I Don't Know About Writers

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I don't know a lot about writers. I (regrettably) didn't go to the type of college that would make me study them and although I definitely have hero worship for a handful of authors I'm not the kind of guy who reads their biographies. A quick run-through of Wikipedia is usually enough for me.

But I do know what resonates with my own experience as a human being trying to make the best sentences I can. On a recent hurricane-inspired car trip I listened to my favorite portion yet of A Moveable Feast on audiobook. I'll save you some Googling if you've never heard of this book (as I hadn't until recently): It's a collection of memoirs from Ernest Hemingway of his life in Paris during the Twenties. I became interested in it and Hemingway after seeing Midnight In Paris, although I had read and liked The Old Man and The Sea very much a few years ago, and more recently A Farewell To Arms.

The particular chapter is called "Birth of a New School" and begins with Hemingway writing in a cafe when some jerk comes in and starts blabbing in his ear, breaking his concentration and ending the sweet stretch of writing he'd just been enjoying. Hemingway tries to ignore him but he just won't shut up: "He was in full cry now and the unbelievable sentences were soothing as the noise of a plank being violated in the sawmill." I laughed in the car picturing the scene and how often I was in a similar situation. Of course Hemingway tells him off and makes him promise never to come into that cafe again while I just secretly plan to write my transgressors into stories one day, painting them as the irritants they are. Take that, office coworker! I like Hem's way better but I'm not an asshole, legendary, lauded, or otherwise.

Another "author" whom I've identified with recently is Jack Torrence. From The Shining. Yeah, the guy Jack Nicholson plays. Before you make a face, hear me out. Lately I've been reading an incredibly in-depth analysis (almost to conspiracy-theory levels) of The Shining and it inspired me to reconnect with one of my all-time favorite movies. Not only that but the twenty-plus chapters of analysis, theories, and possible symbolism of everything from the elevator doors to the man in the bear suit have opened up new interpretations for me.

So I've watched it a of couple times recently, and one of the scenes I've always loved is when Jack is such a complete and perfect asshole to Wendy when she interrupts his writing. It's such a deliciously tense scene and Nicholson is the only actor in existence who could have pulled off being that shitty in such a believable way. It's amazing; if you haven't seen it in a while you should do so soon. I've actually gone through that scene frame by frame and taken screenshots of my favorite facial expressions for a little idea I've had. Remember those "Today I'm Feeling..." things where you could stick up a wide range of facial expressions to display your current mood? Imagine one made up entirely of Jack Nicholson's Shining faces.

Now, do I really wish I could cuss people out when they interrupt my work? Sometimes, sure. Do I want to ban them from my hometown Starbucks or stack their body parts neatly in another room? Of course not (well, maybe the banning one). I just understand what Jack and Hemingway felt at being disturbed, which isn't surprising in this age of distraction. The thirty-six hours I recently spent without power saw more writing than I get done in an entire week, which is truly depressing. And it's not just texts, the Internet, Netflix, and other forms of digital entertainment, but I'm a father and a pretty attentive boyfriend as well. Which I love being, but sometimes a guy just needs a couple hours to sit and work.

Writing is so slow, it requires so much time and concentration--unbroken time and concentration--that it's supremely difficult to find space to do it in. You (and by "you" I mean "I") can't do quick little pieces of it on the crapper or for the five minutes our toddlers entertain themselves in. We need stretches of time to get anything usable down on paper, and even then there are no guarantees. It's not like digging a ditch where time spent equals a measurable result. How do other writers do it? Maybe I should start reading biographies. Or hotel-sitting in the mountains. It's maddening, and I don't quite know how to go about it.

I could just ask for help, but I know I'm not going to. Bribes? I don't really have anything besides my natural endowments... like my good looks, full, coffee-colored hair, strong hands, etc. Maybe I could do something sneaky and subtle and a little bit cowardly, and leave a note where someone could find it and they'd take pity on me and see what they could do.

You know, because of the endowments.

This Is My Affliction

Hi, my name is David, and I'm a Grammar Nazi. And a Spelling Nazi... and a Punctuation Nazi.

A lot of my earliest memories have books in them. My dad is a life-long, avid reader and our home was always filled with books. When I was very little he had built shelves from old wood and made a library in our house. I remember running between the towering shelves made from rough, weathered wood and the green shag carpet they stood on between my toddler toes. I used to study the strange covers of his science fiction novels and try to divine the story held behind them, lost in my imaginings for what felt like hours. The bathroom always had two or three books within arm's reach of the toilet, and I learned early that it's the best room in the house to get any actual reading done; something that has come in handy now that I'm a father. Where else can you sit in privacy without distractions, safely locked away from toddlers and their constant demands?

One day I worked up the courage and asked my dad to help me pick out one of his books. I remember standing in front of the shelves with my father, shyly looking over his collection while he smiled down at me. I wonder now what that was like for him, to have his thirteen-ish son ask for a book that was way above his comprehension and maturity levels. For whatever reason he didn't tell me to run along and read one of my Goosebumps, but picked out a paperback book and handed it to me. I think it was Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, author of many sci-fi classics including 2001. It must have been during my middle school years that I started reading Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein, science fiction giants that were well beyond my young mind. Somehow I made my way through them, stretching to grasp what I could and probably understanding less than half of what I read. But I kept coming back and my dad kept giving me things to read, and I will be forever grateful.

Another early memory is of a grade school teacher marking red all over my handwriting test because I had been using word-wrap. Whenever I ran out of space on the line I'd put a dash within the word and carefully continue spelling it on the next line like I'd seen in my father's books. She had marked every instance wrong, even though I had done it correctly. I went home, picked out a fat novel at random (I think it was Clavell's Tai-Pan or King Rat, both of which I now have in my own library) and looked at the first page I flipped to. Sure enough, there was word-wrapping all over the thin, yellowing pages. That was the first time I realized a teacher could be wrong.

When I first became aware of my "affliction" in high school I was apologetic and a bit ashamed, like I had an uncontrollable facial tick that made people uncomfortable. Around that time I was in Advanced Placement English and proud of it (even if we did have to read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), although being a "geek" wasn't cool back then, and geeking out about grammar and punctuation wasn't the sexy trait we know it to be today. But as I grew older I went from mousy to militant when it came to speaking and writing correctly, even with the invention and popularization of AOL-speak and Internet lingo. Much like my fervent atheism at the time, I had a very strong opinion on the matter and I was going to put it right in your face whether you asked for it or not. I attribute much of my typing speed and accuracy to countless hours spent backspacing and retyping misspelled words, and Keyboarding class in high school (which I elected to take) was one of my favorites.

My atheistic enthusiasm has mellowed with age and sounds now like an old man yelling from his porch, shaking his tiny fist, while my grammatical fanaticism has only gotten stronger. However, I have since learned that it's more socially acceptable to complain about someone behind their back than to their face (a sure sign of maturity), so at least I'm making progress. Usually these complaints happen for an audience of one, either my special lady friend or amigo Alex. Thankfully both are similarly afflicted and never shake their heads at my tirades or tell me to lighten up.

And why would they? If you are an adult and English is your first language there is no excuse beyond laziness for writing and spelling incorrectly. (Speaking is a bit of a different matter: you can't go back and change your words if you've said something incorrectly, and I have a soft spot for accents, dialects, and slang. Also, I get flustered and say weird things when speaking with people face to face.) This is especially true considering the ubiquity of electronic communication, as nearly all devices and software have spellcheck installed and enabled by default. Those squiggly red lines underneath your words aren't there for decoration.

Basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation is something we were taught well before finishing high school, and while things like Calculus and Spanish can easily fade after graduation due to disuse there is simply no reason to let your English waste away. We are bombarded with it every moment of our lives and people "write" now more than ever in this age of the ever-present Internet. Which, incidentally, has this awesome thing where you can search an online dictionary and find out how to spell "irregardless" and then discover that it isn't actually a word and stop using it.

To me it's like we're all cooks, baking these little pastries we give to each other. Maybe it's something cupcake-sized like a text or a status update, or something more in the cake range like blog entries and articles. Now imagine eating a tasty little creation and CRUNCH, your teeth bite down on an eggshell. Worst feeling ever, right? It hurts your soul somehow, and your brain freezes for that awful second as your teeth grate across the food equivalent of a chalkboard. You don't want to take anymore bites in fear that you'll find another one. This is what it's like for those of us who still give a damn about spelling and grammar. Each time you misspell a word or completely disregard punctuation: CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH. It's horrible.

So please, have a heart and take out those eggshells. Use the resources available to you and take the time to sound as intelligent as you probably are. We're not asking for confections that would make Marie Antoinette squeal, but only to keep our gums from bleeding. On behalf of spelling, grammar, and punctuation Nazis enthusiasts everywhere, we thank you.

  - David

Okay

My jaw throbs as I drive towards home, the muscles on the left side of my face creating shadows in the harsh light coming through the window. I clench and release, clench and release, grinding the flat surfaces of my teeth against each other in punishment as I weather the million tiny annoyances of a day. Beyond watching out for the other drivers I'm only vaguely aware of my surroundings or the storm in my head, but I know it's there. Somehow it's come to always be there.

I stop behind a red soft-top Jeep with a loosely hanging thick plastic window. This feels like the hundredth delay of my short commute. They recently changed the timing of the lights at this intersection and it never works in my favor. Two lanes of traffic leave the Naval hospital and head towards the tunnel, crowding across the intersection like rats mobbing at the edge of a sinking ship. Apparently I've caught this light right as it's turned red because it is refusing to change. This just adds insult to the endless stream of debilitating noise crushing my teeth together.

The song playing from my phone slowly rises to its pinnacle; a complex but almost expected meld of different instruments: violins in two or more parts, a guitar making music rather than cliche guitar sounds, a xylophone, even something that sounds like a small wooden box being dropped gently as percussion. There are no words, no vocals. The individual parts each starting out quietly with their own fragile voices, joining and being joined by others as they build together. At first you can't get a handle on the tone; something precious and beautiful you loved has ended and will never be again, and the ashes of it float down around you like a grey snow.

Then the violins rise like beams of light parting heavy clouds. The other instruments follow close behind, individual rays moving over the landscape together as the sun shines into my face off a corner of the Jeep's plastic window swaying in the breeze.

And suddenly I'm held by this song I've heard fifty times. Waiting at a light and surrounded by cars my eyes brim with release as the torture of my mind is quieted. There is just the music, the sun on the windows, and the blue sky above a black canvas roof. It is like someone has come to save me at the last moment.
"Okay," I say in a voice on the edge of tears, "Okay. Okay. Okay." It's going to be okay. Everything is going to be alright. For this brief moment I believe it to be true no matter what happens later. At least I have this, now, finally.

The light changes and I turn the corner. The Jeep has gone on elsewhere and I don't see where it goes. This used to happen often but hasn't in some time. Maybe years. "Where have you been?" I ask as an aftershock moves through me briefly and is gone.

Walking in the door my family smiles at me and I'm able to genuinely smile in return. Maybe it will be okay. Who the hell knows.