. But writing is like cliff jumping or cliff diving. It just won’t happen if you don’t take the first step. Flannery O’Connor once said, “I write to discover what I know.” In some ways I suppose he is saying he didn’t know exactly what he was going to write before he wrote it. With an idea in mind, a swan dive or a cannonball, he stepped off the cliff and began to write. Only time would tell what the results of the first big step would be.The first step can be the hardest step, but the only way to guarantee the results is to not take it. The tragic or beautiful swan dive will not happen without the first step off the edge of the rocks. The page will remain blank if you don’t write the first word. And the only way to improve is to have some bad results along the way. Take the first step. Jump off the cliff, scream loudly, and write something amazingly good or amazingly bad or somewhere in between. But write.

Does A Title Tell The Story?

Does a title tell the story? More often than not, the answer is No. In actuality, it’s the story that tells the title. Or perhaps even better said, the story brings the title to life. Not long ago, someone mentioned to my wife, “You should know what a book is about from reading the title.” He thought of himself as a helpful critic, yet he didn’t take the time to consider that the titles Moby Dick or Animal Farm didn’t exactly give away the storyline on their front cover.We have all heard, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” but you never hear, “You can’t judge a book by its title.” The simple truth is, the title is the cover of most books. While there may be some artwork, the title is what everyone gravitates to once they get past the colors and pictures. Whether you’ve noticed it or not, the title is often a meaningless word until you read at least a bit more. If there’s a brightly colored book that catches your eye and you pick it up and the title says Cats! Cats! Cats!, you would probably put it back down if cats were not your thing. But what if the title was Clarence, Tanja and Sly? What would you do then?There are plenty of titles that bring no vision to one’s mind until you at least read the synopsis. If two brand new published books came out today and one was called, “The Rise and Fall of Seattle,” and the second was called, “The Catcher in the Rye,” we would have no idea what the second book was about by simply reading the title. Then again, without the good fortune of already having knowledge of the following classics, we would have no idea what Anna Karenina, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, Hamlet, Don Quixote, or Catch-22 were about. To get even the most vague idea of the story behind a title, we would have to read the back cover to put a face or a place or a time period or a subject to the title. The synopsis or summary or back cover or whatever you want to call it, is where books are sold.If you believe the titles above are too dated to be relevant, writers should be encouraged when looking at some successful 2018 books that left us clueless after reading only the title. Freshwater, Crudo, There There, Red Clocks, Asymmetry, and The Mars Room. Without reading them or hearing about them or seeing some PR about them, you would have no idea what any of those stories were about without reading at least the back cover.More often as not, the title is an empty word with a story behind it. The story gives the title meaning, not the other way around. Close your eyes and imagine what the novel “Carrie” is about if you didn’t already know it was a Stephen King classic. A thousand stories could come to mind, none of them matching his. The key to a title are these two things. Is it catchy enough to convince someone to read the back cover? Is it relevant to the story? Don’t worry if the title does not tell the story. That’s not it’s job.

The Pollution Sollution

Forget climate change. Forget global warming. Forget the Paris Agreement. Forget all the absurd conversations and fights about what the problems are and what the solutions are. Forget the politics and economics. Forget everything you hear on TV and see on the internet. Forget the pollution/ecology factoids you think you know. Clear your mind and break pollution down to its most basic level. Clear your mind of all the clutter and nonsense and write on that big blank white wall in your brain, “Pollution Is Bad.” Then stop. Right at that point. Stop. Don’t go one thought further. Just focus on the white wall with black letters in your head that simply state, “Pollution Is Bad.” Focus. Meditate. Ponder. Think. Keep doing it until you are bored. Put it away for a while and then go back and do it again. Just stare at the words, “Pollution is bad.” Then once it has sunk into your mind as deep as it will go, start doing what you can do to make your world a better place. And by “your world,” I’m referring to the world within a hundred feet of where you’re sitting. Start at home. Start with you.One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that with few exceptions, there are not many “big” things in this world. At least not in the sense that big things are a standalone entities. With few exceptions, most “big” things are an accumulation of small things, especially if they are manmade. A building for instance is just a few thousand small things put together to create something much bigger. Same with neighborhoods. They are just a bunch of buildings that make up something bigger. A city or town is a bunch of neighborhoods. And a State or a nation is a bunch of towns and cities. So, I’m weary when politicians and others tell me they have the “big” fix for the “big” problem when most people, including them, are paying little or no attention to the little items which created the big thing. Pollution is the same as all other “big” problems. It’s a big problem created by billions of small pollution problems. And the solution is a bunch of solutions to small problems, that created the big problem.It seems to me if people want to clean up the world, we need a lot more cleaning and a lot less activism and politicking and finger pointing. In the words of the late great, Walt Disney, “The great way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” If we want to fix the big pollution problem then the way to start is to fix the billions of little pollution problems. Instead of reposting pictures of garbage floating off the coast of South America, or campaigning to ban straws, or a thousand other non-cleanup actions, start cleaning up the world that you can reach out and touch.If you step out your front door and see trash, pick it up. That’s a good place to start cleaning up the world.If you go to the store to buy a four-inch stapler and it’s wrapped in ten inches of plastic, don’t buy it. Refuse to buy little things wrapped in lots of plastic.If you put your groceries in a plastic bag instead of a canvas bag, stop doing it. You don’t have to wait for plastic bags to be outlawed.If you drive a big SUV or something bigger than what you need, sell it. Get something smaller.If you drive to places a half mile away, start walking. It’s good for the Earth and it’s good for you.The list of little solutions to our pollution problems are as big as the list of little pollution problems, but you don’t have to make a list. Just start being conscious of the little pollution problems in your little part of the world and in the words of good ole Walt Disney, “Quit talking and start doing.”

Be Cool

I sat down to write for a while tonight and as often is the case, I had no idea what tonight’s subject would be. It took me about two seconds to decide to Google John Lennon and put some music on before I started writing. This is a change for me. While I ALWAYS listen to music when I write, I usually listen to classical or flamenco and don’t listen to lyrics. It’s difficult for me to have clear, non-plagiarizing thoughts when I’m listening to someone else's words, even if it’s rock and roll. So, as I said, I sat down and pondered and Googled John, and in a matter of seconds I knew what I was going to write.Before I get started, ask yourself a question and don’t cheat to get the answer. If you google John Lennon, what comes up? If you guessed, Imagine, you were wrong. If you guessed, The Beatles, you were wrong. If you guessed Abbey Road, or Paul McCartney or the White Album or Yoko Ono or a hundred other pieces of mind blowing Lennon or Beatles moments in history, you were wrong. The first three John Lennon sites to pop up when you google his name are about the guy who killed him and the day we lost him. My instant reaction was, “Man, what a world we live in. The internet can find the worst of the best in a matter of seconds.” So I sat an pondered for a few minutes and shrugged and didn’t go to those sites and I found some Lennon Music and listened to it. It was good. Lennon was cool. Be cool.