seanmmurphy

I am reading Nancy Pickard and Lynn Lott's ridiculously precise book on writing, entitled Seven Steps on the Writer's Path. And it is telling me true things about myself that I already know, and that I already know are true, and that I just haven't recognized. I feel like a projectile of magnetic metal being accelerated along a Gaussian tube, like a man walking down a hallway of mirrors, being asked by a careful, poignant guide to look at different layers of this reflection of myself, and every time I do, I see what they are talking about, and I step through the mirror to the next layer.

Funhouses are like onions, apparently. And my brain is like both of them.

Also, any writers out there that haven't already read this? Read it. This is the best description I have ever encountered of what living as a writer is like, and how it works, and what the rhythm and cycle of the creative impulse looks like. It will walk you through yourself and show you how to understand what you are experiencing in a way that is refreshing and empowering.

And I'm only through step two of seven.

Back in the yonder of January 2009, I posted a list of goals. It's been a while, and I've been busting my tail on some of those and several other self-improvements. So it's time for an annual check-up. Let's see how I did, and what the plan is for the coming lap. (This is my list from 2009. I've checked off any of those that I've accomplished with an 'X'.)

Sean's Goals for 2009

_X_Eliminate Credit Card Debt
_X_Pay Off Student Loans
_X_Run a 5K race in less than 20 minutes
__Run a 10+ mile race
__Get in shape:
__X___Weigh 135 lbs
_____Bench 150 lbs
_____Abs defined
__X___Size 29 waist
__Finish and submit 6 short stories
__Finish Glimmerfolk (novel)


So, it looks like I was able to get about half of those goals accomplished. I have run more than 10 miles at once, but not in a race, so I'm leaving that one unchecked. I can't bench the weight of my own breath, so that still needs a good hard look. And while my abs are a lot better than they were, they aren't what I would call 'defined.'

My writing has been a mediocre effort, at best, which is untenable. I finished and submitted one (read:1) short story in the last two years, and that was in the last month. I didn't work on Glimmerfolk much at all. That is unacceptable.

Of course, mid-way through these goals, I was distracted by another self-improvement project: recognizing that I was an alcoholic and choosing to do something about it over this past year. That has been another success. But this isn't a thorough list of my accomplishments, just a look at how I did on goals I set for myself two years back.

So, what do I intend to do about it? After all, tomorrow's another year. There's always room for improvement, right? Yep:

Sean's Goals for 2011

__Run eight races
__Run a half-marathon sub-1:30
__Run a marathon
__Get in shape:
_____Maintain 135 lbs weight
_____Maintain size 29 waist
_____Bench 135 lbs
_____Abs defined
__Finish and submit 4 short stories
__Finish Magi (novel)

I'm trying to make these goals a little more realistic, based on how I did with the 2009 goals. There are slightly fewer, for one thing. (Also, I'm not counting the two maintenance goals as potential achievements, more as a baseline for other improvement factors.) Second, they are slightly less reaching--benching 135, not 150; finish and submit 4 stories, not 6, so I have more of my focus on completing this decade plus novel project.

Most importantly, these are goals that I want to reach because I want to achieve these things. They aren't arbitrary; these are milestones and accomplishments tied up in the definition of who I am, who I want to be. 2011 needs to be a year when I try to make my life more of what I want it to be, and less a year when I let myself drift along in the current of life. I grew up by the ocean: driftwood never chooses its own beach.

So, a toast for 2011--one with spirit, though not with spirits: Let us make this a year in which we truly strive toward our potential, despite the pitfalls and pratfalls that we will certainly find in our path.

That being said... On your mark! Get set! GO!

Hey Folks! Back again.

So, wow, this job. It has been referred to by friends as "The Job that ate Sean's brain," and that isn't entirely inaccurate. This is far and away the most busy job I've ever had, and for those of you who've known me for a bit, that's saying something, considering the last place I worked. One friend just asked me in a comment thread where I've been, and if my job had swallowed my again.

Yep. That, and other things.

However, I am forcing myself to get back into this community, to talk to y'all, to meet with folks and chat, to check in on Facebook and LJ. To write, to rewrite, to submit.

I'm doing pretty well, considering. I'm back in mostly my high school running shape, with a practice half-marathon time of 1:38:38, which is only 4:43 longer than my high school race pace, same distance. My 5K is a bit slower--19:15 as a practice, where I know I was running that sub-17:00. But I'm working on that.

I finished a new version of a short story and turned it in at Wyrdsmiths, which was key--I need to be writing and getting stuff in incrementally, even if I'm working n a longer piece.

And I need to talk to you. You folks are the bright half of my world, and I'm just not happy when I don't get to talk to you, hang out with you, see you on a somewhat regular basis.

So, yeah, I'm here, and over on FB, and I even have a foundling Twitter account that I doubt I'll use much. But most importantly, I'm writing.

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn." -Ernest Hemingway

Personally, I find Hemingway's famous six-word story extremely inspiring, efficient, and full of pathos. It does what a good story must--connects to the reader's own sense of common humanity and relies upon that sensilbility to fill in the background of the story. There are few stories that can blossom from those six words that wouldn't touch us, move us--and that is, to my mind, an amazing feat.

Because of that, I try to hone my own craft by looking into what Hemingway did and learning from it, then shaping my own stories from that understanding, with the same six-word limitation. Here are a few of today's renderings:

"The puppy licked his unmoving hand."

"The wedding band chafed her finger."

"He shoved her forward, then died."

"Wedding invitations, unsent, brought fresh tears."

To be sure, these are lacking detail that could flesh out the story that I see in my mind's eye, but when I go back to it, so is Hemingway's. I like the last of these best, if only because it has the same sort of rug-pulled-out feel as what Hemingway wrote. Honestly, you could simply revise his story to read "For sale: Wedding dress, never worn." and it would be almost as good. Though there's a particular pathos about the unrealized baby that resonates, I think, more than the unrealized wedding.

So, gentle reader, have you ever worked on this particular challange? Or are there other exercises you really enjoy in the quest to improve your writing? Or just for fun?

This will, undoubtedly, come as a huge shock, but I'm really not using my LJ very much these days, having toddled off to Facebook where I happy wile. Thus, when my LJ informed me that it was about to take good money out of my bank account to maintain the "paid" status of my account, I gave it the thank-you-very-much-but-no and leapt bridge-diver style off the paid bracket.

Not sure what functionality I'll be losing--it was a year ago since I've had that setup, and to be honest, I'm too lazy to go check LJ's level descriptions to see. I doubt very much it'll impact y'all.

Here's my commentary:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Parse that.

For those of you who email me via the '@livejournal' connection, please know that I've just disabled it. I've gotten an enourmous amount of spam (in Russian) recently, and discovered just now that it is coming in through my livejournal account. At any rate, if you don't already have my email addy and need or want it, just drop a comment under this post and I'll get it to you.

As I noted in my last email, I went off the map for a while there near the end of December. I was getting fed up with myself for being unable, unwilling, or simply too damn lazy to get anything done. I didn't wait for 2009 to assemble a list of what I had to fix, but in keeping with the season, and given that we've just crossed the magical boundary of self-betterment, I thought I would take a moment and share my list.

Sean's Goals for 2009

__Eliminate Credit Card Debt
__Pay Off Student Loans
__Run a 5K race in less than 20 minutes
__Run a 10+ mile race
__Get in shape:
_____Weigh 135 lbs
_____Bench 150 lbs
_____Abs defined
_____Size 29 waist
__Finish and submit 6 short stories
__Finish Glimmerfolk (novel)
__Take Kat on at least one date every month


That's the list as it stands now. There are other goals I have, but once I saw this one piling up I thought I should try to limit myself to these. If it's April and most of this is done or close to it, then I'll revisit it--it's not just for 2009, obviously, though it's all stuff I want to have achieved within 2009.

I won't go into specifics on some things (how much I owe, what constitutes a date, etc.), but I thought I would make a note or two on a few of these. For instance, "Get in shape" is a perennial favorite, and not just mine. I knew I needed to specify what exactly constituted being "in shape", so I set some specific, measurable points that I can reach. Once all of those are met, I will consider the overarching goal achieved.

Staving of other questions: Yes, I used to run regularly, and I should damn well be able to reach sub-20 minutes for a 5K. Yes, my bone structure permits for a 29 inch waist--it's my eating and exercise habits that don't, so those have to change. Yes, those are six different short stories, not just one submitted to six venues.

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns about my mental stability? Have at it!

What is up all my fine feathered flock o' friends?!

I'll tell ya what's up: my self-imposed banishment from the Intarwebs, and with it, my mood! I cranked out the rest of "Silvertongue" this morning, and tonight it goes to Wyrdsmiths. I is writer again! (Well, at least, I is writING again...)

Thanks to all of you who sent notes of hope and help over the last couple of weeks--it's truly apprecaited to know there are folks out there who would miss me if I fell off the side of the earth. Conveniently, the Earth is round again, or will be come January 20th, so falling off the side will require more momentum than a po' writer like me is likely to be able to muster with my meager resources and the government stranglehold on sufficiently strong booster fuels, but hey, I'll be happy with my lot in life as it stands.

Anyway, I'll save my goals for 2009 for another post, but for all who were hanging on by their bitten fingernails, go ahead and let the other shoe drop--I'm back, and this metaphor stew is damn tasty!

So, I have fallen into the Pit of Despair(tm) that is Facebook(also tm), and find that manymanymuchoalot of people I know, both now and from decades ago, are on there. In just one day I had something like thirty people connect with me, some that I haven't talked to in maybe... 13 years?

Also? It is like crack.

So I've got a short story idea that I'm going to work off of that. I'm very excited about it, but that means I have to hurry up and finish the other short story that I've been working on, because after just one more short story (this one that is purty-shiny-new), I have to get back to Glimmerfolk, the novel I've been hiding out from for a few months now.