Ah yes… August!

Ah yes… August!
As I have said before, I dislike writing during the summer months.

Living

So here we are at the end of summer. If you’ve noticed, I have not posted since May. Again, not so much lax as busy elsewhere. In May, I sorted, discarded, and then packed the resulting remains of nearly three years in Chicago into a Kia Rio (!) and left the Chicago area for Dallas and family and My Future.

In June I began another Security job, not nearly as conducive to writing as the last one, but good in its own, disciplining, way. I now wear a suit, a smile, do NOT curse and generally pretend I am happy for eight hours doing very, very little beyond pushing a button to call an elevator. Now THAT is work for a cussing, hard-working Sailor/Farmer and Plumber’s Helper. Oh, and Author.

In July I signed a one year lease with a long-time friend on a two bedroom apartment in North Oak Cliff, i.e. the part of Dallas that exists south of the Trinity River. That was roughly six weeks on a couch with a three foot closet for my personal belongings. But better than spending nights in my Rio!

Very interesting area, North Oak Cliff, similar to the part of Chicago I lived in for so long. The juxtaposition of luxury (nearby Kessler Park) and poverty (Oak Cliff) is as startling here as it was in Chicago, and the ‘boundary’ of an Arts District (Bishop Arts District here) for a buffer between the two is extremely interesting. How is it that ‘art’ is the defacto boundary between ignorant poverty and educated luxury?

In August, I moved into the apartment. Or rather, during this month I have been moving in—emphasis on the ‘-ing’ of moving. I have a week to go and half a storage unit to empty into a bedroom, a bath and a walk-in closet. It will be interesting, especially with the table saw and router…

One recent coping mechanism: I do find myself drinking more. Principally red wine and vodka, usually not on the same night (common sense sometimes prevails.) The alcohol certainly helps me write more freely (use the metaphor here for biologically creating human life…) and edit even more freely. I dislike destroying what took so much effort to create, but the wine makes that easier. All for art.

Writing

And so we arrive at the end of August. You are caught up on the general flow of my life, as far as geography and daily business. As far as writing, there has been a little. Several short stories are either written or outlined, one about getting what you wish for, another about transcription errors in cloning. And best of all! I have finally got the outline to the sequel to Down Cellar! In one tipsy night, I had an argument with Jim Worthington and Detective Dan Miller, and voila! the whole rest of the story fell into place. There is a lot of writing to still do on that, but at least the path is clear ahead. And that is a true blessing!

Next

What comes next is not just fleshing out that outline. There are other, far more serious questions in my life. At the risk of sabotage, I will simply say, there are plans for employment changes in my future. Nothing solid, but there are plans.

Also, I think I am ready for an author’s Editor and an Agent. I could be wrong: I still have doubts about my writing ability, or rather the salability of my writing. But the time has come, I think, to test that. There is no way to test it but to use courage, risk failure and loss, and ‘just do it’.

So I sit here on my balcony, wine, chips and salsa before me, fan blowing on me from the side in the near-100 degree heat, writing to you about my past and future. It has been a good summer, a series of adjustments in the line of ‘discipline’, largely a vacation from the effort of creating new lives and situations in that world called “Freiburg”. I needed it. They needed it, to be real. And now, at summer’s end, the end of that saga can be written.

Pray for me, you who pray. Send thoughts of creativity and power, those of you who don’t. I need all the help I can get. 😉  And I will continue the life of Gordon, and wrap up the life of Jim Worthington and the good citizens of Freiburg, IN.

Cheers,