Explaining Stories: Carlos vs. Bryan

***EXPLAINING STORIES: CARLOS VS. BRYAN***

I’ve allowed this topic to float away in the breeze for far too long, yet it’s been rolling around in my head since college. At WWU, I had two different writing teachers who had opposite schools of thought when it came to authors explaining their own work. Carlos Martinez, my first multi-genre writing teacher, was of the belief that it’s okay to explain yourself while Bryan Willis, my dramatic writing professor, was adamantly against it and would discourage students from doing so during critique sessions. Today we’re going to look at both sides of that debate and see which among you is on Team Carlos or Team Bryan. Though there will be disagreements, I promise you this debate won’t be nearly as much of a train wreck as the 2016 US Presidential Debates. But that’s an argument for another day.

If you’re in a critiquing session and you want your beta-readers/editors to know what it is they need to watch out for, you’ll probably want to sign up with Team Carlos. That is information your readers need. It’s your work, so you should have full reign as to what your story is trying to say or do. Your editors can’t give you advice on how to best convey your message if you don’t explain yourself ahead of time. Being a member of Team Carlos also has benefits if your work is unintentionally offensive and you’re trying to do damage control. While it is true that there’s always someone out there who will be pissed off at what you do, it would help those people greatly if you put them at ease with a reasonable explanation. But when you give them that explanation, give them the sensitivity they were looking for this whole time and don’t be condescending.

But if what you want most is for your art to be a democracy, join Team Bryan. Art by its very nature is a subjective field. Everybody sees something different and it’s those many interpretations that give the medium the spotlight it deserves. It sparks debate, just like this blog entry is attempting to do. According to Bryan’s way of thinking, if you tell people what to believe, you’re taking away the creativity you yourself exercise so freely. I think this might be part of the reason why my current beta-reader Ashley Uzzell tells me not to put little disclaimers at the top of my poems. Of course, the other reason why she tells me not to do that is because it’s insulting to the reader’s intelligence if the lyrics are blatantly obvious. It’s like if an author says “green grass”, “red blood”, or “big elephant”. Duh! Remember, kids: show, don’t tell. Don’t tell your audience how to feel about your work. Show them and let them make their own decisions. The last time someone forced his artistic will upon his audience, it was in the movie Pink Floyd the Wall during the music videos for “In the Flesh” and “Run Like Hell”. You don’t want to do that.

So there you have it, folks: both sides of this debate presented in full. Both Carlos and Bryan have good points that should be carefully considered, but ultimately, my own personal loyalties lie with Team Carlos. My biggest reason for that is because I’ve been on the wrong end of offending an audience before and I know what it feels like to be rained down upon with hateful comments. In 2009, I wrote an opinion essay called “Class of ‘13”, which was supposed to be a humorously vulgar look at what life would be like if I became an English teacher. My readers didn’t think it was funny at all and labeled me an ageist (because of my views at the time on teenagers). The argument started with me hurling endless insults at the readers, which to nobody’s surprise escalated their anger even further. Only through explaining my work in a calm and collected manner whilst apologizing did the situation eventually cool off. I’ll be the first to admit that aside from my big gut and chubby cheeks, I don’t have much of a thick skin. Being diplomatic and having the ability to defuse a situation is a huge benefit to being on Team Carlos.

Now don’t get me wrong: just because I favor one teacher’s point of view over the other’s, doesn’t mean they’re right or wrong altogether. Both Carlos and Bryan were easily some of my favorite teachers at Western Washington University. They had everything a student could ask for in a professor: friendly personality, flexible rules, infinite wisdom, and an open door policy when it came to asking for help. I particularly liked Bryan because of how much of an interest he took in one of my theater scenes. He wanted to see more of that story come out, so he gave me alternative assignments from the rest of the class where I would add on to the ongoing narrative through different characters’ points of view. The original story was about a high school student named Kurtis who complained to his girlfriend about a D- he received in his history class. One of the alternative assignments I had was to write a monologue from the teacher’s point of view and the other one was an interaction between the girlfriend and the teacher. These new assignments were a huge ego boost, not that my arrogant ass needed one.

As far as why I liked Carlos so much goes (aside from his views on explaining stories), he was just an all around gentle human being even during moments when the students got under his skin. Even when one student openly admitted to not doing a reading assignment out of blatant laziness, Carlos never raised his voice when he reprimanded that kid. He was also delicate about how constructive criticism was handled amongst our stories. He insisted that we all be nice to each other, because at the end of the day, every author is sensitive towards critiques no matter how much they hide it. Carlos even told us a story about how he got pissed off as a kid when his fellow students told him to cut his lengthy poem down to four lines. Being hurt by critiques (whether they’re friendly or not) is universal and one-hundred percent natural. But the more you surround yourself with people who want you to succeed, the less painful those critiques become. Carlos wanted all of us to succeed and it showed in his friendly and calm attitude.

Not that this is a focal point of the greater debate at hand, but in case you’re curious, I ended up getting an A in Carlos’s class and a B+ in Bryan’s class. And to prove it’s not a focal point, I don’t hold any ill will towards one professor of mine, Katie, who gave me a C in my medieval literature class. She did everything she could to help me whether it was answering my questions or allowing me to visit her office for a one-on-one session. The blame for that C falls squarely on my shoulders since I had a hard time understanding the material. I went into that class thinking it was going to be like reading Dungeons & Dragons campaign, but instead all I got was religious zeal and purple prose, lots of purple prose! They call that period in literature the Dark Ages for a reason. That class was my version of the Dark Ages by virtue of how difficult it was to learn the material (despite having a good teacher).

But enough about me, let’s turn this debate over to you fine internet folks. Are you on Team Carlos (explaining your work) or Team Bryan (allowing your work to speak for itself)? Are there any points on either side of this debate that I’ve unintentionally neglected? Feel free to let me know in the comments section. I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain! And to show you my undying loyalty towards Team Carlos, I’m going to explain my signing off phrase. They’re lyrics from the Three Days Grace song “The Mountain”. Not only do I love the hell out of that band, but those lyrics can be surprisingly inspirational to someone who needs encouragement.

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Sailing along the river of time. Adrift on dreams through midnight chimes. Positively frozen crystal waterfalls. The mountain of hope is there to be climbed. The sea of serenity is rightfully mine. Step onto the water knowing what is true. The beat of my heart. The rhythm of love. The earth that’s beneath us. The heavens above. I can hear forever calling out to me. The changes we go through are making me strong. The shelter of friendship is where we belong. Look into the future knowing what we see. The whirlpool of doubt can spin you around. The wave of emotion takes you up, pulls you down. Leaving far behind us sweet young passion spray. And never blame the rainbows for the rain. And learn to forget the memories that caused you pain. The last whispered wish of age is to live it all again. And never blame the rainbows for the rain.”

-The Moody Blues singing “Never Blame the Rainbows For the Rain”-

Writing Everyday

***WRITING EVERYDAY***

Lord knows how many times I’ve beaten this topic to death. Every time I logon to Face Book, I see a primordial ocean of memes telling me to write every single day of the week with no excuses. As frustrating as it is sometimes to read those memes, they’re absolutely right. If I could write every single day, I’d be one smiling motherfucker. It’s not like I haven’t been put on that schedule before. You don’t graduate from WWU without writing everyday. Hell, even in 2011 when my schizophrenia was flaring out of control, writing was a daily grind that I embraced.

There’s not on particular thing that contributed to my ability to write everyday in the past. It was more like a multitude of happenings. I was younger, so I had more energy. I drank cans of Red Bull and Amp Lightning like there was no tomorrow. I also was a proud practitioner of the Atkins Diet, which resulted in my minimum weight being somewhere around 240 lbs. But just like with all good things in life, these temporary fixes were just that: temporary. Being young doesn’t last forever, as evidenced by my induction into the dirty thirties. The energy drinks were making my heart race, so I had to stop drinking them at the risk of having a heart attack. The Atkins Diet, just like with all fad diets, was never meant to be permanent, so now I’m back up to 300 lbs.

Now that I’m older, heavier, and caffeine-free, it seems as though I spend most of my time walking around like a zombie and napping with Smokey. Napping with Smokey is a wonderful activity, but it doesn’t result in creative bursts. Because of this newfound tiredness, my head isn’t as clear as it once was and when your head’s fogged up, you can’t concentrate. When you can’t concentrate, your writing turns to shit. Sure, first drafts are never meant to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an obligation to at least try to make them that way.

One of the things I’m currently doing to remedy this problem of mental exhaustion is using a CPAP every night. It’s an oxygen machine designed to counteract sleep apnea, a disease where you stop breathing in your sleep and wake up tired the next day. Sleep apnea can be caused by a number of things, weight gain, a large neck, and antipsychotic medications among them. Even though I use my CPAP every night, it’s not a surefire guarantee that I’ll be alert and ready to go for that particular day. Some days I can knock it out of the park, other days I just want to lay in bed and do jack shit. That’s part of the reason why I get a lot of creative work done in the nighttime: because I spend most of the morning and afternoon trying to wake the fuck up.

I admit that a lot of my mental exhaustion is my fault. The Atkins Diet failed because I love carbs too much. I especially like foods from Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, KFC, and Quizno’s. The most I do for exercise is walking two miles every day in the frigid weather, but it’s only a matter of time before the rain, snow, and wind come rolling through and going outside is no longer an option. I have a gym membership, but no car, so I can’t go whenever I want. If I had the chance to exercise everyday at an intense rate without gassing out in the first few seconds, my food addiction might not even be an issue. And yes, that’s what it is, folks: an addiction to food. Sugar, salt, and fats are all more addictive than cocaine. They’re designed to be that way, because the food industry needs repeat customers. Mission accomplished. It’s not a copout; it’s the truth.

If I could write every single day without worrying about mental energy, you’re damn right I would. I’m self-motivated, I’m hardworking, and every supervisor I’ve ever had admired my work ethic. Throughout my college days, both at Olympic and Western Washington, I’ve only had five C’s and two D’s. The two D’s were in the same subject: physics. The one C at Olympic College was for a sociology class taught by a former Harvard professor. The other four C’s happened at WWU, where everything is by design harder than anything taught at a community college like Olympic. More often than not, I’ve had either an A or a B in whatever class I took at the two colleges. That’s a lot of fucking classes and only a handful of times have I been unsatisfied with my grades.

I listed those credentials not to toot my own horn, but to prove that I’m capable of finishing any project I set my mind to. It’s all a matter of having an endless supply of mental energy that day. If not today, then tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. The easy solution for me would be to eat better, exercise harder, and keep a positive mindset. But the truth is, if it was that easy, I’d be a middleweight by now with novels out the yin-yang. Being healthy is a skill. That’s why we have entire competitions and games dedicated to being a skillful athlete: hockey, wrestling, basketball, football, or whatever. It’s not a skill that can be perfected right away. It’s one that has to be crafted and learned over time, just like writing.

For those of you out there who post memes suggesting that I should write everyday, know that I’m listening with both ears wide open. Not only do I listen, but I also agree. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. The ability to work hard doesn’t just go away because you’re done with school. And whatever you do, don’t let anybody tell you that you’re lazy just because you were born in a certain time period where technology was readily available. That’s just a dickish statement made by bitter people who gave up on their dreams a long time ago. I may be mentally fogged up, but I’m not down for the count! Not even close! In fact, just when I was certain I wouldn’t get any creative work done today, I wrote this blog! Take that, motherfuckers! We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***AMERICAN DARKNESS 3***

Looking back at the short story synopses I wrote back in 2013 and 2014, it’s noticeable how little detail I put into them judging from how short they are. Such is the case with “Dark Skills” (holy shit, that’s a lot of darkness!). The WSS has a new contest going with “Signature” as their main theme. So, here’s how everything fits together:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Matt Singleton, Serial Killer

2.      Carl Howard, Serial Killer

3.      Michelle Woods, Victim

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Carl is in the process of tattooing Michelle’s lower back with his indecipherable signature when Matt breaks into the apartment.

SYNOPSIS: Matt and Carl are rival serial killers who want the same victim. Michelle is all alone in her apartment and ripe for the picking. The two killers use different entrances to gain access to the apartment and argue with each other over who gets the kill.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Another thing I’ve noticed is that there are two synopses in my archives that revolve around the Spanish word “Comegente”, which translates into English as “cannibal” or “human eater”. One of those synopses is titled Los Comegentes and features a seven foot tall Mexican gangster named Patrick Ortiz whose weapon of choice is a chainsaw. Great stuff, huh? Guess what? Patrick is going to be the next Dark Fantasy Warrior.

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

DANTE: I can’t believe you. I finally get my shit together. I’m hours away from getting out of here and really starting my life and you somehow manage to obliterate all of that and reduce me to a convict!

RANDAL: Oh yeah, it’s my fault your life’s fucked up. I’m the engaged guy who knocked up my boss.

JAY: You knocked up the guy who owns Mooby’s? Ew!

-Clerks 2-

STEAM

***STEAM***

A few weeks ago, I wrote a song for Lunatic Justice called “STEM Sell”, where I argue that having a STEM degree doesn’t necessarily equal happiness despite the job opportunities and abundance of money. In case you don’t know, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The kinds of jobs that come with a STEM degree include medical doctor, mechanic, computer expert, and architect to name a few. As much as liberal arts majors like me hate to admit it, STEM skills are in higher demand than creative ones.

But think of how boring this world would be without art. If everybody had STEM jobs, you can kiss Harry Potter, Pink Floyd, Wonder Woman, and everything else considered fun goodbye. Speaking of Pink Floyd, there’s a scene in The Wall movie where Pink’s math teacher beats him for writing poetry in class instead of doing homework. That scene is based on Roger Waters’s childhood. If he had caved in to the hate and got a “real job” instead of singing in a band…well, you know how this conversation is going to go.

Want another real world example? Jim Carrey gave a college speech about how his father could have been a professional comedian with the sense of humor he had, but instead took a financially safe job as an accountant (the M in STEM). Jim Carrey’s father was laid off from his job, which proves that failure isn’t something only artists experience. Imagine if Jim Carrey took the “safe route” and became an accountant like his dad. Actually, no, don’t imagine that, especially if you’re prone to crying your eyes out.

Ever see the bumper sticker that says “Earth without art is just eh”? Well, every time I hear a STEM student brag about how he’s better than liberal arts majors, I think of that bumper sticker. That same braggadocios student is probably wiping his tears away with those hundred dollar bills. That’s not to say STEM doesn’t have a place in modern society, but it shouldn’t be the only thing we have available jobs for. We need to find a balance between happiness and financial stability.

All you have to do is stick an A (Art) in between the E and the M and you’ve got STEAM. Think of all the creative fields out there and how they’re interconnected with STEM. The music industry is a prime example of this. Of course, the creative side comes from the songwriting and performances. But if you want to put together an album or put on an elaborate concert, you have to have a fairly extensive knowledge of the equipment involved. Rammstein concerts are fun as fuck, but without sound engineers, lightning designers, and pyrotechnicians, I don’t care how good they are as musicians, because their concert will sound like shit without those essential crew members.

The movie industry has STEAM applications as well. Sure, there’s the acting, screenwriting, directing, makeup art, and all of that. But you still need a STEM guy to know how to work the camera, create special effects, edit the film reels, and engineer the sound effects.

Take any creative endeavor and it will have connections to STEAM no matter how much someone argues otherwise. And since I’m an author, I might as well throw my personal experience into the mix. My job is to put words onto the screen and edit the final product so that it’s nice and polished for publication. If you plan on publishing, you have to have an extensive knowledge of economics (math), computer skills (technology), audience psychology (science), and…help me out here, I’m trying to think of an engineering example. Or perhaps your STEM experience can reveal itself in your actual manuscript. Maybe you’re writing a spy novel where someone has to use explosives (technology). Maybe you’re doing a combat scene and have to diagnose the traumas of each fighter (science).

STEM jobs and artistic jobs both require a great deal of dedication and hard work in order to succeed. Failure is a part of both sides of the spectrum and being able to dust yourself off and get back up is the true test of success, not money or college experience. I’ve experienced my fair share of failures in my career. I’ve had two-star reviews, angry criticisms, and plenty of doubters who simply thought I sucked.

I could go with the safe route and be a computer specialist, but would I experience the same amount of joy as I do when I create a story or poem out of thin air? Hell no. STEM jobs are important and highly abundant, but there’s more to life than changing oil in somebody’s car. If you’re a STEM employee and you’re happy with life, good for you. But that’s no excuse to put down liberal arts majors when you’re just as capable of failure as they are. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***POISON TONGUE TALES 2: THE RIGHT TO REMAIN PSYCHOTIC***

It’s a new week at the WSS and it’s time for a new story. This time we’re dealing with Baby Steps as the major theme. What better way to conform to that prompt than by writing a story called “Where’s My Damn Money?” What else am I going to call it? Here’s how it goes:

CHARACTERS:

1. Chetty Claymore, Elf Necromancer
2. Pia Caine, Cat Wizard

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Pia’s small payments against her debt are considered baby steps toward the larger goal of being financially free.

SYNOPSIS: When wandering mage Pia is wounded in battle, Chetty saves her life in return for a whopping amount of money. A year has passed since these events and Pia is no closer to paying off her crushing debt. One night while concocting a potion in her lab, she is visited by the impatient Chetty, who threatens to kill her and the ones she loves if she doesn’t pay what he’s owed. Pia believes she can simply fight her way out of debt, but Chetty is part of a much larger organization of debt collectors and even if she wins, he won’t be her last opponent. Chetty also reveals that Pia’s personal information has been shared with her attacker from one year ago.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Earlier tonight, I posted my non-WSS story called “Lionize” and Andrea Lovell, the CEO from that story, is next on the chopping block. Andrea was originally a character conceived by my old D&D friend Heather when the two of us would do private role-plays together on MSN Instant Messenger. She’s usually cool with me using her RPG characters in my stories, but if she isn’t this time around, then I’ll happy use someone else. I think she’ll be happy with what I come up for her as a drawing.

***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***

WWU stands for World Wrestling University and WWE stands for Western Washington Entertainment. Both acronyms are said the Michael Cole way, which is by pronouncing them with extra emphasis on the W’s. Wait a minute, something’s not right here.

Talk to the Wind

***TALK TO THE WIND***

I’ve said many times in the past that Martin Kesici (KIZ-uh-chee) is one of the most underrated rock stars in the world today. He’s got charisma, he’s got a voice of gold, and he knows how to get heavy when it counts. But if his Wikipedia stub is anything to go by, he doesn’t get the fame and fortune that he deserves. Yes, I know that any dumb-ass can edit a Wikipedia page and without proper sources those pages are unreliable. There are even rock musicians today that don’t have their own Wikipedia page at all, I get that. But if I say the name Martin Kesici to you, what do you associate that with? Exactly. Try finding him on iTunes, by the way, see how far you’ll go.

I can tell you firsthand that Mr. Kesici deserves more recognition because his 2005 album “So What?” and his “My Heart Beats Pain” EP can tug at the heartstrings while rocking your ass out at the same time. I know I’m beating a dead horse when I talk about my lonely WWU days, but Martin Kesici’s music was one of the things that got me through it all. From the moment I heard his duet with Tarja Turunen called “Leaving You For Me”, I knew I had to have the “So What?” album. On that same album is a song called “Talk to the Wind”, which invokes imagery of heartwarming romantic love. Lord knows I’ve had plenty of crushes in college, so thinking about them with this song playing in my headsets was pure heaven. As long as I had this song, I never had to feel lonely or depressed ever again. Here are the lyrics:

VERSE 1

In a little wooden church with stained glass windows

You came walking down the aisle with your perfect smile

Ever since that precious day, we’ve always been together

And we’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ll always come around

CHORUS

I talk to the wind when there’s nothing left to say

It gets rough sometimes, but I know we’ll be okay

Just a whisper in my ear is enough to bring me back

To when you gave yourself to me in the church by the sea

I talk to the wind

VERSE 2

People say we’ll never last, that it happened way too fast

Yes, we’ve had our share of fights and lonely nights

But I knew it when I saw you, your big brown eyes

That no matter what we go through, we will always get by

CHORUS

I talk to the wind when there’s nothing left to say

It gets rough sometimes, but I know we’ll be okay

Just a whisper in my ear is enough to bring me back

To when you gave yourself to me in the church by the sea

I talk to the wind

BRIDGE

When it feels like the end of our journey

All we need is to keep the wheel turning

No matter what comes our way

CHORUS

I talk to the wind when there’s nothing left to say

It gets rough sometimes, but I know we’ll be okay

Just a whisper in my ear is enough to bring me back

To when you gave yourself to me in the church by the sea

I talk to the wind

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

It’s a brand new week at the WSS and it’s time for a new story, this time with the prompt suggestion of “teeth”. There are lots of things an author or poet can do with teeth, but here’s what I’d like to do. It’s called “The Ballad of Gravedigger Jane” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Chris Duncan, Political Pundit
2. Gravedigger Jane, Transgender Boxing Champion

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Gravedigger Jane has loosened her opponents’ teeth many times during her boxing career. The same fate could befall Chris Duncan if he keeps running his mouth.

SYNOPSIS: Chris Duncan is a guest speaker at Beachside University and his topic of choice is running down the LGBT community. He gets an equal amount of cheers and boos from the student audience, but things get heated when he singles out Gravedigger Jane for wanting to use female bathrooms and locker rooms and for fighting other female competitors. Instead of taking another minute of abuse, Jane storms down the aisle in an attempt to beat the holy hell out of Chris. The only things keeping her from doing so are the heavy security detail and potentially being blackballed from college boxing if she goes through with it. The more Chris taunts her, the more punchable his face becomes.

FUN FACTS: This story has two sources of inspiration: the MMA community’s bigoted reaction to Fallon Fox in 2013 and Milo Yiannopoulos’s visit to a college campus where he bullied a transgender student in front of the audience. As you can tell, this story is going to push more buttons than an old school arcade game cabinet.

***MASHUP IDEAS***

In a moment of sheer boredom, I came up with ideas for mashup songs. I have no idea how to make a mashup song, but if one of my readers out there does, here are some suggestions you can try:

1. Five Finger Death Punch vs. TNA: “Under and Over Feedback”
2. Limp Bizkit vs. Spice One: “Born 2 Truth”
3. Linkin Park vs. From Ashes to New: “Breaking In the End”
4. Linkin Park vs. Street Fighter Alpha 3: “The Faint Road”
5. Seether vs. Martin Kesici and Tarja Turunen: “I’m Fine with Leaving You For Me Again”
6. Tribe Called Quest vs. Earthbound: “Weird Butter”

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Ever since I’ve started writing sci-fi and fantasy stories for the WSS once again, I’ve had more ideas for drawings. The latest in this series will be Lux, the control engineer behind Kobra’s illusions in the short story “I Am Death”. She’ll probably look vastly different from how I’ve described her in the canon, but I’ll try my hardest to be at least somewhat faithful to her white dress, black boots, and black mask outfit.

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Who are some of your favorite bands? I like the Various Artists.”

-Adrian Monk-

Hair Masters and Introversion

WWE superstar Daniel Bryan is one lucky dude. He’s got main event status, he’s got a super hot wife, he’s got legions of adoring fans, but the one thing I will always be jealous over is his love of having long hair and a scraggly beard. In other words, he doesn’t have to spend any money at Hair Masters because he lets his hair grow out. I don’t have that kind of tolerance for my own hair whether it’s growing on my head or on my face. When it’s long, it needs to be buzzed to half an inch of hair or else it’ll annoy the shit out of me. I have fast-growing hair, so these appointments at Hair Masters happen once every two or three months.

And then once I get comfortable in that barber’s chair, the verbal diarrhea flies at a million miles an hour. As an introvert, I despise small talk. There’s no point to it, it’s mentally draining, and the extroverts who try to engage me in it don’t actually give two shits about the answers I give them. I suppose I could remedy this problem with my barbers by telling them I’m introverted, but that wouldn’t be socially appropriate, would it? Then again, caring what other people think of me isn’t one of my strong points. If I can make a bunch of giggly Texan women uncomfortable, I can do the same with my barbers. Here are a few of the stupid questions I’ve been asked at Hair Masters along with my awkward responses:

BARBER: What do you do?
ME: Nothing.
BARBER: Nothing?
ME: I’m unemployed.
BARBER: You’re just hanging around?
ME: I guess.

I’ve often contemplated giving the answer of “I work with homeless children in the Democratic Society of Who Gives a Fuck”, but that would probably be more awkward than telling the barber I don’t have a job. Susan suggested to me that I say I’m “In between jobs”, but I’m not since I don’t have an employment history. What am I supposed to do, lie? Anyways, continuing on with the conversations I’ve had…

BARBER: Are you doing anything fun today?
ME: No.
BARBER: Oh….What do you like to do for fun?
ME: Read and write.
BARBER: Oh cool! What do you like to write?
ME: A little bit of everything.

At this point, I wonder when my barber is going to figure out that my life isn’t that exciting. Apparently, they never do, so the bullshit keeps flying.

BARBER: Have you lived here all your life?
ME: No.
BARBER: Where are you from?
ME: Here. I just haven’t lived here all my life.
BARBER: Oh.

Unless you’re planning on coming over to my house and watching the WWE Network with me, you have no business asking me where I live. It’s irrelevant. It’s meaningless. But most of all, it’s bullshit!

BARBER: Are you excited for school?
ME: I don’t go to school.
BARBER: Are you home schooled?
ME: I’m 29 years old.
BARBER: Oh! Are you doing the college thing?
ME: I already graduated.
BARBER: Oh cool! What did you get your degree in?
ME: English.
BARBER: What are you doing with your degree?
ME: I’m trying to be an author.
BARBER: You know what would be cool? If you wrote a book about World War II.
ME: I’m not interested.

If this woman was any nosier than she already is, she would be a police bloodhound. What does she need this information for, anyways?! Is that that starved for WW2 literature that she needs to ask a complete stranger with no interest in history to write it for her?! Speaking of history…

BARBER: What would you recommend for me to read?
ME: What do you like?
BARBER: Historical fiction.
ME: I don’t read historical fiction, so I wouldn’t know.
BARBER: Oh, okay.

Actually, my answer wasn’t entirely true. The last piece of historical fiction I read was “The Sisters Brothers” by Patrick DeWitt. It’s a western, but I don’t think that’s what she had in mind. Besides, it didn’t come to me during the conversation, so I left it out.

BARBER: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
ME: I have an older brother.
BARBER: Did he get his English degree too?
ME: He got a pharmacy degree.
BARBER: Oh cool!
ME: Me and my brother don’t like the same things.
BARBER: Oh.

Jesus, woman, get your nose out of my ass already! I shouldn’t have to sit at my computer desk writing something other than a WW2 novel with a rectal donut on my seat cushion! Ugh! Anyways, after these boring conversations that don’t lead anywhere, I feel so mentally exhausted that I need a nap when I get home. When I pay my bill, I leave a five dollar tip regardless of how nosy the barber was. Hey, I got a good haircut and you can’t argue with a good haircut. Then again, it’s hard to fuck up a buzz cut with half an inch of hair remaining. Any asshole off of the streets can do it. Maybe I should get myself a Wahl clipper and forget the pointless banter altogether.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“It’s a meaningless end to the story. Got no time for my forgotten glory. And now just when I know what I’m after, it just brings me to laughter. Just save up all your nickels and dimes. Let’s see what you’ll find and you’ll know. I guess I’m living day to day. Just hope that you get led astray. Hell yeah. I guess I’m living day to day. Hear what I say. I just died for a piece of the pie, but I’d be glad just to feast on the pie crust.”

-Love Among Freaks singing “Clerks”-

"Last Train Home" by Pat Metheny

From September 2007 to June 2008, my main method of transportation between Bellingham (college) and Port Orchard (home) was the Greyhound Bus. The filthy, disgusting, degenerate Greyhound Bus complete with a urine and shit-scented bathroom and mentally unstable passengers who have an uncanny knack for breaking out of straightjackets. It was a miserable experience that I don’t wish to repeat anytime soon. One day in late 2008, my senior year of college, I was in the bus station with my mom and I told her in the saddest voice possible, “I hate this place.” It wasn’t hard for her to see why. Therefore, instead of taking the putrid and rancid Greyhound Bus with dirty diaper stains and beer-scented creeps, I took the Amtrak home on the weekends. The train is a much gentler experience than an intercity bus. The people are sane, the staff is friendly, the scenery is much more pleasant, the passengers get to move around at will instead of being cramped all the time, and best of all, they had a food lounge in a separate car. Such a joyous public transportation experience deserves a special kind of music and that song is called “Last Train Home” by Pat Metheny. I used to listen to this song all the time when I was a kid, but I didn’t know it until I asked my dad about it. My main question to him was, “What was the song with the train in the music video and the guy who looks like George Harrison?” It wasn’t much to go on, but dad came through for me when he told me the name of the song. It was a worthy quest for knowledge. Imagine these peaceful instruments coming together to make beautiful music: an Indian-style guitar, a grand piano, a snare drum with brush sticks, an upright bass, and maracas. You’ll be knocked out within the first few seconds of the song. That is, if you aren’t already relaxed by the orange and pink sunset followed by the starry night with the vanilla moon in your train window. And just for the hell of it, imagine a hotdog and diet soda on your food tray while you patiently await your next destination. If listening to this music with Bose noise-cancelling headsets, you get bonus points, because if there’s ever a disrupting noise such as children screaming or cowboys laughing, Pat Metheny’s gorgeous music will be all you hear. Simple pleasures such as these open up creative pathways in more ways than just getting schoolwork done. You could actually write novels under these conditions. Or you can do what I’m currently doing, that is edit the hell out of preexisting stories you’ve written in preparation for a new anthology to be released. If you have an imagination as vast as the stars in the night sky, you can make these beautiful circumstances work.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Washington: we’re left of Idaho. Then again, who isn’t?”

-John Keister-

Defending Your Work

One of the few things I loved about my college days was taking a class on dramatic writing (as in theater, not necessarily as in tearjerkers). Having said that, it always drove me nuts whenever the teacher, let’s call him Bryan, always insisted that the students not explain their work whenever it’s being critiqued. Don’t get me wrong, Bryan was a well-liked teacher and deservedly so. I just never understood why it was such a sin to explain your own work to people who are confused. Fortunately, I had an English teacher, let’s call him Carlos, who said it was perfectly okay. Going back to Bryan for a moment, his main reasoning for not explaining your own work is because the work should speak for itself and that you won’t always be there to explain things to one person. Seems like a reasonable explanation, but when you’re being critiqued, it’s important for your editor to know what the hell’s going on in your story. That way, the editor can steer you in the right direction of what you want to do rather than impose his own will. For example, if you want to express sadness through colors and you use a lot of red in your set design, you’re going to want to express your need for sad colors to your editor so that he can tell you that blue is a better choice. Of course, this may not be the best example I can think of since everybody knows blue is a sad color and red is an angry color. Even so, I hope everybody understands my position on this. While you won’t have the opportunity to confront every one of your confused readers all the time (at least not without the internet), it’s important that they at least know something about the work that they didn’t know before. Knowing Bryan the way I did, he would probably propose the counterpoint of the audience making their own interpretations so that they can enjoy the work without limits. Maybe I can agree with that point since I do that a lot myself when I add books to this blog. But sooner or later, making a faulty interpretation is going to catch up with you, whether it’s with your grades in school or with a mass discussion with your friends. If you say something potentially foolish, people aren’t always going to be there to break your fall. The other students in a nonfiction class I took one time can attest to that since we were reading This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff and I compared two scruffy gentlemen to the mountain men in Deliverance. Boy, were they pissed…or so I was told. But you know what? It doesn’t matter in the end, because if an author wants to explain himself, he’ll do it anyways, probably through an interview with a newspaper or talk show. So deal with it! No offense, Bryan.

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What’s a Deliverance character’s favorite soda?

A: Mountain Screw.

"Quiet" by Susan Cain

From the very moment I started reading this book, Susan Cain became my instant hero. Like her, I too am introverted and always appreciate it when somebody recognizes it instead of dismisses it for weirdness. Introverts are not weird people. Enjoying peaceful moments to yourself doesn’t make you antisocial or awkward. It simply means that the world is too noisy for you and you prefer to be alone so that you can actually get things done. Extroverts, you don’t need to worry about a thing, because Susan Cain is not striking against you in this book. She’s not suggesting that introverts are better people than extroverts. She’s suggesting that there should be a balance between them and that these differences need to be accommodated for, whether it’s in the workplace or in a college classroom. I wish someone like Susan Cain spoke to my teachers in college about this subject. In pretty much every class I attended, the students were graded on class participation. One of my theater teachers was one of the worst offenders when it came to singling out introverts since class participation accounted for 30% of the overall grade. You can imagine what emotional pain I was in by the time the class was over after having exhausted every resource in my brain just to make academic small talk. Because of the fact that western world schools force their students to speak up, I may never attend another college class again for the rest of my life. My privacy and solitude mean that much to me. But seeing as how teachers aren’t going to readily change their minds, then I have a suggestion for them that Susan Cain would wholeheartedly agree with. In lieu of class participation, the shy students should be able to post their thoughts on an internet message board. With that kind of wall between the introvert and the rest of the class, solitude and privacy are maintained due to the fact that internet conversations aren’t physically imposing. I’ll even settle for a one-on-one conversation with my teacher over Skype. The point that this book is trying to make is that if someone wants to be left alone or be cerebral, don’t take it personally when he shuts you out. It’s never personal. We’re not misanthropes or antisocial. We’re just peace lovers. Thank you, Susan Cain, for standing up for the quiet types like me and many others out there who are being blocked out by the American noise.

　

***CLASSROOM DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

ME: It’s actually easier to suspend your disbelief with nonfiction than it is with fiction.

LEE: You think?

-Nonfiction Seminar at WWU-

Theatre Roots

Before deciding to go through college as a creative writing major and a theatre arts minor, I originally wanted to double major in psychology and cinema. By the time I was accepted into Western Washington University, I found out that they didn’t have a cinema degree available, so I had to minor in the next best thing: theatre arts. As for psychology, I decided that solving other people’s problems was too exhausting and impossible, so I chose to major in something that I was actually good at: creative writing. Back to the theatre arts major for a moment. The reason I wanted that as part of my educational pedigree was because I liked writing movie scripts and I hoped to make it into Hollywood as a screenwriter. Movie scripts differ from traditional prose because it’s quicker and doesn’t require a great deal of description. Plus, whenever a character talks, it’s as simple as putting his or her name down and writing the dialogue underneath it. When I write traditional prose, it takes me up to half an hour to write three full pages. But when I wrote screenplays, I could get through five pages in almost a third of the time. The process was so quick and painless that I actually wrote a Dungeons & Dragons-style screenplay called Tree Party Nation in a matter of two days. Granted, it’s only about 60 pages, but I still consider it one of my finer moments as a screenwriter. It wasn’t until after I graduated from WWU that I decided traditional prose was more interesting to me. At the time of this discovery, I was playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends of mine over the internet. One of the characters I was using was a level eight human barbarian named Brutus Warcry. I got my start in traditional prose by writing Brutus’ character sketch, detailing his time as a kid in a barbaric tribe to his present day life as an MMA icon. At the time, I firmly believed that it was okay to use hyperbolic descriptions in every other sentence. It made sense at the time because it was so well received by my friends. Two years later in 2012, it dawned on me that it was slowing my writing speed down and most of the descriptions didn’t make sense. So now in the present day of my life, I write using simple descriptions such as one-word adjectives and describing literally everything that’s going on within the prose. I haven’t had any complaints yet. In fact, people seem to like what I do. This is quite the journey to go from a non-reading screenwriter to a bookworm novelist. If it wasn’t for my roots in theatre, I wouldn’t have had the material for my proses. So thank you, theatre roots, for keeping it interesting. Now let’s all do the hotdog dance!

　

***ADVICE OF THE DAY***

If you’re writing a story and you need to use the contraction of “who” and “are“, don’t forget the apostrophe. I can’t stress it enough.

Introduction

My name is Garrison Haines-Temons. I’m a 2009 graduate of Western Washington University with a Bachelor’s in English. Having said that, I didn’t actually become an avid bookworm until just before my final quarter of school. Up until that point, I preferred movies over books. My reasoning for this was that books took too long to read and I wasn’t known for my patience. Ever since I picked up “The Cleaner” by Brett Battles in June 2009, I was still impatient, but the only thing that changed was that I discovered that books dictate their own pace. The books I read in college had very slow paces due to their heavy descriptions and uninteresting subject matter. Therefore, I made it a rule to only read books that dictate a moderate to quick pace. If I have to spend five minutes on one single page, that’s a sign that I’m not going to enjoy what I read. If the author takes multiple pages to describe one single action, that’s another sign of a boring book. I’m not a fan of Stephen King’s work, I rest my case. Carl Hiaasen and Bentley Little? Those are a pair of authors I can lend my support to. This entire blog will consist of book recommendations to you, my wonderful audience, based on their pacing and genre. You won’t see too many multi-layered works here, because they tend to be slow reads that drag on until eternity. Genre literature is more my style. One last thing before I end this introductory post: impatient reading is a style, not a flaw. I heard someone say that and I couldn’t agree more. I’d like to thank the people who spread that philosophy as well as the guy who started that quote. Now then, let’s get started!
　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Drugs have done good things for us, I really believe that. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight, take all your albums, all your CD’s, all your tapes, and burn them. ‘Cause you know what, the musicians who made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years? Rrrrrrrrrrrreally fucking high on drugs!”

-Bill Hicks-