Regular Life

I started blogging when my small family and I moved to a place a minimum 6-hour drive from where we had ever lived. Rather than sending long missives and online photo album links in e-mail, I could just publish the text and images (and more) out here.

It was the perfect outlet for a reporter/photographer who had left journalism but still had the bug.

I quickly ramped up to between three and five posts per week, often mining my past for a “Drama in Real Life” approach. When that wasn’t enough I created my own drama by making a music and voice-over video of cups that had spent an inordinate amount of time occupying a street drain. In addition I occasionally wrote serial fiction, publishing each chapter on my story blog as I wrote it, often falling asleep at the keyboard.

I was way too busy.

Unexpectedly, Regular Life became part of a multi-blog community where I got to know several people — some of whom I have met in person more than once, one of whom I barely missed in Boston. I even helped one guy move, and that’s serious.

Others have fallen by the wayside, and once they disappeared digitally they became unknown to me. In a few cases it was a bit like losing a friend but having no closure.

A few I maintain contact with via methods outside this space, including e-mail, phone, and, dare I admit, FaceBook. That last one, I suspect, is responsible for the veritable ghost towns that now inhabit so many personal blogs’ comment areas.

Apparently reading 15 words from dozens of people is better than reading 415 from a few.

I also have added several local friends to those already here when we moved. Nothing can substitute for breathing the same air in the same room.

On top of that, I am making an effort to turn my eyes away from the computer screen, which I already stare at all day in my job, and around which too many of my hobbies already revolve.

I say all this not as a farewell, but to let you know why I might not be out here as often as in the past. I hope most of you have my blog in your RSS Reader. For sporadic publications such as this, RSS is a much less frustrating way to stay current. You avoid checking the site and seeing the same old thing you saw two days ago.

Here’s to stops and starts!

The Internet is making more people feel like Charlie Brown than ever before. Or maybe it’s just me.

Remember when Charlie would go to his mailbox hoping to find a letter, only to be disappointed by an empty box?

It happens to me when I check my Gmail, then my Yahoo! Mail, and then my FaceBook, and then my Twitter. I’m setting myself up just like that world-renowned blockhead.

At least I don’t have to go all the way outside to check. And, because they aren’t limited to delivery once a day, I can be disappointed several times a day, or, heck, several times an hour!

Do I check only after I have written something that requires or suggests a reply? No. Does that change my hope that I might see a number in parentheses beside my Inbox indicating there is something new? No.

Notification of comments on my blog posts go to Gmail. Alerts to activity on FaceBook go to Yahoo!, what I like to call my “online forms” account. Apparently I felt I could trust my blog (run by me) more than I could FB.

Since switching from our minitower PC to a used laptop I bought from Alvis, I rarely use my home e-mail account. That’s mostly because I don’t remember the password for AT&T’s outgoing mail server. At least I’m sparing myself a little disappointment there.

In fact, I just now checked it, and all but about four of the 140 new e-mails are from me. I use that account to forward myself links that I receive but can’t view at work. Only an old friend from high school and a few folks who are mistaking me for a realtor use that one.

I tell myself that it is not a letdown if I receive nothing new, but I’m sure on some level the fruitless checking is pecking away at me.

If Charlie Brown had this many mailboxes, message boards, and social networking sites, and could check them as many times a day as he wanted, would he go insane? How often do you check?

(Click to enlarge.)

 
Sound Clip – Ben explains how some spiders catch their prey.
 

It wasn’t what I had in mind when I started the car Sunday morning.

After my son and I played catch and other games in the back yard early, I decided we needed to get out of the house, to one of the places I recently discovered while wandering away from work.

On past walks and bicycle rides to the donut shop, Benjamin had toted along books in his backpack. The tradition became this: move a while, then stop and sit on the sidewalk for me to read him a book. Benjamin decided to continue this tradition on trips that don’t involve deep-fried breakfast food.

This time there was a twist that, while initially undesirable, turned out to be pleasant. (as usual, please use headphones or earbuds for maximum immersion)

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A question formed in my mind while I recently read the script for “The Princess Bride.”

Would some of the most renowned novelists of the past have written for and/or directed movies had they existed? Or would that have fallen in the lap of the playwrights?

This came up because, as I read the script, I wanted to skip over the brief descriptive passages to get to the dialogue. The imagery already ingrained in my brain from several past viewings, I saw the narrative as a hindrance to my enjoyment of the movie’s witty verbal exchanges. (Had it been the actual script rather than a transcript of the film, I would have enjoyed it on a completely different level.)

Those details, however, are vital to a novelist. While some things can be left to the reader’s imagination, there are other times that details are important to the story, and without prior knowledge of a place, the reader needs the author’s painstakingly specific depiction. In today’s culture of instant worldwide communication, it’s harder to reach a reader who has no preconceived notions of a setting.

We also should remember that some of the most well-known authors were published in literary magazines that paid by the word. Excess description and flowery adjectives helped line the struggling artists’ pockets.

With a moving picture to assist them, however, would the literary greats have gone to such great lengths holed up in their writing cubbies, or would they have concentrated on the dialogue and a few simple settings? Would Charles Dickens have scratched out his ideas for “A Christmas Carol” on a pub napkin and let a filmmaker do the rest?

I shudder to think that Great Expectations might never have existed in novel form. In it Dickens seems to be working from a palette most modern writers don’t even know exists. Then again, maybe I just haven’t read enough “real” literature.

Much of the shift of eyeballs from the printed word to the screen, whether to read or to watch, is thanks to technology much newer than film.

Perhaps writers of classic novels thrust into today’s world still would toil over the niggling details, yet publish them online. Certainly this would be the perfect model for those wishing to get read, not get rich. I know an online novelist who says he would make movies if he had the budget, but since blogging is so cheap he uses that medium to foist his considerable talents upon the world.

As increasingly portable devices make it easier for us to be viewers rather than readers, will our appreciation for expertly crafted narrative give way to cinematography that looks good on a 4-inch screen? I have given in to this more than a few times over my lunch hour, propping my PocketDish up against my insulated lunch pail rather than reading a book. On trips, it is not unusual for me to read a book only until the flight attendant says it’s okay to turn on “approved electronic devices.”

I tell myself that I do it because, with a wife who is a fan of neither horror nor unflinching independent films, I get less time at home to watch whatever I want. In reality, however, I grew up a TV viewer and movie lover, reading only when neither of those was convenient.

In recent years I find I’m usually happier writing than reading or viewing, and so at that same lunch table I often can be found tapping at these keys.

At the rate technology is progressing, watching a screen anywhere will be convenient, and the restroom will no longer be nicknamed “the library.” Devices like the Amazon Kindle, however, are using technology to keep “print” alive. Perhaps if it and related products become as ubiquitous as the iPod, reading will not be completely replaced by viewing.

In the end, I suppose that writers plucked from the past and dropped into present day would tailor their craft toward whatever medium allowed them to avoid working a regular job.

When deciding between reading or viewing I just can’t let myself forget that very few things I have watched have been as engrossing, entertaining, and thought-provoking as a good book. I have to make myself believe it, because my ultimate goal is to write one.

I’m writing a new work of fiction, but it’s coming along slowly. For the first time in years, I am not reading a book.

The main reason? I watch more television this season than I have in several years. As I wrote this post, I became alarmed at how much I watch — 5.5 hours per week, not counting Razorbacks games when they’re televised. I suppose that still averages out to less than an hour per night, but it feels like a lot when writing about it.

My wife and I have spent the last two nights getting her caught up on the show “Flash Forward.” The DVR now has more free space, and we have only two episodes to go. I hope it fares better than two other recent shows that hooked me in the first episode.

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During our New Mexico trip, after everyone else was asleep, I drove each night from our cabin to a parking lot in town to get Internet access. I huddled over my laptop and typed out the day’s events, re-sized photos for the Web, and posted all for the whole world to read.

I just couldn’t resist the immediacy. Like nothing before, it scratched my writing itch, and the blog added the rush of being published and being read. Actual feedback from real people was like one of those stiff-fingered wooden back-scratchers getting the really tough spots. Sure, I could ignore the itch, but it felt oh so good to scratch it.

Years before the blog was invented, I relished any content I could mine to put words on paper. Just like now, vacations were perfect fodder, and the technology I used to chronicle them evolved from ancient to present day.

This dates all the way back to a handwritten account of a trip my father, brother, and I took to Destin, Florida when I was 15. Awash in hormones, I hung out on the beach and got to know a beautiful Georgia girl who thought Arkansas was “somewhere up there by Montana.” I haven’t tackled typing that one yet, for fear I might actually put it out here.

After a long hiatus from trip journaling, in spring 2001 I returned to painstaking form. During a week-long trip to San Francisco and surrounding areas, I kept a spiral notebook with me everywhere we went. Each time we all piled back into the rented van, I opened up the notebook and wrote what I could remember. Back at the big house on the hill overlooking the San Francisco Bay Bridge, I borrowed a fellow traveler’s laptop and copied my scrawl into digital format. Despite that, it remains unseen by the public, languishing somewhere on a floppy disk.

Later that same year, we celebrated Christmas with a week in Key West. Only a few months after the September 11 hijacking attacks, getting there was more interesting than we had hoped. For that trip I carried around a tiny micro-cassette recorder and dictated my thoughts to it periodically, including our first time snorkeling, when a barracuda scared me back to the boat. I still have not transcribed that tape.

The following summer, prior to our 10th anniversary trip to western Wyoming, I dragged my writing into the 21st century. I created a page on Blogger and an opt-in form for those who wished to receive an e-mail each time I updated the journal (this was before most people knew about RSS feeds and other fancy blog-related features). I kept the photos separate, in an online photo album on Fotki.com. Warning: it reads more like a personal journal than a polished piece of travel writing.

Reader Simon converted one of his old trip journals to a series of blog posts covering his teen-aged trip to China. His writing at that age was much farther along than mine, in some ways rivaling the prose in my 2002 anniversary trip journal (after all, how many times in one paragraph should a writer use the word “stuff?”).

When I was a newspaper reporter/photographer, I never wanted for content. Now, I find myself considering resurrecting those old trip journals (and possibly photos) for filler between new inspirations.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I don’t know whether I’m addicted to writing or to publication, but it all started at my mother’s childhood Kansas home.

My grandfather knew I had a passion for writing, and always encouraged me. He took one of my handwritten poems to his office’s secretary and had her type it into a computer, then send it to the office’s laser printer.

This was like nothing I had ever seen. Unlike the IBM typewriters or my Apple IIe’s dot-matrix printer — the letters were smooth and pure black, in a typeface worthy of great works. My words looked like they had been lifted from a book.

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(Note: Today is Canada Day. I hope Simon and all the other hosers have a great one.)

Generally I read during my lunch hour, and in shorter bursts at home. A fan of a variety of fiction genres, lately I’ve been dipping my toes in nonfiction. One of the books I almost put down after reading half of it, another is a collection of compelling short pieces, and the other is a unique look at a topic covered in innumerable previous works. Winding down to the end now at about the same time, they’re geeky, sporty, and historic, respectively.

I came across all of these by accident at a local library fundraiser sale and spent a total of $1.50. Below are my impressions of what my bargain hunting got me.

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Click pic for a better look.

 
Please type the story you think should (or at least could) accompany this photo. It can be one sentence, or a few paragraphs. It can contain dialogue or not. It can be funny, scary, mysterious, or something else. Nobody’s entry will appear until I’ve received all of them, to keep the originality flowing.*

Multiple entries per person allowed.

Suggestion: If you decide to write a long-ish story, use a text editor and then copy and paste it here, to make sure you don’t lose anything.

Enjoy.

* – Update: The “hold comments for moderation” feature is not working. I must have published this before adjusting that setting, or something. Just try to resist reading the comments before writing your own.

If you write something for the printed page, it stares up at the reader, unforgiving, and especially if the words offend you, it sears. — Frank Deford

Deford’s words above spoke directly to me when I first read them on Tuesday. I have gone over this same concept with others, but never have I put it so succinctly.

Unlike spoken conversation, the written word lingers there waiting to be read again. Pondered over and over while the reader’s imagination takes control.

The difference between my point and Deford’s is that he compares printed word to radio. “On the other hand, no matter how the radio voice may temporarily concentrate the mind, having spoke, it moves on,” he writes. The commentator could say, “People who like yellow are sissies,” and then go to another topic. The listener at first would be distracted, but eventually focus would shift and memory of the sissy remark would fade.

Let’s go one more step to talking face to face or on the phone. The advantage over other methods of communication is that the listener often can discern intent from inflection, gestures, or a quick laugh. If that doesn’t work, then he or she can speak up and say, “Could you tell me what you mean by that?” Rather than stewing in silence trying to surmise the speaker’s intent, the listener gets immediate clarification, a quick cleanup of a messy assumption.

Similar to radio, even if the listener does not speak up, a potentially offensive comment tends to fade. Ideally, more pressing concerns creep back in and the controversy becomes a non-starter.

An e-mail sitting in the inbox is a dead document, forever doomed to spout whatever the writer found fit to send at any given moment. No matter what discussions take place afterward, its text remains there as a reference, where the reader can experience the inflammatory words, no matter how unintentional, again.

Then he or she can consult a significant other for advice. “Read this and tell me what you think.” The onlooker leans over for a peek at the screen, in some cases with absolutely no shared history with the writer, no context within which to help judge the words displayed. This often exacerbates the problem.

All of us as humans are susceptible to this because we are thinking beings. Our minds, not content to sit idly by and do nothing, make it so easy to infer plots and schemes that we often don’t realize it’s happening.

Blogs have a slight advantage over e-mails, because they can be changed. If something is pointed out as wrongheaded or inaccurate, the writer can make an adjustment and note it. Something as simple as “that girl is a dope” can be corrected to read, “that girl is dope.”

Silly examples aside, I have seen entire friendships burned to cinders via e-mail (none were my own). The things they used to get to know each other, to understand his or her moods and meanings — tone of voice, body language, mannerisms — all were left languishing at the mercy of the typed words. A simple joke can be taken all too seriously. Emoticons can do a little to control the damage, but some things are best left to the spoken word.

At least then if something is taken wrong, you might recover before things take a wrong turn.

Note: Before anyone asks if this was inspired by a recent discussion out here… Dave and I are still thick as thieves. I finished a book on Monday and started Deford’s at lunch on Tuesday. The timing was strictly coincidental.