Category: Personal

Long time, no me

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I was disappointed to see I got zero hits on this blog the other day.  Then I checked and saw it had been a week since my last post.  Ack!  Sorry about that, folks.  I wish I could say I’ve been too busy writing to make my blog posts, but I can’t.  My writing has been slow and in tiny fragments.  It is life that has kept me busy.  Not a good excuse for someone who calls himself a writer, but it’s true.

So what’s been going on?  A lot of teaching (not sure how much learning has occurred), a lot of time with my daughter (fun time and fussy time), some sleeping, some gardening (yuck), and…I don’t know, stuff.  There have been other things neglected, too.  I have a very old stack of tests that still isn’t graded.  My house is a wreck (I did attack some of that last night but not enough to downgrade the wreck to mess).  

On the upside, I received a package I’d been waiting for: my wireless headphones!  My daughter’s bedroom is about six feet away from the living room television, so the wife and I had to watch with a thumb on the volume.  Turn it down when people yell, guns fire, things blow up; turn it up when people are talking normally or whispering.  We often had subtitles on so we could tell what was going on.  With the headphones, we can both listen without difficulty and without worrying about waking the toddler.  The headphones are Sennheiser 120s: big, on-ear (as opposed to over-ear or in-ear) models with rechargeable batteries and a nice charging stand.  Comfortable, too.  One pair does seem to have a weak speaker for the right ear, but I often find this the case with headphones and wonder if that’s a typical thing.  Or maybe my right ear is where the problem is.  I’ll compare the two headsets again tonight.  If there is a significant difference, I may return the suspect pair…if I can.  The one giving me trouble was refurbished, so I may be stuck with it.  We’ll see. 

I’m setting a goal to put something significant on here this week.  Nothing monumental, but some sort of useful insight I have gleaned from a decade of floundering as a writer.  Check back soon.

-Oso

Blowin in the Wind

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in years: I flew a kite.  It wasn’t an elaborate kite, just a one dollar Wal-Mart special with a picture of Elmo.  It was my wife’s idea that my daughter would enjoy it.  As usual, my wife was right. Abby wanted to hold the string the whole time and was very upset when the kite came down (which happened frequently in the gusty day).  It was a nice bonding moment.  I will get Elmo out again soon.

It was an experience I wanted to share with people, maybe write a story with such a scene, but I don’t think I can do it.  I could describe the actions, but there is no describing the feeling a parent experiences sharing a moment with their child.  The best I could hope to accomplish would be to stir that emotion in people who have experienced something similar.  It made me feel inadequate as a writer.

I am an inadequate writer, don’t get me wrong, but writers are supposed to write the stuff they feel it is important to share.  Really, it can’t be done.

Maybe I take the writer’s mission statement too literally.  Maybe it is most important that I make it clear that the character feels this, whether the reader feels it themselves could be irrelevant.  Negative emotions and sensations are so much simpler: anger, frustration, pain, defeat, sadness.  You don’t have to have had your fingernails removed with needle-nosed pliers to appreciate the description in a story.  I’m not sure the mix of love, pride, accomplishment, and giving shares that potential.

I am making it a goal to write a story including that kind of moment.  I’m not ready right now, but I want to do it.  Maybe at Clarion (east or west, whichever comes through) when my idea bank starts emptying out, when my skills are sharp and my wits are dull.  It doesn’t have to be a kite, maybe give the experience a speculative twist.  A wizard teaching his child to levitate objects.  A tribal alien sharing a first hunt with its offspring.

Think how many more experiences like this I have opportunities to enjoy.  Riding a bike, driving a car (way in the future), first love letter, first fishing trip (Mom may be better at that).  O am overwhelmed.  It makes me feel guilty for the number of days I’ve let slip by without sharing something new with her.  She is only two.  How many things can I expect her to appreciate right now?

It also makes me feel guilty for hoping so vehemently to leave her for six weeks this summer.  I did not stop being my own person when she was born, I need to continue pursuing my own dreams as well as hers, but I still feel like a heel.  I bet I could write that feeling into a story, selfishness and shame.

This is not usually what I do with this blog.  You are not my therapist.  I just felt this needed to be shared, so here it is.  I promise something more upbeat next time.

-Oso