Michael C. Cordell's Blog: The Writer's Lance

When Alzheimer's / Dementia Comes Close to Home

Teddy Bear From Strangers
CC Image courtesy of brutusfly on Flickr

If you’re over fifty, I doubt you haven’t at least contemplated whether your mental faculties were slipping when you’ve forgotten where you left the car keys or your cell phone or your glasses. Or maybe it was when you forget the name of the band that did that one-hit wonder song everyone loved back in the day. Most likely, none of that is anything more than normal memory loss, likely due to aging. It happens to all of us, not matter who you are.

And then there are those who really do have a clinical condition that leads to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or some related form of dementia. When this happens to a family member, your worldview changes in ways you couldn’t have imagined.

Without detailing the long drawn-out telling of how it happened, we recently moved my mother-in-law from her nursing home in Indiana to an Alzheimer’s care facility very close to us in Arizona. Since her arrival, our days and nights have been filled with addressing all of her needs in her new home. We visit her several days a week, sometimes twice.

Frequently, we join her at mealtimes, sometimes helping her eat when the shaking in her hand is too great to feed herself. In between times, we wheel her around the beautiful facility and answer the same questions and comment on the same things (furniture, decorations, people, nearby buildings, landscaping) over and over again. We fight with the insurance company when necessary — our latest victory was when we were finally able to score her a wheelchair of her own instead of rental. When schedule our visits when her physical therapist is there, our goal is to get her back on a walker, as she became wheelchair-bound when she was in Indiana.

It’s not all challenges, however, and that’s the purpose of the blog entry. My mother-in-law is generally a delight to be around. She makes us laugh with her sometimes shocking commentary about her observations and thoughts in the moment. Even though her short-term memory is gone, she does remember distant events like they just happened yesterday. She always seems happy to see us and a little sad when we have to leave. It tugs at my heart every time we say goodbye to her.

We’ve gotten to know many of the other residents and their families, along with all the staff, in the short time she’s been out here. It’s amazing to witness first hand the varying degrees the disease affects the residents and how different it manifests itself in each of them. I’ve grown fond of a few of them and enjoy talking to them and hearing their comments on various things and stories of their lives. I think the saddest part is when those who are still cognizant of their surroundings express sadness / frustration at their declining abilities. Thankfully, my mother-in-law is past that stage, but for those who know what’s happening to them, it’s more than a little heartbreaking.

You get to know the unusual habits of the residents, many of which can be grouped into categories. There are the “wanderers” — those who constantly walk around the hallways, trying to open every door they find, including those controlled by numeric keypads, in a desperate attempt to spring themselves from their environs. More than once, we’ve watched as these wanderers are gently given an assist away from the doors or out of rooms, usually with an arm linked in theirs and another arm guiding them away … not forcibly, mind you, but firmly.

There are the “shoppers” who walk away with any loose items lying out. Within the first two days my mother-in-law was there, someone walked off with her wheelchair’s footrests and it took almost a month to find them. By then, they had landed in a locked storage room along with at least another thirty pairs of footrests. No doubt many of them landed in the rooms of these shoppers and relocated.

We’ve talked to former priests and bankers, writers and teachers, all of whom at one time had full cognizance and led happy lives and now lived with declining faculties. Many of these residents have spouses who come to visit and we’ve gotten to know well. At “our” dinner table, the husbands of two of the residents join them and we sit there with them, talking, helping where needed and generally “being there.”

Of course, there are the sudden deaths that happen in such facilities. As terrible as Alzheimer’s / dementia is, it’s all a death sentence. As the disease continues to take over the brain, even basic functions begin to be affect and while most expire from secondary conditions (strokes, heart attacks, pneumonia), some do pass because their organs simply stop functioning because their brains no longer can control them.

In the month that my mother-in-law has been at this facility, she already lost a roommate, a sweet, but obviously distressed woman who died in the middle of the night. Thankfully, my mother-in-law slept through what must of been an anguishing experience. But her new roommate is bedridden and always seems to be asleep; our guess is she’s under hospice care and may not last very long, either.

As you interact with these residents, you can’t help but wonder if and when your time will come. My maternal grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in her 90’s and lived only a few years with the disease before she died. In my wife’s family, besides her mother, her great uncle and aunt (twins) both have the disease as did her maternal grandfather (when they called it “senility” brought upon by “hardening of the arteries.”). If Alzheimer’s is in your gene pool, you tend to think about it … a lot!

To all those who live with the disease, both the sufferers and their families, I wish you peace and strength in your battles, both the daily ones and the over all one. As so many elderly people have told me before, it sucks to get old … so the best advice is to enjoy your good years while you have them.

Angelo Breathes Again - IndieGoGo Campaign

My friend, the talented filmmaker and screenwriter Angelo Bell, recently got out of the hospital after experiencing a saddle pulmonary embolism, a condition that could have been fatal had he not received prompt medical attention. While the bulk of his medical costs are covered, he's still responsible for a part of it, which is breaking his budget and putting an undue financial strain on him. As a result, he's started an IndieGoGo campaign to solicit donations for those costs.
Saddle pulmonary embolism
How will this money be used? I'll let Angelo explain that and the incentives for you toward his goal:

"Simply. All the money raised will go to help me catch up on rent and expenses, pay uncovered medical bills, buy meds and buy some cheap clothes (I lost so much weight 90% of my closet stuff is too big for me).

I have been given a second chance. I don't look at life the same way now. In order to take advantage of the opportunities before me I need to get settled financially and physically once again. Once I do that I'll be able to enjoy my children, my friends AND excel at my chosen profession -- PRODUCING GREAT CONTENT FOR FILM AND TELEVISION. This year I'm shooting a pilot dammit! My project BROKEN HEARTS CLUB has made the rounds on TV in the US, Canada, Italy, Belgium and the UAE. Now it's streaming on Amazon Instant Video. My indie thriller, RESURRECTION OF SERIOUS ROGERS has been downloaded over 40,000 times from all over the world. Last year a script analyst compared my screenplay, A PERFECT WEAPON to the Coen Brother's film, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. In the past 24 months I've met with executives at NBCUniversal 24 times to pitch TV show ideas to NBC, and ESQUIRE.

I just want to look back at 2014 and shake my head and whisper, "You didn't beat me!"

I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU :)

When you donate $25 or more you will receive a Twitter THANK YOU, a Facebook ATTABOY... PLUS: you'll get digital downloads of my best movies and screenplays, PLUS you'll be added to my private mailing list where you receive a FREE copy of any and every movie, screenplay or TV show I personally create PERIOD! FROM NOW ON."

If you're the type of person who likes to donate to a worthy cause, but don't do so because you don't know where the money will really go, then this is your chance to really make a difference in the life of a human being and father of four beautiful children. Please click here to contribute. Angelo and his children really appreciate the help.

Thanks!

How I Use Evernote For My Writing (and Why You Should, Too)

[image error] I’m sure most writers in this day and age have their preferred digital method of keeping track of their writing. I’ve talked to my peers who use everything from a simple word processing “notebook” to a spreadsheet all the way through applications written for the exact purpose of allowing scribes to stay organized.
For years, I used OneNote from Microsoft, but at the time I switched to a Mac, I no longer had that option. As luck with have it, I stumbled on a new (at least then) free multi-platform tool that allowed me to maintain access to my notes from my desktop as well as on the road and found it to be perfect for me:  Evernote, by the Evernote Corporation.
Like OneNote, Evernote doesn’t force you into any structured methodology — it provides you the tools and widgets and lets you decided how to leverage them. So while my process won’t necessarily appeal to you, perhaps it will give you some ideas on how to better use the software or switch to it, if you’re not familiar with it and want to try something new.
Starting with Notebooks
Generally speaking, I respect hierarchies, especially those that make my life easier, and since I usually have several active works-in-progress, I find writing hierarchies imperative. In this case, a logical breakdown in separate notebooks helps me keep my thoughts orderly and compartmentalized. My most active ones are:Daily Pages — This is my core notebook and contains a single page for every day. The first thing I do when I wake up is create a new page simply titled with the day’s date. These pages contain anything I create that’s not for a WIP throughout the day. These can include, but aren’t limited to, the following:Titles:  Frequently, an interesting title just pops into my head and even though I may not have anything more to go with at the moment, I’ll jot it down anyway. Many of my stories have just started with a title and then weeks / months later, I see it when scanning my notes and the story idea  (or storyline) just appears.Opening lines:  Sometimes, I either have a good opening line come to me or I’ll just sit down and write opening lines that I think will lead to more down the road. It’s a good creative exercise I use to warm up if I have nothing in the WIP queue I want to begin continue working on.Story ideas / Loglines:  Frequently, I get an idea that’s not necessarily fully formed, but still can be expressed in a few sentences. I call these “story ideas” (or if they’re better suited for a screenplay, the industry term “loglines”). They can be framed in the form of a “what if” question, for example — or anything that gives enough to work with when I’m ready to develop it further.Storylines:  Storylines are extended versions of story ideas / loglines. They are fully formed, but short, story synopses with a definable throughline, usually comprised of at least three paragraphs representing the beginning, middle and end of the story in question. Each storyline's premise is clearly defined, the hero’s journey is delineated from start to finish and key conflicts are called out. Storylines are usually the most “dangerous” because they can derail me from my current WIPs in order to further develop the idea while the storyline is still fresh in my mind.Snippets:  Very often, I start with an opening line of a story and then write several paragraphs from that until I’ve drained the well from which the idea came or I’m falling asleep at my computer. Just like storylines, snippets can derail me from a fully planned schedule. I tend not to force myself to stop during these writing frenzies simply because I feel anything I can get out of my brain and down on digital paper is a good idea, even if I never use what I write ever again. More often then not, though, I do continue from where I left off weeks, even months, down the road.Scenes:  Similar to snippets, sometimes an opening scene for a screenplay comes out of nowhere and I just write to see where it goes. As usually happens, I’ll write several scenes before I stop and transfer it over to Final Draft to continue. Two of my current WIPs began just like this — one of which I’m “pantsing” (just writing without an outline or any other formal story structure) from beginning to end), the other began as a pantsing project, but I stopped after fifteen pages and began outlining the rest. Blogs:  These are blog ideas, either short one sentence descriptions or a few paragraphs (or bullet points) to make sure I capture the key elements of the intended post.WIP progress:  In order to keep myself honest, I track progress on my current WIPs, but I don’t record word counts or hours worked on each. Instead, I just note the WIP and what scene(s) I’ve completed. As long as I can see steady headway, I’m satisfied … unless I’m on a deadline, of course, then I have a writing plan, a process that’s for a separate blog post.Journal entries:  Though I don’t keep a formal journal, on those days where I can't get a lot of writing done because of something else — traveling, for instance — I at least mark a note on that day’s Daily Page indicating what I was doing instead of writing.Blogs — While I use MacJournal for blogging on my Macbook Pro, sometimes I’m not able to continue with my current post because I’m in mobile mode. Since Evernote is multi-platform, it’s easy enough to copy my current WIP to a blog page  in Evernote and keep writing on any one of my mobile devices. When I get back to my Mac, I simply transfer the updated post to MacJournal, format it, then upload it.Fodder — In conjunction with the Evernote Web Clipper (see below), I capture interesting / unique news stories and other oddities that could one day be grist for the writing mill. I may never look at it again, but with Evernote’s search function, I can find virtually anything I’ve had an interest in writing about. This is one of the handiest tools Evernote has.Writing — Many times, I want to continue building on a story Idea and maintain it in an separate Evernote page. I dedicate the Writing notebook to these pages and with Evernote’s Table of Contents feature (see below), I can easily create an index to make it easier to pick up where I left off. At some point, though, the proverbial chick has to leave the nest and it must move on to my writing application ... usually Scrivener.The Importance of Tags
The entire Daily Pages methodology would be severely limited if not for tags. My process is pretty simple: when I come up with a new Title, for example, I simply add “Title” in the tags. Other tags I commonly use include:SnippetBlogJournalOpening lineStory ideaStorylineLoglineSceneIn addition, I use tags that are titles to my WIPs if I do anything creative for those projects in order for me to easily go back to see what days I worked on those WIPs.
With Evernote’s filter capabilities, I can easily isolate pages by a specific tag. This definitely helps when trying to reorganize notebooks or consolidate pages related to a single WIP or entry type.
The Web Clipper
As noted above, Evernote has a browser extension they call the Web Clipper. What this clever little tool allows you to do is clip some or all of a web page and have it automatically be added to the notebook of your choice. While I use the Clipper to capture articles of general interest, I use it most to capture ideas for stories to write, placing them in the Fodder notebook mentioned earlier. The Clipper is somewhat intuitive in that it is able to figure out into which notebook the clipped page is likely to fit. More often than not, it’s correct, too, but it’s easy to change to another notebook if you prefer it elsewhere. The Clipper makes life so much easier.
Using Note Links & Tables of Contents
Another great feature of Evernote is the ability to create note links — links to other note pages anywhere within your Evernote library — and an offshoot of that, creating a table of contents of links to pages within a single notebook. This latter capability is particularly handy for my Writing notebook which consists of over one hundred partially written stories:  I can easily jump to any story I’d like to continue working on after I scan a page of links to choose from. Another great use of note links:  adding a link to a “fodder” page as a reference for a story I’m writing. This way I won’t have to copy the content of the entire clipped page into the story page itself. Pretty neat.
Other Bells & Whistles
While there are too many other features of Evernote to describe here, there are a couple of others worth mentioning that I use a lot of:  bulleted lists and horizontal lines. Because I tend to "think in outlines" even when I’m pantsing (this goes back to my days as a software developer where I would have to write hundreds of lines of code on the fly), I like to capture ideas in bulleted form. Evernote provides the ability to create numbered lists as well, a feature I rarely use. A button to create horizontal lines is also quite helpful:  I use those to separate activities / writings within a single Daily Page, for example. For me, it helps keep the page looking neat and organized.
Pulling It All Together
All of these features make Evernote a pretty powerful tool, but no collection of features is worth anything if you can’t use them effectively. Here is a overview how my “typical” writing day goes with Evernote. I put typical in quotes because there is no such thing in reality.Create a new Daily Page and title it with the day’s date (“June 27, 2014”).Any ideas that stayed with me from my dreams get written down with a descriptor for what type it is preceding it. For example, “Title:  Title of an Amazing New Story.”Add “Title” as a tag.Insert a horizontal line after the aforementioned title.If my brain is ready to pick up from a WIP, I would do the work on the WIP until I stop, then go back to the Daily Page and write “WIP Name — scene N.”Add the WIP name as a tag.Insert a horizontal line after that note.And so on.At the end of my writing day, I have an idea of what occupied my creative efforts in chronological order. Not too shabby.
So will all this make you a better writer? Maybe yes, maybe no. However, it certainly will make you a more organized one and that usually leads to being a better something. If you a process or a tool that works for you, then you’re probably better off than 80% of other writers. Keeping organized requires constant attention — and tweaking — in order to be successful. If you have no process, who knows, maybe I’ve given you a framework from which to build. In any case, Evernote is a free software program worth exploring.
One final word:  I know that OneNote is now available on the Mac, and while I use it for access to my old notes on occasion, I am too entrenched in my Evernote world … and I like it that way. ☺ 

(Un)Follow Me, (Un)Follow You

One of the reasons I enjoy penning short stories across a diverse spectrum of topics is because I get to write about a wide array of characters in myriad story situations. No matter what you write — poetry or prose, novels, short stories, screenplays, song lyrics — in order to be successful, you need to be a lifelong student of human behavior. Even if you only write about cyborgs, your creations usually mimic core aspects of how people act or at least within the framework of your story world’s ethos.

Social media sites provide so many tangibles that are well-known — you get to interact with so many individuals across the entire world and get to hear opinions and ideas that aren’t those you normally subscribe to or even thought about. But the mere ebb and flow of contacts on sites such as Twitter are also petri dishes for understanding a lot about human nature.

I’ve been an active member of Twitter since April 2008 or this as provided by http://www.howlonghavei.com/:



In those years, I’ve been able to classify the 7 types of followers I’ve had.

Analysis of Twitter Followers
Spammers, from the “how to increase followers” type to the ubiquitous purveyors of porn as well as trolls with politics opposite of mine. These I automatically block and in the case of the porn people, report.Social media “experts,” SEO / marketing geniuses, and the like. These I rarely, if ever, follow back. What makes these folks so top in their fields isn’t what they do, but what they try to get you to believe that they do.Entrepreneurs of all types. Unless it’s a product or service that interests me (which is rare), I typically don’t follow back.Artists/musicians/filmmakers/writers, aspiring or established. These folks I usually follow back, especially if I find their last dozen or more tweets interesting / compelling.Like-minded individuals. I have myriad interests that I list in my Twitter profile — beyond writing — so anyone searching for those who are into the same things that I am will more often than not find me. I almost always follow them back.Friends / colleagues / collaborators. It goes without saying that I always follow them back.No idea why they’re following. Much like everyone else who has been Twitter a long time, I have my share of I-have-no-idea-why-they’re-following-me followers. Mayors of towns I never heard of, car dealers all the way on the other side of the country, and others. I often tweet them and ask if they’ve made a mistake, but usually don’t follow them back.Analysis of Twitter UNFollowersBut the big reveal in human nature isn’t who follows you, but who, when and why they UNFOLLOW you. I recently joined Unfollowers.com, a site that really does give you insight into that aspect of Twitter dynamics missing in the past. For years, as I watched my follower count ebb and flow, I wondered what was going on behind the scenes. Unfollowers.com helps me do that. Here’s what I learned.
More than half of followers unfollow within a week if not followed back. This usually is the case with those from Category 2 and tells me that for the most part, they are just trying to crank up their follower count and nothing more. It’s all a numbers game for them and as soon as they see you’re not jumping onboard, they unfollow and move on. Similar for those in Category 3 … if you’re not interested in what they have to offer, it’s adios.About 10-20% unfollow within a month of following them back. Usually these are from Category 4. This can be attributed to a few things, including just wanting to build their follower count quickly, but mostly want to maintain a favorable following/follower count — they unfollow in hopes I wouldn’t notice. Now I do.Approximately 5% or less of Category 5 followers unfollow. When they do, I always wonder:Did I tweet something to offend them?Certainly possible, I am pretty opinionated politically. Whether my comments on national and world affairs is a benefit or detriment for my social media reputation is a discussion for another post.Did I not tweet enough regarding their preferred topic?Certainly possible. I have a myriad of interests & may not focus on their preference during the window they’re following me.Did I not interact with them enough (or at all)?Certainly possible. I have a good number of followers & while I try to interact with many of them, it’s not possible to do so with all of them.Did I not retweet them enough?Certainly possible, for the same reason as noted above. I do like to pimp my followers’ announcements and never expect reciprocation, but there are only so many hours in a day to do that and I can’t do that for everyone.Less than 1% of Category 6 followers unfollow. When they do, I have to say, I’m always surprised, but I am only able to offer a weak guess as to why — though I never, ever ask. Everyone has their reasons and don’t deserve to be challenged and besides, it’s probably best NOT to know.Those in category 7, the odd ducks. They unfollow eventually … usually. I have to admit, they amuse me no matter what they do.What Does It All MEAN?In the end, there are a few conclusions I can offer:As a writer, you can’t ignore social media as a tool for building your audience, but more importantly, to connect with real life people, many of whom are walking the same path you are. We are often an introverted lot, so interaction with our fellow humans, even virtually, is better than shutting ourselves in a 10’x10’ room with a typewriter and a bag of Doritos. The folks I’ve met and have gotten to know quite well on Twitter, Facebook and the rest are just like you are and damned fine people to boot.Just as in the “real” world, there are so many on social media gaming the system, looking for a way to get ahead by any and all means. You can learn much from their behavior and if you’re smart, you’ll use that intelligence when you’re developing your characters. I know I have.If you’re lucky, you may learn much about yourself and how you respond when someone unfollows you. If you’re curious, I almost always reciprocate. :-)

Quantity First

Long time, no blog. This place is awfully dusty. I need to bring someone in to clean up. Explaining my absence …

The last year-and-a-half has been, in the words of many a sage, a “challenge.” In short, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2012, a situation that basically consumed a large part of our lives until February of this year. While all this was happening, two other life events came up, one of which was self-imposed — my mother-in-law was diagnosed with dementia and was put under the care of a state-appointed guardian and we decided to take advantage of the sellers’ market in California and move to Arizona.

Good news does usually seem to arise from bad situations, however. First, my wife is fully recovered and doing very well. We look forward to many, many cancer-free years. Because of this and my own past health scare, we decided to move out of our stressful lives on the west coast and take refuge in Phoenix’s West Valley. This was the smartest choice we ever could have made for ourselves.

As for my wife’s mother, we are happy that at least she’s in a good nursing home and is being cared for. My wife is an only child and all this happening with her mom occurred in the midst of all her treatments, preventing her from going back and dealing with what appeared to be her declining mental faculties (a challenge since she lives so far away from us). At 76, she’s healthy, safe and in good hands now — and she’s no longer smoking — my wife’s now leaning to deal with the new normal of sharing guardianship with a stranger.

Creativity doesn’t take a holiday, of course, and last year was no exception. I was not happy with my production, however, and didn’t quite hit my quota, though I did satisfy all my commitments in spite of schedule somewhat in flux most of the time.

This year, however, we’re off like a bottle rocket. I already conceived of and wrote the first draft of a new screenplay and just finished the first draft of a new novella. Now I’m in the midst of editing a novel I began a couple of years ago during the only NaNoWriMo I participated in and soon will be picking up where I left off. My goal is to finish that first draft by June 1st. After that, I’m going back to my TV sitcom project and finishing off the “bible,” from which I hope to be able to get pitched to some of the networks.

So, as the title says, this year’s all about quantity — output first, editing and polishing second. This will be done while increasing my blogging output and working on committed editing and writing projects for others.

Stay tuned?

~ Michael

Tropes

The word “trope” is one of my favorite writing terms. It refers to a creative device that’s not quite a cliché, but is sufficiently familiar as to be recognizable to the reader (or viewer of it’s regarding a movie or TV program). Tropes have been on my mind a lot lately. One of my many side projects these days is writing a treatment for a television sitcom that I think will strike the right chord in these times. Including tropes in the sample episodes is a necessary evil and somewhat tricky business, too. You want to put in some familiar gags to give the audience a comfort level with the material, but at the same time, you want to avoid coming off a hackneyed and stale.

So it’s no surprise that when I was at the Y the other day and found myself without my ear buds, that the thought of tropes returned to keep my mind occupied while I did my cardio workout. As a mental exercise, I came up with an example of a trope that could be used in different ways within a similar scenario.

The scene takes place in a health club, full of all kinds of fancy machines and attractive people in exercise gear. Most everyone is very fit, though you may have a few “regular” people working out among them. Enter your main character, a guy ready to exercise. Let’s call him Joe. The basic action in the scene is this: Joe walks over to an unoccupied treadmill, gets on it and falls, at least once, due to his ineptitude, cockiness or any number of other reasons. As he lies in a heap, bruised and humiliated, he becomes an object of ridicule, ending the scene.

Sound familiar? Could be something that happens to Howard Wolowitz from The Big Bang Theory or Mr. Bean (or even Jack Tripper, in Three’s Company, if you’re a 70’s TV fan), right? Will you laugh even if you saw this in another show before? More than likely, yes, because one of the basic rules of comedy is people laugh when others fall down, as long as they don’t really get hurt.

Let’s see this in action. Here is the scene with two different Joes.

Joe #1 is a macho guy. He looks like he’s been working out for years, but he’s not a muscle-bound weightlifter. He’s dressed in the most gaudy workout clothes out there, designed to emphasize his physique. You know the kind of guy I’m talking about. Anyway, this Joe walks in like he owns the place. He scans the gym slowly, an animal on the hunt. He’s obviously looking to see if there are any hot women he can flex for. He spies some lovely ladies near an unoccupied treadmill, so he strides over to the machine and climbs on. Joe looks left, then right, smiling his most winning smile at the two women, then starts up the treadmill. Everything seems to be going fine at first as Joe trots at a low speed. He’s looking good (he thinks), smiling as though there’s nothing to this and nods to the two women like “this is the way it’s done.” For their part, neither woman really respond much, something not lost on our friend.

Then Joe decides it’s time to pick up the pace to raise the stakes, so he hits a button or two and starts jogging faster. He looks at the two ladies again, but they’re unimpressed as they continue their own exercise. Not to be daunted, Joe hits the button several more times until the treadmill is turning at an almost maniacal pace. Now it looks like Joe can barely keep up, but he keeps that rictus of a smile plastered on his face as he struggles to pump his legs fast enough to match the machine’s speed. He then makes the fatal mistake of looking at both women to see if they’re watching and KA-BLAM, he slips and the treadmill launches him backwards on his butt. The two women finish their exercise and towel themselves off as they step over the now prone Joe.

Pretty funny, right?

Joe #2 is totally different. He’s a geeky-looking fellow, not conditioned at all, wearing unfashionable clothes -- checkered shorts, extra long athletic socks, an “E = MC2” T-shirt, and the like. It’s obvious he’s probably never stepped into a gym before and he appears to be lost with all the bustling activity going on, not to mention all the machines standing like trees in a metal forest. He wanders sort of aimlessly, looking with more than casual interest at some of the other exercisers and appears a bit befuddled by their obvious skill. He backs up and bumps into an unoccupied treadmill. A woman comes up to him and asks if he’s using it and looking confused, he stammers he is, then climbs on. Joe stares at the panel with all the buttons and lights and tries to figure it out. The woman looks on and asks if he needs any help, but of course, Joe’s ego is going to trump his common sense here and he declines. He pushes one button and nothing happens. Then he pushes a second one and the treadmill begins to turn. Joe has to grip the handrails to prevent falling over and straddles the moving belt, watching as it rolls under him. Still hovering over him, the woman tells him he needs to step on the belt and walk at the pace it is moving. Joe thanks her and tries it.

To his surprise, he’s moving along quite nicely and he smiles, pleased with himself. Unfortunately, curiosity creeps in and he can’t help but push another button to see what happens. The machine speeds up and Joe barely keeps his feet while maintaining the treadmill’s pace. Somehow, the machine speeds up some more without Joe’s intercession this time and he’s now struggling to keep up. The machine ramps up another notch and now Joe is running as fast as he can, panting like a madman. The woman tells him to hit the red button, but Joe can’t hear her over the roar of the machine. She yells again, “The red button!” and he repeats it after her, then sees the button she means. He presses it; the machine stop immediately, but Joe isn’t expecting that and his forward momentum sends him careering over the top of the treadmill and he lands face first in front everyone. The woman walks over to him, bends down and instead of asking him if he’s okay, she wants to know if he’s done using the machine now. He replies with a resigned “yes.”

Can you picture it?

I’m sure you can imagine other Joe scenarios (like Joe who has a crush on one particular woman, sees her there and wants to impress her on the treadmill, and his shoe lace gets caught in the mechanism, sending him flying). Or what about if you add a prankster to the mix? Either it’s a friend or rival in any of the above circumstances who sabotages the machine while Joe is on it -- say by stepping on the back of the belt or pulling the plug -- and the consequences are the same with poor Joe sailing this way or that, landing on some body part that’s going to hurt like hell later.

Want to know more about tropes? Check out this link.

Tropes, my friends -- fun for the whole family, don’t you think?

- Michael

Organizational Me

Those people who know me are quite familiar with my lifelong preoccupation with organization and its scion, time management. That’s not to say in this area I’m practically perfect in every way (to quote a description of Mary Poppins) -- God knows my wife can point to examples of my LACK of organization, to be sure. However, in certain areas of my life, most notably my writing, I’m forever actively pursuing my ideal world and devote much time to the effort.

For many years, I’ve used Microsoft OneNote to keep my writing organized. OneNote allows you to create a notebook-like structure that you can arrange to handle all of your writing needs. For example, since I write many different types of pieces, I break mine down from top down beginning with Movies, Television, Non-Fiction and Fiction. Both Movies and Television are broken down into Comedy, Drama and Action / Adventure. Under Fiction, there are Novels, Novellas and Short Stories. Under Non-Fiction, you’ll find General Essays, Technology and Blogs. Each of these is split further until I finally get to different sections for each work-in-progress, with a separate section for story ideas and snippets, the latter of which is just a container for fragments of prose I compose out of the blue with no other intended purpose other than to get an idea out of my head and maybe use some day.

Unfortunately, OneNote is not a cross-platform product, leaving me bereft when I migrated to the Macintosh. For a while, I continued to run OneNote on a Windows virtual machine, but that grew old pretty quickly. Then I discovered Evernote, a true cross-platform product that allows you to maintain your data in a cloud and makes it accessible to all your IOS, OSX and Windows devices. I found my nirvana! The only challenge was moving all my data from OneNote to Evernote. There was no easy migration path that I could figure out, so I did what anyone would do - I avoided it.

For the last few years, I adapted Evernote into my organizational system, only moving some of my active WIPs from OneNote into it, but leaving 90% of my older unfinished material to gather digital dust. Until recently, that is.

I finally broke down and began the long arduous process of moving all my old data into Evernote. It took several weeks to go through everything I had and then rearrange Evernote to accommodate it all. I tried to maintain the same organizational system in Evernote that I had in OneNote, but I had matured that process significantly in Evernote. Besides, since Evernote doesn’t have multiple layers of hierarchy (unlike OneNote), I had to learn to live within the two-layer system they have and then figure out how to go from conform my old structure to my new one. Trust me, this was a lot more work than it sounds like.

In the end, I’m pleased with the results. All of my legitimate projects (current and future) now reside in their own Evernote folder, with story ideas, snippets, fodder (web articles with potential story material), articles and the like all occupying their own folders. I have documents in a general Writing folder dedicated to Titles (book, story, whatever), Names (people and places, of either real or made-up names), Opening Lines (starting sentences that just come to me) and Loglines (single sentences describing a film idea, like “An amateur scientist discovers the secret to immortality, only to discover that the government will do anything to prevent the invention from getting into the wrong hands.”).

The best part of this exercise is not only did I pick out the next twelve stories in the last of the Foothills collections (tentatively entitled Life Beyond the Foothills), I have another dozen as back-up (for another collection down the road), PLUS I have thirty-six more for a three-book sci-fi series of twelve stories each. Not all of these stories are complete yet -- some are merely titles and general plots, others are halfway through the first draft, etc. However, I’m now ready to start the next book for real!

Stay tuned for more …

Michael

Labor of Love

Slightly longer than four years to the day, I published my second short story collection, Secrets of the Foothills. This book is the second of three books in the Foothills series, the first of which was entitled In The Foothills. [Ed. the capital “T” in “the” was completely intentional. Don’t ask.]. If everything goes according to plan, the final collection will be published in less than two years from now.

What keeps authors driving toward completion, especially when faced with the daunting task of creating from scratch a plausible narrative, rewriting, editing and polishing the draft so that it sparkles, handing it off to beta readers and editors who red-line the hell out of it, rewrite, re-edit and re-polish and so on, only to send it timidly into bookshelves (virtual and real) throughout the world?

Simply put, insanity.

Sure, you were expecting something more poetic with the title “Labor of Love,” but in truth, we authors have to be a little bit out there to do what we do. The same goes for artists in any medium, I guess. Voluntarily baring one’s soul for a public flogging certainly isn’t a sign of someone playing with a full deck, right? And yet we do it, willingly, gladly, even joyfully if we’re doing it right.

What does it take to be a writer? Talent, sure. Guts, absolutely. But if you’re not a little bit eccentric, you may just be like Sisyphus pushing that big ol’ rock up that hill, year after year, typed line after typed line. It’s not going to work for you no matter what you do. If you’re not non compos mantis, you need not apply. Really.

We writers are the odd ones, always looking off in the distance, trying to resolve some conflict our main characters have found themselves in, because God knows we didn’t put them there, right? Or when we finally show a little mercy to our protagonists, we’re busy dreaming of new ways to torture them. We’re sadists AND we’re masochists, it seems. Yeah, we’re normal alright, aren’t we?

Of course, I’m just kidding. Who among us who take the craft of writing seriously could ever see ourselves doing anything else? We’re not crazy -- we just have something to say and want to do it in the only way we know how and damned the consequences. We want to create people or worlds or whole universes simply because we feel this is the best way our message can go out to get through to the right people, if only they would listen.

Writing is truly a labor of love. It’s the best way I’ve found to say something profound and in an entertaining way. There’s power in knowing you can do that. You know what I mean, those of you who love to create.

So, keep your pen sharp and your quill well-inked … and remember, publishing a book isn’t an end, it’s only permission to start a new one.

~ Michael ~

Wherein I Channel My Inner Hemingway

Lately, I've been listening to To Have and Have Not on my Nano while working out at the gym, which was a novel by Ernest Hemingway on which a movie of the same name was loosely based. The film is one of my favorites from the 1940's because it stars Humphrey Bogart, one of my favorite actors of all time, and the nineteen year-old actress, Lauren Bacall.

A variation on a tweet someone posted triggered the following vignette in the mode of the popular literature of the time, featuring the daring exploits of characters like Harry Morgan, Bogart's character in the film, or Sam Spade and Rick Blaine, two other roles Bogey played in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, respectively.
                                                                                                                   

She smiled with the look of someone who knew all the answers. I couldn't help thinking she'd be a real knockout if she would wipe that smug grin off her face. Instead, it took all I had to sit in the same room with her, especially after what I knew. I had no choice, though. I had a job to do.
"Nothing to say, Mr. Bishop?" she said, her eyes narrowing like a cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse. "I'm all ears."
"And all wisecracks, too," I said to her with a sneer. "Look, let's put all our cards on the table, shall we?"
She grinned that grin again, then crossed her legs, one long stem slowly over the other, and leaned my way.  "Sure. I call."
"Fine, I'll play it your way. The way I see it, Mrs. Talbot, you had three chances to kill your husband. The first two, well, they'd be kind of messy and complicated. You don't strike me as all that bright to pull either of them off."
She batted her eyes and turned her finely chiseled profile where I could admire it. "Go on."
Look at her, I thought. So damn cool. Wait until I deliver the punch line.
"Like I said, three chances. Number three has something to do with your husband's little drinking problem."
"So he drank, so what?"
"Drinking makes a man weak, that's all. Weak men make for stupid husbands. They tend to spend a little too much time hanging around with people who are even weaker."
She uncrossed her legs and leaned back, stretching those long limbs. I turned my head so as to not appear interested in the view, but she knew I couldn't help myself. She chuckled.
"Lots of people are weak, Mr. Bishop. You must meet plenty in your business."
I pulled his last cigarette out of the pack and gestured with it. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all. I'd join you, but I quit years ago. Please continue, though. This fairy tale you're telling is just getting interesting."
I lit the cigarette and walked to the other side of the room. She tried real hard not to watch me. I leaned against the wall and took a long drag on the butt.
"Let's see, where was I?" I said.
"Weak associates of my husband."
"Oh, that's right. Your husband enjoyed the company of some women of, let's see, questionable morals?"
"Questionable tastes, too."
"You could say that. Anyway, the way I see it happening is this -- he was out cavorting with one of his dates--"
She sat up. "Dates? That's what the kids are calling them now?"
I laughed in spite of myself. "Just hear me out."
"Go on, I'm listening. But hurry it up, I have my own 'date' tonight."
"So he was cavorting pretty closely with this blonde number, but you had enough. So you followed them from the gin joint back over to that one room walk-up he kept for his private meetings."
She stood up and walked around the desk, then leaned against it with her perfect hip. "Sounds like it's getting interesting."
"Quite so, in fact. You stayed in the shadows and entered the apartment building just behind them."
I watched her smirk and for a moment, wished I could shake her until she stopped her gloating.
"You look perturbed. Was it something I said? I'm just wondering how I could've followed this loving couple into a locked apartment building," she said.
I jumped at the bait. "Locked? How did you know it was locked?"
She sat back on the desk and smiled. "An unlocked apartment building in this city? Let me tell you one thing, Mr. Bishop. My husband may have been a philandering drunk, but he was no fool. I lived with the man for five years and he was a nut for security."
"That may be true, Mrs. Talbot, but he was a sloppy drunk. That night he made a fatal mistake."
"What's that?"
"Someone else -- another tenant, perhaps -- left the door ajar. Maybe something blocked it and your husband and his lady friend didn't notice in their, shall we say, 'festive' mood, leaving it ajar as well."
"So what? I just waltzed on in there without a key? How did I get into his apartment then?"
I stubbed out the cigarette against the wall and waited a moment as I sized her up. She's going to make one gorgeous inmate, I thought.
"Well?" she asked, now getting impatient. Good, I like impatient. It leads to mistakes.
"This is how I see it. You waited outside the door for a while, imagining all the sins the dearly departed were committed, getting more and more steamed. A neighbor, a gentleman next door maybe, sees you, this somewhat attractive woman, pacing around the hallway, anxious to get inside. You explain you're the guy's secretary and you need to get in his place to get some papers for an important meeting your boss is having in the morning."
Her laugh started out as a soft chuckle, then crescendoed into a full-throated, bawdy laugh. I had seen this many times before and I waited her out.
"Shall I go on?" I asked.
"By all means."
"So you flash your baby blues and maybe a bit of bare leg and the guy's drooling at your heels. It just so happens he has a spare key to the apartment, given to him by your husband in case of emergencies."
"Like when important papers are needed?"
"Yes, just like that. So he let's you in and without so much as a thank you, you close the door in his face and get to work."
"And what work would that be, Mr. Bishop?"
"Murder. The real world's oldest profession. Ask Cain."
She stuck out her chin in defiance. "You ask him."
"Wish I could, Mrs. Talbot, wish I could. Were you ever your husband's keeper?"
I sat back and watched her jump off the desk and head toward the door. 
"I think I've had enough of your questions, Mr. Bishop. I hired you to find my husband's murderer, not to make up stories about how I killed him. I loved Howard, more than anyone ever! To hear you tell it, I'm a cold-hearted killer and I'm nothing like that, I tell you."
She cried a few tears and pulled a hankie out of her bag, then dabbed her eyes. For a moment, I almost believed her. Almost.
"Don't you want to know how the story ends?" I asked, taunting her.
"I told you, I'm done here."
"Then why aren't you walking out the door?"
Her shoulders slumped in defeat and she slid into the chair next to the desk. She didn't say anything, but her eyes begged me to end her misery. I was happy to comply.
"Now here's where it gets interesting. You walk into the apartment, expecting them to be locked in the clinch in the living room. You planned to confront him, maybe break a lamp or ashtray or something. But he wasn't on the sofa necking with the blonde. The bedroom door was closed, but you could hear them in there."
She sank lower in her chair, the tears flowing for real now. I had her where I wanted her.
"While the loving couple were making noise, you were getting madder and madder. Then you spotted the blonde's purse on the coffee table, so you decided to do a little snooping, figuring they were going to be busy for a while.  As you were looking, you found a .38 stuff in one of those hidden pockets that come with those things. For a minute, you thought you'd leave it there, but something came over you. Disgust? Maybe. Jealousy? Probably."
Mrs. Talbot blew her nose in unladylike fashion and wiped her eyes again. Her mascara ran like a dime store watercolor, but she didn't seem to care how she looked at the moment. Her eyes told me to get on with it.
"Just then, you heard the door knob rattle, but there was nowhere to hide. There you stood, your hand in some floozy's purse, holding her loaded gun and you were about to be confronted. The first one out the door was the blonde. She screamed when she saw you, but froze. Your husband, dressed only in his boxers, came running out to see what the commotion was and there you stood with that gun in your hand. He made a run for you and before you knew it, you pulled the trigger just once. Down he went like a sack of eight balls."
I opened up my desk drawer and pulled out a bottle and two shot glasses. I pulled out the cork and poured both glasses full, then walked them over to where she sat and placed one in front of her.
"Drink," I told her. "You look like you can use a belt."
She shook her head, but watch me sip mine. After a moment, she picked up her glass and took a taste, then a little more.
"Thanks, I needed that."
"I figured. Mind if I continue?"
She just shrugged and took another sip of the rye. I took that as a go-ahead.
"After you spill your husband's blood on his nice gray carpet, you confronted the blonde who now knelt down on the floor, cowering like a whipped dog. You told her to get up, but she just shook all the harder. You yanked her to her feet by her hair--"
"Her hair? How would you know that?" she asked.
"The cops found a clump of her hair with the damaged follicle at the crime scene. Forensics took note that the shaft was broken in two or three places. They theorized you pulled her up by her bottle blonde tresses."
"Smart cops," she said, swallowing the last of the booze. "Hit me again, barkeep."
I laughed and gave her another dose. Celebrate while you still can, I thought.
"Go on."
"Not too much more to tell, really. The blonde stood there, shaking like a leaf in her unmentionables, begging you for mercy. You hit her hard, once, twice, with the back of your hand to her face. She spit out the blood along with the fake tooth you knocked out and forgot about. You turned and she thought you were going to leave. But she made one mistake -- she thanked you for sparing her."
Mrs. Talbot finished the second drink and sat back.  "Go on, finish what you started," she said with a gesture of her hands.
"You heard 'thank you' and you saw red. You turned the gun back toward her, aimed it at her head and shot her twice. She didn't stand a Chinook's chance in Hades.  After that, you wiped off the gun and put it back into the blonde's purse, then left as quietly as you could. The neighbor was a nosy character, though, and had a lot to tell the cops when they interviewed him."
"Like what?"
"Well, Mrs. Talbot, I can't give away all the best parts, can I? You'll hear plenty at the trial anyway."
I lit another cigarette, satisfied I had done my job.
"Give me one of those, will ya?" she said.
"I thought you quit."
"I did, but I could use one right now."
I flipped out a cigarette and handed it to her.
"Light?"
I lit hers with the end of mine. No sense wasting a good match.
"Thanks," she said, taking a deep drag and blowing out the smoke with her perfectly painted lips forming a tight circle, her eyes closed like she was lost in a dream. "So now what?"
"The cops are on their way over. It's up to them."
"What makes you think I'll stick around?"
I shrugged. "Where do you think you're going to run off to? Besides, maybe if you cooperate, the judge will go easy on you."
"I see your point."
"You're a funny one, Mrs. Talbot."
"Why's that?"
"There I was, telling you the entire story of how you committed a double homicide, even filling in conversations I figured you had even though I wasn't there to hear them and you didn't even challenge me on the details. What gives?"
She smiled, her well-manicured eyebrows arched quizzically. "Come now, Mr. Bishop, a girl has to keep a few secrets, doesn't she?"
"What secrets might that be?" I asked, sensing a fuller rendering of the truth was coming. I sat back in my chair and laid my crossed legs on the desk. "Humor me."
She leaned toward me. "Oh, I admit your tale was pretty engaging and had me going for a minute. I almost felt like I did kill them. But you got it wrong."
"How so?"
"I was out of town the day my husband was murdered."
I jumped and sat up. "You mean to tell me that's your strongest hand?"
"I'm just telling you what happened. You can decide whether or not it's the truth."
"That a job for the cops."
Just then, the phone rang. I picked up the receiver and listened.
"Bishop, it's O'Shea. Is the Talbot woman still with you?"
"Why yes she is, Lieutenant," I said, winking at her. "In fact, she's sitting right across from me."
"Well, we have a bit of a problem. Can you come down to the station?"
"What about the girl?"
"Don't worry about her now, just come down."
"Alright, Lieutenant, if that's what you want. See you in an hour."
I hung up the phone and just stared at it.
"Anything wrong?" she asked, a grin plastered on her face. A grin that said she had an ace in the hole and just went all in.
"Nothing I can't handle. Look, I have to run. You're free to go."
"Wait, what about the cops?" she asked, blowing smoke in my direction.
I leaned toward her. "Listen, I wouldn't get too cocky if I were you. The cops have enough evidence to put you away for life, if you're lucky. Me, I don't care whether they give you the chair or not. Just one thing -- I advise you don't get lost quite yet."
She stood up, stubbed out her cigarette and sauntered to the door. "Who, me? Lost? Why would I get lost? I'm an innocent woman."
With a final flip of her hair, she walked out the door and slammed it behind her.

Why "A Christmas Story" Became a Classic

Warning: if you haven’t seen the movie A Christmas Story even once, you will probably won’t get a lot out of this post and there are plenty of spoilers here to boot. If this describes you, by all means do yourself a favor this holiday season and SEE THIS MOVIE before you read this, especially if you’re one of those merry souls who feel your Christmas season isn’t complete unless you view the likes of Charlie Brown, Rudolph, Frosty and the Grinch. A Christmas Story is a modern classic that has the distinct privilege of being featured in a 24-hour marathon on TBS (the Turner Broadcasting System) and watched by millions of people every year. I watch it at least six times each marathon and love it more and more each time I see it.

A Little Background

A Christmas Story is a 1983 movie based on short stories by American author and radio humorist Jean Shepherd from his book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. Set in late 1930's / early 1940's Indiana, it follows the adventures of nine-year-old Ralphie Parker and his relentless pursuit and acquisition of his heart’s desire for Christmas: a Red Ryder BB gun. The film did not impress critics in its theatrical release and had limited audience enthusiasm, in part because holiday-themed movies were not in vogue during that time. Over the years, thanks to television and in particular the TBS marathons, the film has grown significantly in popularity and ranks near the top of all-time favorite holiday movies.

Story Structure

A Christmas Story is easily contained within the 3-act story structure, with each act featuring Ralphie trying to convince an adult (his mother, his teacher and Santa Claus himself) that the BB gun would not be the instrument whereby he would “shoot his eye out” (an ongoing motif that links the acts). In all three cases, Ralphie’s elaborate methods to convince the adult in question of the safety of the toy are successfully foiled, but at the end of Act III, Ralphie’s father (the “Old Man”) comes in to save the day and makes sure Ralphie receives the gun from Santa.

The plot follows the basic pattern for all good stories: the hero (Ralphie) wants something so badly he’s willing to do whatever it takes — within reason, of course — to get it. Along the path of this journey, he is repeatedly thwarted from reaching his goal by stronger and stronger adversaries, increasing his desperation and lengths he’s willing to go until finally, when it appears his mission has failed, he gets what he worked so hard for.

Subplots Galore

If you watch the movie enough times, you become intimately familiar with the subplots. Some of them:
The Old Man’s constant war with the neighbor’s dogsThe Old Man’s constant war with inanimate objects (the furnace and family Oldsmobile)The Old Man’s gift of creative cussing pulled out on many occasionsThe infamous "Leg" lampRalphie and his friends’ escalating confrontations with the neighborhood bullyRalphie’s mother and her overprotectiveness of his younger brotherRalphie’s finally receiving his long-awaited Little Orphan Annie decoder ring (and being disappointed by the “secret message” it provides)All of this is played in the background to the overall theme: Christmas and Ralphie’s getting his perfect present on Christmas Day, mixed in with the odd daydream here and there, consistent with that which floats through any kid’s mind during a long and boring day.

Tying All of It Together

Unlike in lesser made films, the myriad subplots do not detract from the main story in this movie, but rather enhance it. At the end, Ralphie does get his gun — but he also beats up the bully so badly that he has to be pulled off the kid before he did him any serious damage, essentially providing satisfying closure for both dramatic points. The Old Man’s lost final battle with the neighbors’ dogs leads the family to enjoy a charming, but odd, Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant that remained a cherished memory for Ralphie (as narrator) for the rest of his life — as only delightfully strange events in our lives can do.

There are many other examples of how the subplots weave within the main story and/or the characters’ motivations and personalities. There’s not a bit of wasted dialog or action; any further editing would do irreparable damage to the overall effect of the film.

Thus the appeal of A Christmas Story: it cultivates a familiar storytelling approach with highly entertaining subplots that enhance the effect of the time and place, and thus, the overall feel.

Theme

One can speculate on a number of themes. Here are a few examples:
Persistance paysIf it’s worthwhile goal, it’s worth fighting forNever come between a boy and his BB gunNo matter which one you decide on, though, there is plenty of subtext to consider.

Hidden Lesson?

After Ralphie gets his gun, he rushes outside to try it. An ill-advised shot nearly causes what most of the adults in the movie already warned him about: he comes close to really shooting his eye out. However, thanks to some creative storytelling, Ralphie is able to successfully blame the near tragedy on something else, only eliciting the sympathy of his ever-supportive mother. Perhaps the lesson learned is this: adults really do know better than kids, but that knowledge is certainly limited to what input the parents have access to. True to form, however, movie heroes, even kids, always win the day, even through deception and subterfuge. Didn’t we all survive childhood with a bit of that?

Final Thoughts

I’ve taken time to analyze my own feelings about what makes The Christmas Story such an enjoyable one to watch over and over again. Sure, it’s a little holiday tradition I’ve established for myself, coming from a very traditional (and large) extended family. We humans enjoy our little rituals, don’t we? ☺

However, I think it’s more than that. Perhaps it’s the realism of the sets and the nostalgia they elicit. Or maybe it is, at the end, a heartwarming story about a young boy who gets his Christmas wish, courtesy of Santa (with an assist from a bighearted father who remembered his own boyhood). There certainly appears to be genuine affection expressed by the boys’ mother toward them and even an amused tolerance of her husband’s larger-than-life personality. I’m sure it’s all that and more, for me and for the many people who camp out in front of the TV every Christmas to watch it.

Merry Christmas to all!

Michael