Other than having to tuck the old Mexican rug curtains all the way into the deep adobe windowsills because it’s going to get goddamn cold—maybe down to zero, with snow!—we’re rolling right along here. I’m still kind of rattling around in the old container of my life, but this is just bad habits. To keep myself on the straight and narrow, I’ve begun figuring out a few rules.
One of the things every big writer must do is find the perfect avatar. (“What?”) You know, the little picture that goes with your tweets or comments. The thing we used to call a “headshot” until we made everything small enough to fit on a phone. I just love working on photos of my own face in Photoshop. The problem with avatars is that I want people to see what I look like, but it has to be cool. I bought a pair of khaki Levi 501s—they call the color “Timber Wolf”—and a neato pair of shoes online and told my wife I was developing a “look.” She was reading in bed and nearly spit out her cough drop. Be that as it may, here I am taking a picture of myself with my iPad:
(As big writer avatars go, the one I made out of this one is pretty stupid because of that shadow from my nose, but at least I don’t look so old. At any rate, I’ve almost got it down, and then I’ll be a lock for that Pulitzer. You get those through LinkedIn, right?)
Another thing every big writer must do is oil the tool handles. I’ll bet you didn’t know that. This morning I was full of purpose, though the object did escape me, until I spied the dry, cracked wooden handles on my dozen old garden tools. Poor remnants of my old life in the tall cotton when my wife made lots of money, the few shovels and rakes—augmented by strange tools from Tucson after my mother’s demise—were leaning against the side of the house in true New Mexico fashion, begging for help. So I broke out the linseed oil I stole from Uncle Dale the dead landlord, found an old hand towel in the cab of my truck, put on nylon gloves, and oiled them sumbitches all dark and slippery. Wait until I go to grab the pitchfork in the spring, though, and it squirts out of my hand and pins the cat to a tree. (“Honey???…)
You can’t be a big writer unless you’re in shape, either. That’s why I took off at 3:00 p.m. to go walk in the desert. This took a long time, right up to cocktail hour. The whole time I was expecting a phone call from a guy in Toronto who has an app or a service or a unicorn to sell me that will get my work into digital magazines you can buy for your iPad. (Did I mention I have an iPad? They’re really great for watching movies on, so you can think and get ideas.) Anyway, I was nervous over the call while I was out in the desert in the wind with the sun going down, and practicing how I’d get out of it by saying I was out in the desert, in the wind, with the sun going down and all, but my phone never rang. So two birds, or is it three?
Finally, big writers need really big websites. Maybe three or four of them. I’ve been working on all of mine and getting to know a lot about databases. Every five minutes I have to google to find out what the hell I’m doing, and afterwards I reward myself by getting another cup of coffee and maybe some Ritz crackers with peanut butter. Or a tuna sandwich. Possibly a spot of sweetened condensed milk from the can I didn’t make a pumpkin pie with. (Just use a spoon, cut out the middleman.) An old rule of my own is that I don’t do work when I’m eating, so then I have to catch up on Twitter instead. Did you know there are writers on Twitter? They’re probably all having snacks, too, or lying on the sofa—someone said that still counts for work if you’re a writer, but his wife didn’t understand.
I read that in a tweet, by the way.
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I was kind of flying there.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Condensed milk from the can….a Masson thing? We all have been know to imbibe in that very same taste enjoyment in the Aolia branch of the family-can’t beat it!
Another example of “bachelor candy,” although I swear I only used to have some when I made a pumpkin pie. I think my parents used to put it in coffee.
I indulged again last night, though. Almost made me sick!
Thank you for this succinct explanation of the writing process/ hysterical post! I think that many of these are best-practices of artists as well!
Hey, Liza! You’re welcome. Yes, I expect they are, only with paint on your clothes.
Glad you think this is hysterical, BTW. Now that I’m no longer suicidal, I’ve decided to become hilarious. A great future awaits!
You are a riot, man! Hilarious.
You know you’re going to be too much to live with when you hit the big time. LOL. Your dear wife!
Oh, she’ll be fine. Might die of sheer relief, but if she doesn’t, there’s always travel & having a real closet!
I’m a believer in the general proposition that writing at its best aspires to be unselfconscious, whatever the toil, angst, limitations and deficiencies of the writer himself. This is probably and perhaps necessarily an illusion. Writing is also in some sense a detour: “As one continues to write, one moves farther away from life, from the communion with other people that writing was meant to provide. Eventually the main road can no longer be seen, but one keeps on writing: because of spite, because one is unfit for anything else and can’t go back, and because of the unbanishable hope that maybe the next turn in the road will bring one back to life.” –Adam Kirsch.
That’s way too melodramatic for my taste, and it ignores such things as content, truth and beauty – but I take the point. Writing is unnatural; it is trying to do something with the raw matter of life that life itself doesn’t bother itself with and perhaps outright resists – express meaning. No wonder writers are bleeders and strugglers. Painters, I am told, tend to be more far more cheerful.
Writing is unnatural? All I’m doing is talking, or maybe—watch out!—transcribing what I hear in my head.
This of course still takes great effort. Holding open the channel with your mind, etc. I don’t know about the rest. When I was painting, that was fun, all right, but often agonizing, too. I can’t agree that painters are happier. Doing any of these things right is risky business. That’s why I always ignore the kind of person who barks “Art! Art!” and goes around strewing flower petals. It ain’t like that!
Hah! Being a deadline designer type, I know this rant well. Email due across country in the am, well, let’s clean those cat boxes, telling myself I am more creative at 4 am after screwing off. But honestly, you being a writer and all…the way you ‘cogitate’ seems perfect to me. And something tells me by the time spring arrives, those tools will be back to their dry state, after a long, cold and dry winter we have just begun…
best to you!
t
Yes, the tool handles will be dry.
I was kind of flying there.