R. Patrick Hughes's Blog, page 16

Just a short post. I urge you to go to Jody Hedlund's blo...

Just a short post. I urge you to go to Jody Hedlund's blog today. Besides being a timely post, the video of David Garrett playing Vivaldi's "Summer" from the Four Seasons is phenomenal.
David Garrett playing "Summer" from The Four Seasons

How To Increase Your Intelligence At Any Age (1)

Would you like to grow smarter? Would you like to know more, remember it longer, and access it quicker? I know I would.

I do not think of old age as a time to shrivel up and die. It's the golden opportunity many of us feel we missed out on in our lives. You do not need to have a million dollars in the bank, although I don't think it would hurt. You can get everything you need at your local library. The books and resources there are amazing, and they're there for free.

But, here's the deal. You have to work. There's no magic pill or food or hocus pocus. Just plain old work. Is it fun? I don't think you classify this as fun. Is it painful? Well, how do you define pain? Is it satisfying? How do you define satisfaction? I don't think of learning as fun, but I do find it satisfying. There's something inherently satisfying in expanding our consciousness and our knowledge. There seem to be no limits to our mental capacity. The neuroplasticity of our brains seems to be practically unlimited. I think our minds are actually hungry for knowledge. The more we feed it, the happier it  becomes.

Some of this is learning (working our brains) for the sake of it. It's work. And yes we can become tired and need to know when to quit. But the work is satisfying; I think our brains get a certain enjoyment out of working. Look at elementary school-age kids at work. You see something that is fascinating. You see happiness and eagerness to do more of it.

But the real questions are: Is it worth it? What's in it for me?

The Power of Sleep

Sleep is a vital component of living; without adequate sleep, we remain tired and grumpy, perhaps even lethargic and/or depressed.

 It appears that adequate sleep can be different for different people, but I'll assume the tried-and-true 8 hours per night is adequate. The key word is "adequate". Being a person who suffers from sleep apnea and uses a cpap machine to get adequate sleep, I have experience with the problem of lack of adequate sleep. Before I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, perhaps 15 years ago, a 12-hour night of sleep left me exhausted and practically unable to function. I fell asleep at work more often than I want to admit. Fortunately, I had understanding co-workers and didn't get fired. I still need about 10 hours of sleep per night to feel alert. So, just to function in a busy and chaotic world, we need adequate sleep.

But adequate sleep has other benefits than just keeping our energy level high. For the creative writer, it may be an important component of our creativity. An article in the April 23, 2012 Time magazine "Shhh! Genius at Work" discusses the importance of sleep to creativity. Several scientific studies support the connection between sleep and creativity (and problem solving). The article mentions that Mary Shelley came up with the idea for her novel Frankenstein from a dream.

I think most writers can attest to the power of sleep for our writing. I see on blogs a lot of talk about sleep. Mostly complaints about not getting enough sleep, even complaints of coming up with ideas in sleep and waking up. But, really, this is a positive effect of sleeping well. Our minds are free from the restraints of our awake consciousness. This freedom of the mind to try out different solutions to problems while we're sleeping allows for more options: greater creativity. Many, many times I've awoken in the middle of the night with the solution to a problem in a story I was working on, mainly problems of plot. I've always valued ideas generated when I was asleep. I've written dialogue, even entire scenes in my mind while asleep, woke up, and wrote it all down at 2 a.m.

This tremendous benefit of sleeping may actually become a liability for many writers. And I think this is the primary problem for many of us. This waking up in the middle of the night causes us to be tired during the day when we have to work at our full time jobs. It helps make our workday unhappy, and this causes dilemmas for us. It probably kills more writing careers than anything. We just can't do both, write well and consistently when we're tired. Time management also becomes a big issue. But that's another topic. (This also goes for stay-at-home moms, who are also writers, with young children to care for.) The obstacles to writing are so great for both that many just give up.

But the full time writer, especially without children to care for, who can sleep as late as she wants, can reap tremendous rewards from waking up in the middle of the night to write down her inspirations. It's just too bad the vast majority of us can't live without a full time job. Most of us don't want to live in poverty, especially if we have families. Plus, in the USA, our jobs are our source for health insurance: no job, no insurance (not good). Unfortunately, we opt for our jobs, security, and suffer the unhappy consequences of hating our jobs.

The Wrestler, re: John Irving, 12 May 2012 Time

I read with a great interest the article in the May 12, 2012 issue of Time magazine entitled "The Wrestler" concerning the writer John Irving. No doubt a successful and highly acclaimed author, Irving is now 70 years old, five years older than me. He is dealing with his declining powers as a writer as he gets older. Apparently, he feels that being in top physical condition will help him to retain his powers as a writer and perhaps increase his longevity. He has a pretty rigorous workout schedule. I for one hope it does help him to live and write for many more years.

I'm facing the same issue of declining mental stamina. I'm in the opposite situation in that I have not achieved success as a writer. I'm still attempting to get my work out there. I have no illusions of being a famous or highly successful author at this point. I'm not even sure it matters any longer. I just want to finish what I've started and maybe a little extra.

In an earlier post on this blog I believe I mentioned that I want to write shorter works now. I don't want to spend years and years working on one book any longer. I'd like my novels to be no longer than around 85,000 words, and less would be okay. In the article, Irving said, "I am writing shorter and shorter novels...My grasp of fictional detail and chronological story is worsening, so I must work with what I have to make sure I'm fully cognizant of what I'm creating." That goes for me as well.

It shows, though, to what degree we value and love our creativity. Perhaps we fear losing it and will do whatever is necessary to keep it. When art is what you're about, you want to do it until the day you die.

I wish I were an optimist.

I'm so impressed by some of my blogging friends that I wonder if I'm not some kind of dullard. I suppose I am. One of the things that separates them from me is their optimism and their positive attitude. They seem to have no worries in the world. And I wonder why I'm not like that.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm a miserable wretch. I just see life as full dangers and impossible to understand events. The dangers don't bother me personally. I've lived a long time now and I've about seen it all, experienced a lot of things I don't care to discuss. I've had a lot of happiness as well as sadness. I've know success and failure. But I have a hard time understanding why bad people seem to win most of the time. Am I wrong in that view of things? I don't know. It's just the way I see it. Yes, bad people often come to an unhappy end in the end. But, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they just seem to win and win and win. Maybe they're not really bad people. Maybe they're good people who make the most of a bad world. I just don't know. Like I said, I don't understand.

Why is it that most of the great artists--writers, painters, mucisians--lived pretty destitute lives while the mediocre thrived? Am I right in that, or am I misinformed? I don't want to ramble on. I just want to know what other people think. I love to read the blogs of the optimists. It actually makes me feel better to read them. But why am I not able to become an optimist? It just isn't me. I've tried. I've read The Power of Positive Thinking. I've read many books on self-improvement, from Depak Chopra to Wayne Dyer. I've studied Hinduism, which seems to be the source of positive thinking, and some of its off-shoots, some of the positive-thinking religions. Nothing works. I am what I am. I keep seeing the negative side.

Isn't that sort of what yin-and-yang is about. We're a mixture of all opposites. To be heavily one or the other is to be out of balance isn't it. Maybe it's a slightly stronger leaning to yin or to yang that makes the difference. Maybe it's just a matter of degree. 51% yin and 49% yang is all it takes to be dramatically different from 51% yang and 49% yin. It's all such a mystery.

Please let me know what you think.

The Sholes Key by Clarissa Draper

Sophia Evans is a cryptanalyst who is recruited into doing undercover work, work that turns her life upside down.

The Sholes Key by Clarissa Draper is a modern-day mystery that will keep you reading well into the night. Sophia Evans is presented with bizarre cryptograms that test her skills to the utmost. Vaguely familiar to her (she feels she's seen the series of numbers before, but can't remember where), deciphering these cryptograms is the key to stopping a serial killer, who has left them at the crime scene, perhaps daring the police to catch him. Knowing that the killer will strike again, believing that she is perhaps his next target, Sophia must work fast to save someone's life, perhaps her own. Aided by DI Theophilus Blackwell (a well-drawn character), Sophia begins solving the case. Little does she know, the key to doing so is very close at hand.

You can visit Clarissa Draper at her website Clarissa Draper.
You may purchase The Sholes Key at Amazon.com.

How engrossed do you get in a book?

One day, when I was maybe 20 years old, I took my mother downtown. While she went shopping, I sat in the car, which was parked along a busy street in Jacksonville, Florida. While waiting for my mother to return, I read a novel. I guess I was pretty engrossed in it, because all of a sudden I heard sirens. I looked up and there were fire trucks parked between me and a house that was on fire. I couldn't believe my eyes. Had I woken up from a dream. Nope. It was real.

How about you? How engrossed have you gotten into a book?

Childhood

I've been reading Annie Dillard's An American Childhood and thinking about my own childhood, remembering it, trying to put a name to it. I asked myself: What did it mean to be a child? I decided that the one thing it means for sure is that I (the child) have no memory. When I was born, I had nothing in my brain (memories) to fall back on, to tell me what was going on, and that was the case for quite a few years.

As an adult, I can remember my very first memory. I recall it vividly. I was walking down the street, holding my father's hand. I had a diaper full of doo-doo. On the top of the fence pole, there was a large Lincoln Head Penny.

I was potty trained when I was two years old, so I had to have been two years old or less. I walked at around ten months of age, so they tell me, so I might have been one or two years old. Was that my first moment of self-realization? Why did that memory stay with me for the rest of my life, and nothing much else until I was older? What was so memorable about it? I can't say. It just is. Just like a child, I just was.

Being a child means learning how to remember--to remember without remembering. We forget almost everything we remember. Yet, we remember it all. It is within us. We just don't remember it. So being a child is all about memory.

What do you do when you know you're running out of time?

I just downloaded to my Kindle free of charge 30 or 40 of the classics that I've never read, or would like to read again. Yet, I know there's probably no way I'll ever read all those books. Oh, I could if I put my mind to it. But blending reading the classics with reading contemporary books, blogging, writing my own books...well, it just isn't going to happen. I'm 65 years old and who knows how much more time I have left. I'm in excellent health, really, for my age. I can see myself living another 30 or so years. That's a lot of time. But it's nothing like having 60 or 70 years ahead of you, as I once did. You just cannot make up for lost time; at least, I can't, not with all I have and want to do.

Fortunately, I have a lot of work to finish that's in various stages of completion. But I also have the nagging desire to write new books. I do have a few stories floating around in my head. How to get it done? What am I to do?

I have a three year-old-grandson I'm raising. He can't be left unattended. Even when he's older and, until he's an adult, he can't be left unattended for very long. You can never stop being vigilant in caring for your children. That comes before everything else. So I have to squeeze in all this other stuff around caring for my grandson. It's hard to do. But I must do it. Somehow I must find a way.

Which brings me to thinking about those of you in high school, or even college. You have a lot of time left, but you really don't. The necessities of living will rob you of much of your time. It's a rare person who can attain their dreams at a young age. That's especially hard for writers. (I've discussed this in other posts.) So, what are you to do? Most of us live our lives without much planning or looking ahead. We tend to live for the moment. Carpe diem. And there's nothing wrong with that. Unless you can somehow find the financial means to write fulltime for a few years until you can become financially self-sufficent writing (and that's hard to do), you'll have to squeeze your reading and writing in around your living for the day. In other words, part of your living for the day must incorporate reading and writing. If you don't, it'll all evaporate over time. It's a tough challenge. Only a few can succeed at it. Part of carpe diem is "do it now."

But, I also believe that do it now (writing) can wait until your formal education is completed. If you want to experiment with writing while in high school or college, that's fine. Experiment. But put your education first. Finish that part of your life first.

Which is better...generalist or learned specialist?

I've been pondering this for a while now: which is better for a writer of fiction, or poetry for that matter, to be, a generalist or a learned specialist?

Quite a few doctors and lawyers have turned to writing fiction, and I would consider them to be learned specialists. And they seem to be quite successful as writers: Steve Berry, Michael Creighton, Robin Cook, Frank G. Slaughter, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and many others. I'm sure that many successful authors were also generalists: Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and many others. Of course, I've done no study of this. I'm just speaking off the top of my head (I'm a generalist and don't have any special knowledge; I have a BA in English, I studied and obtained a certificate in computer programming, and I worked for a while on an MBA, before deciding that running corporations wasn't for me). I'm more of an autodidact and have read about almost every subject under the sun. I'm a jack of all trades and master of none.

It seems that being a learned specialist is valuable. If nothing else, her dedication and concentration on one subject for a number of years lays the foundation for the discipline necessary to be a writer. The subject of study perhaps doesn't have much bearing on it, just the fact that she's studied something assiduously for six, eight, ten years has prepared her for working on novels for long periods of time and seeing it through to the end. To me this is a distinct advantage.

As a generalist and autodidact, I wander from one subject to another, never mastering anything. Perhaps I just have a short attention span (and I do). Jumping around from one subject to another gives the illusion of being learned. I can talk about most anything up to a point, then I have to shut up. When confronted with a specialist, who doesn't need to b. s. anyone about his subject matter, and doesn't have to b. s. about subjects he knows nothing about, I must shut up and listen.

Does this mean it's better to be a learned specialist before turning to writing? I wonder. What do you think?