Excuses

Excuses for not working:

1.  Just finished something, casting about for a new project.

2.  Didn't feel like it, which really means Wasn't enthused about anything.

3.  No good ideas today, which really means Didn't feel like thinking anything through.

4.  Can't concentrate.

5.  Computer troubles, which really means Didn't feel like using pen and ink, ballpoint, or pencil.

6.  The dog ate my computer.

7.  Too much extraneous stuff to do, which really means I was so not into writing that I took on more than I could hope to get done.

8.  I hate all my ideas.

9.  One day won't make any difference, which really means, Or so you hope.

10.  I don't care for the direction publishing is taking, which really relates back to #3.

11. I'm bummed because someone stole my idea, which means someone got something published that you would have come close to writing had you actually thought of it in the first place.

12.  Dramatic things don't happen to me.

And just for extra measure:

13.  I became badly frightened yesterday when I took a chance on something and it got beyond my control.

I don't know of any area of endeavor, painting, sculpting, acting, photography, music (playing and or composing) where the principal, the one who engages in such endeavor, expects such immediate results as the writer expects.  By immediate results I mean publication, review, and transportation to the  purpose driven life of being able to write every day with the notion that the work will lead directly to a completed, worthwhile project by which the writer is able to make a comfortable living.  Comfort is a definite factor with such things as the right sized shoes, the mattress with the proper degree of support, a living area neither too cold not too hot.  Comfort is not so definite with ideas that pop forth like frozen meals, leaving us little opportunity to reach or scratch or experience fear or boredom.

The ideal writer is one who has to sneak time in on meaningful projects while possibly snatching forth a living by writing organizational newsletters or serving as a crossing guard or possibly even having to do the kind of journalism that merely reports results, The Los Angeles County egg market closed higher today, The County Board of Supervisors met today to approve a budget.  That sort of thing, which leaves you waiting for events to conclude rather than setting forth events of your own devising, orchestrated to fly in the face of all the excuses listed above, which in their own way carry a truth about them you understand even if you cannot fully articulate what you mean by truth.  You could try plausibility or a convincing replication of reality in which you are fooling yourself and others. That might work.  That might border on story--interesting enough story to draw writer and reader along on the quirky tides of the imagination.

To put it another way, the writer who wishes more time to write, the artist to paint or draw, the sculptor to sculpt, the musician to play or compose does need time but also needs some other awareness or connection to life and event to act as a ballast, a subtext if you will.  None of it can exist in a vacuum

I did not!

disclaimer--a dramatic action, statement, or combination of the two intended to distance a character from real or imagined consequences; an agreement such as a pre-nuptual, in which rights, obligations, and promises to perform are enumerated.

The basic dramatic disclaimer is "I did not." Followed by a response of "You did so," we have the beginning of a story in two scant lines. Close on the heels of the former is the even shorter introduction to story, "I already did" or the equally provocative, "I already was." Not to forget "I thought you knew."

Disclaimers get characters into trouble they seek to avoid by disclaiming in the first place, opening the dramatic stage for guest appearances from the likes of denial, stubbornness, misrepresentation, and outright lies, moving the narrative into a downward spiral of considerable complexity.

One of the more common disclaimers, offered as a defense, is "I only meant it as humor," which is to say in real terms, "I did or said it in the first place as an attempt to embarrass, humiliate, or ridicule. A close ally: "It was only a joke" has the intended meaning I didn't really mean it.

Disclaimers appear as warnings of potential side-effects on many medications, presenting in their wake the question of whether the cure or relief, with its inherent possibilities of mischief, are worth the risk of the side-effects. This is a good warning for writers who use disclaimers such as, Any coincidence between persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

On Defensiveness

It is a truth not universally acknowledged, in fact completely overlooked, that within the rant and venom of the despot is a large grain of self-inflicted defensiveness. To express the matter less formally, Harold Ickes, in his protestations yesterday that the presidential election was being hijacked, took aim at a target and shot himself in the foot. While it was and is clear to many observers and indeed (to build toward a metaphor) passengers, The Titanic of Hillary's presidential bid had struck a gigantic iceberg, sprung a rupture, and was taking on water, Mr. Ickes insisted in his way of the splendid engineering of The Titanic, augmenting his rhetoric with the notion that The Titanic was better able to stay afloat than, say, The Pequod.

Mr. Ickes was, of course, being defensive.

Politicians can afford to be defensive. Writers cannot.

Writers must stand behind their visions as sincere believers, bordering more on dithyramb than choler, more on satire than cynicism, more on rigorous observation than the self-justification of explanation.

Typical writer defenses:

It gets better in the next chapter.

But it really happened that way.

Everyone in my writing group liked it.

Tom Woolf does it that way all the time.

People of my generation will understand.

I'm a writer because I love words.

There are others of course, What I particularly like about the last defense is the implicit notion that musicians don't like notes, dancers don't like steps, artists don't like pictures.

Of course they all do like their various platforms but do not use them as excuses to parade techniques so much as the platforms are considered tools to convey a feeling, a meaning, a choice that must be made.

We may portray defensive characters and in fact frequently seize upon such individuals with great tantivy thanks to the dramatic trampoline they present us, but we ourselves must have a vision which we pursue without thought of defense, with no excuse for the honesty of our vision it will reveal.

We are all of us equipped with survival devices that we listen to (on occasion) or ignore completely. It is no easy thing to set forth among our characters with such nudity, our scars and wrinkles, our foibles and hair growing in all the wrong places glaringly visible. Nevertheless, we go, alert to the settings we invent and the denizens of these settings with which we populate our own alternate universe, hopeful and alert for those moments where we are no longer aware of our nudity or foibles, having for the moment transformed ourselves into pure story as we engage our craft. In those moments, there is no room for defensiveness. Then, whatever our age, we are at another age, the writer's age, where there is all the drama and interpretation we can possibly accommodate.