Saturday, August 31, 2013

Day 237 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

STRETCH YOURSELF IN THE OTHER DIRECTION

OR

WHY WRITING IT SHORTER CAN MAKE IT MORE.

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If you've read any of my earlier posts, you're familiar with the fact that I kind of cast a wide net when it comes to what I write. I look at it as literature, using the commonly accepted classification of two major forms - fiction and non-fiction, and two major techniques - prose and poetry. Along the way I have spent time in one or the other exclusively for limited periods but always returned to the mixed art approach.
 
If asked why, I would have to honestly answer that saddling myself with one or the other for any long period of time would be plain boring. Like making love in the same damned position every time. After a while even that enjoyment would get monotonous. Granted, there are some, in both the scribbling and diddling camps, who maintain that orthodoxy is the soul of mastery. I'd have to survey the audience on that one!
 
Simply put, the disciplines required in any of the forms, when applied skillfully and with real sincerity and thought, are the key to really expanding the writer's palette. If you want to learn how to improve the symbols and metaphors, the descriptive language of your prose, then learn to master poetry. Oh, and just so you know, if you think free verse is a free ride, you're already on the other side of delusional.
 
The same is true in the inverse. Learn to write clear, concise, well crafted and emotionally resonant short fiction and you will be on a path to becoming a better poet. There's an old tale of William Faulkner challenging a young Ernest Hemingway, already recognized as a master of tight, crisp prose, to write a complete story in as few words as possible. The result?
 
            "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."
 
A story of tragic poignancy delivered in six words. You need no more than what he gave you to connect with the entire scenario, its cause and effect and the emptiness that would result. We can all look at those six words and see, in our mind's eye, the characters and events that compose a tale of far greater breadth. Do we need any more to get to where Hemingway was taking us?
 
Short fiction informs novella and novel length work. If you can build a strong, complete tale in the space of three to seven thousand words, you can build chapters. Chapters add up and eventually become novels. Novels become series and careers get going. The wine, women, and riches part...Good luck with that.
 
I just submitted a short story. How short? Almost three hundred and thirty words. Written in inner dialogue, it gives you access not only to the physical occurrences in the story, but also takes you into the mental anguish of the main character. If it was that good, why not take it further? It didn't need it. Could it go further? Sure, but I was looking for a tale of brevity, strength, and empathy. I think I nailed it. Now it's up to an editor.
 
My point? Even if you never bring out the other writing you do, if it never sees the light of day, your main focus will be better for the exercise. The brain is often typified as a muscle. A thinking machine that thrives in a healthy body, while being stretched and challenged daily. The choice is yours, a literary decathlete, or overweight water boy watching from the bench!
 
Just a helpful hint from your Uncle Dane.
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write something you wouldn't normally think of trying. (Works in the love department, too.)
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.
 
 
 
  

Friday, August 30, 2013

Day 236 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

YOU SAID...WHAT?

OR

THERE ARE TIMES MY POINT GETS MADE FOR ME.

---------------------------------------------------------------

 
There I was, at a local venue last night. A room that hosts poets from the surrounding towns and cities. I'll admit, my purpose was two fold. Having been away from public view for so long, I need the exposure and, let's face it, it's poetry. If we don't support each other the crowds can get real thin.
 
Last night was one of those rare occasions when there was no featured reader. Instead, the floor was open and the mic was yours. Three reasonably long poems or less if you were doing epics.
 
While we were mingling in the audience, a younger woman happened to mention that this would be her first time reading and she was feeling a little intimidated by the caliber of writers in the room. I tried to allay her jitters by reminding her we had all been in her position and by pointing out that the organizers and, as far as I knew, those in attendance were really supportive of new attempts. She asked if the regulars had always seemed so confident and adroit at the craft and how one reached that level. I gave her the only answer I know. Read a lot and write even more. She inquired how much I wrote.
 
I've put that information out in this blog in the past. I compose and post this blog - everyday. I have written somewhere in the vicinity of ten short stories in the last eight months. I have a longer fiction project which is still in the mill. Add to that about two and a half or three dozen poems, journal entries, notes of ideas and possible projects. Basically, I write everyday - somewhere in the vicinity of twelve to fifteen hundred words, minimum.
 
A man, whom I recognized as another new face, chimed in that it must be nice to have the leisure to do that. LEISURE! Was he fucking kidding? I informed him that my 'leisure' came into play after a forty-plus hour a week job, this blog, a Monday night study group, an online course in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism that requires a fair amount of reading and a written assignment once a month.  Not to mention my participation in normal household chores and duties and getting around, as much as possible, furthering my efforts at improving my network connections in the literary community. Then there is my writing, rewriting, submitting, resubmitting. You know, the purpose of the evening's exercise..
 
He more or less blew this off, after all, he was a high school English teacher. Uh, yeah - So? I work for a large southern California school district in a non-teaching capacity. Don't play a bullshit card unless you've got something in the hole. I've seen what a teacher's work day looks like. If you can't squeeze the time out for a little creative scribbling, (especially as a member of the ENGLISH department), then you have serious time management issues.
 
I kept this to myself, preferring to see, or in this case, hear, what he was capable of producing. Long, clumsy, cliche-ridden, geo-political prose diatribes might be all the rage on talk radio, but behind the podium, baby (even when broken into disjointed, non-rhythmic bits), they are more than disappointing. In this case, however, they were ample proof that he doesn't grasp the first concept of skill development, even in his own field. If you want to write with artistry and imagination, you have to write a lot. It's called practice. Funny he hadn't heard that on the way to his teaching credential.
 
Just my humble opinion, eh!
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
EVISCERATED
 
 
by
Dane F. Baylis
 
 
The two dykes from up the block
Had it out on the sidewalk
In front of my door
In the middle of the night.

I stood there listening
Sipping a cup of tea
Smiling
Which is my usual stupid reaction to vicious love.

Words flashed out of the darkness
An open handed slap
Sent tears sparkling in the street light


I admired the convoluted originality of epithet
The verbal gymnastics
That only those unfettered by gender’s ineptitude
Can be capable of


Tempers cooled
The night emptied
I lay naked on my bed
One hand shielding my cock
Glad the wounds
Weren’t mine to lick

This time.
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write. Every - damned - day!
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.
 


 



Thursday, August 29, 2013

Day 235 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

ELECTRIC THOUGHTS

OR

TRYING NOT TO GET TANGLED IN THE INTERNET.

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Everybody has a right to their opinion! The Internet as equalizer has proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. At first it was limited to those with the means to afford a computer and a hardline connection. But the fetters were cut with the proliferation of cell towers, Satcom, and phones smaller than a pack of cigarettes and only slightly more expensive.
 
What has this meant to society as a whole and you as an individual? To start with, hardly anybody is unreachable. From the Inuit in the frozen north, to Bantu tribesmen deep in the Congolese rainforest, anyone who wants to can connect. Once you've accomplished that one small step, you are instantly transformed into receiver or sender.
 
Being a receiver would seem a pretty benign state, right? It would be, until you realize how many scams, shams, and flim-flams are immediately targeted directly at you. I'm not even talking about the ones that want to send you, for safekeeping, the entire cash reserve of a small African nation undergoing some rather nasty shifts in political ideology. All they need is your bank account number so they can transfer a ton of money into it. Sure, here's my SSN and a routing number! Then there are also all the opportunities to convert your every key stroke into a digital profile of your deepest, most persistent desires. Not to mention entertaining reading to some clerk in a cubicle in the National Security Agency.
 
Forget personal financial ruin. What about all the socio-political mumbo-jumbo? I guarantee you, no matter how clear and well thought out you may feel your positions are, there is somebody just itching to convince you, or all your acquaintances, should you continue in those beliefs, global collapse is imminent. We have reached a period that would warm the heart of Josef Goebbels, Propaganda Minister of the Third Reich. Every side seems to have adopted the tactic of "if you repeat a lie often enough and with enough conviction it becomes the truth". From spiritual zealots of every denomination and creed to the incredible intolerance of the tolerant; if you raise a serious question, or worse yet, take a sarcastic swipe at somebody's diety, cause, or candidate, you had better be wearing body armor over flame retardant lingerie.
 
Then there's the showcase aspect of the entire networking phenomena. Do you really want to hear me hold forth on the talent show of the talentless? The illiterate literati? The touchy-feely, let me grope you in the comfort of your office, den, or automobile neediness of the emotionally inept? Yeah, I know, but tell us how you really feel, Dane. This endeavor has become the domain of those who have had so little intimate contact with other flesh and blood, face-to-face people, that they think that's the natural state of the beast. Really? Get the hell out of your own constricted shit hole of a life and try, for just a moment, try to conceptualize what it means to honestly love and hate, to hurt and rejoice, to revel in waking up one more time even though you were sure the whole thing was headed for the dumper as soon as you closed your eyes! Get a fucking life, please!
 
Who the hell am I? I'm the guy willing to call them as I see them, then give you the floor, or knock you to it! And this is just a little philosophical fanfare from your Uncle Dane.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
EVISCERATED
 
 
 
          The two dykes from up the block
          Had it out on the sidewalk
          In front of my door
          In the middle of the night.

 
 
          I stood there listening
          Sipping a cup of tea
          Smiling
          Which is my usual stupid reaction to vicious love.
 
        
          Words flashed out of the darkness
          An open handed slap
          Sent tears sparkling in the street light
 

          I admired the convoluted originality of epithet
         The verbal gymnastics
         That only those unfettered by gender’s ineptitude
         Can be capable of
 

         Tempers cooled
         The night emptied
          I lay naked on my bed
         One hand shielding my prick
         Glad the wounds
         Weren’t mine to lick

 
 
          This time.
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.
 


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Day 234 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

SOME QUESTIONS THAT SHOULDN'T BE ASKED

UNLESS YOU CAN DEAL WITH THE ANSWERS!

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If you've done this long enough none of these will be new. If you're new to the literary thing, and you think you want to participate as a creative figure, you're going to hear them repeated until you want to scream like Edvard Munch's painting. If you don't reach that point then you need a serious ego assessment!
 
What do you write?
Really? Words. Lots and lots of words. What do you write? Dolphin whistles?
 
What's your style?
Casual old fart with a short fuse when it comes to inane topics.
 
Who's your favorite author?
Easy answer - Me. Or, if I take a moment to think about it - Whoever has impressed the hell out of me recently. Which is usually, me.
 
Do you like genre writing?
Not especially, but I love the word. Genre. After all, it's French. You can ask for directions to the toilet in French and stand a decent chance of getting laid on the way there.
 
What are your suggestions for new writers?
Find honest employment. There are enough whores in the world now.
 
Do you like performance art?
(Blank Stare.)
 
Do you feel alcohol or drugs helps your writing?
No. Although the blackouts help negate feelings of inadequacy. In the long run, it just makes dealing with this crap a little more bearable.
 
Where do you get your ideas?
The idea store. They're having a sale right now. You should check it out.
 
What's the most enjoyable part of writing?
Finishing. Everything before that is frigging work.
 
Do you use people you know in your stories?
Only if there's a need for a senseless murder in the first three paragraphs.
 
Have I read anything you've written?
Uh, what the hell have you read recently? I know, the question with a question thing, but come on.
 
Don't you just love So-and-So's latest?
Depends. If So-and-So writes obscure esoterica and is doomed to a life of poverty and relative obscurity, then drop him/her a line and have them come over. We can compare notes.
 
And the topper:
Don't you wish you'd written__________(fill in the blank)?
Fuck you!
 
_______________________________________________________________________
 
Meanwhile...live, love, write.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.
 
 
 
 
 
 


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Day 233 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

AUTHOR OR WRITER?

YES, THERE'S A DIFFERENCE!

 

First of all let's look at what the dictionaries say:
 
The American Heritage Dictionary defines author as, "n. 1a. The writer of a literary work. b. One who writes as a profession. 2. One who originates or creates something."
 
And writer as,  "n. One who writes, esp. as an occupation."
 
How about the New Oxford American Dictionary:
 
author, "n. a writer of a book, article, or report: he is the author of several books on the subject."
 
And writer as, n. a person who has written a particular text: the writer of the letter."
 
What's the point? I think, if you look at the slight difference in the way the words are presented, you notice a trend. The word author has weight, force, presence. Writer is thin, flaccid, less than remarkable.
 
There's a lot of writers out there now. Thanks to self-publication, nobody has to wait for validation. Slap your name on a cover, strike a deal with a major on-line distributor, and you're a...writer. If you're at all realistic, you've written something. You've done something to occupy yourself for a while. Sort of like basket weaving, finger painting, clay sculpture - something occupationally therapeutic. It kept your hands busy without having to think about anything significant.
 
Go ahead, stand up on your hind legs and wag your damned finger at me. You haven't hit the level of a professional yet, and I'm not talking about whether you're making a dime from pedaling whatever soporific distortion of real art and craft you're pushing on the audience like street smack that's been stepped on a dozen times and is near impotent.
 
When it comes to being an author, there's no road map. There's just that moment when you let go and feel. I'm talking about the kind of writing that is this side of suicidal. Stories filled with the type of characters and emotions that are composites of every encounter you've ever had with real people. With the kind of pain, and struggle it takes to make it through this one day without being ground into gutter slime. The type of heart searing self-examination that can work a finger into your guts and knot them up like macrame.
 
Don't look away when the bum walks up, hand out, and asks for a buck. Look at him, or her. That's a human wrapped in that grime. There's a story there, unless you shut it out. Go ahead, turn away - and you may become the inspiration for others who write about the egotistical panic that constipated bastards wrap their feelings in while hoping that snot-smeared hand doesn't actually touch their sleeve.
 
I'm not saying you have to crawl through a mile of shit to be able to tell me it stinks. But you do have to be familiar enough with it, and the way it turned your stomach, for me to believe you. You have to know that, above all the artistic bullshit they taught you in creative writing, you have to be in touch with that drooling loony in the far corner of your mind to write about what is really painful.
 
All this might make you a friggin' author. But I'll give you a hint, if someone else doesn't recognize what you've done as having an iota of talent (and I'm not talking about your Mom, or best friend, or the people on facebook), then you've probably missed the mark. Somebody who has the power to break you on a new audience needs to look at what you've done and ask, "You got anymore of this?"
 
So, what's the short route to where I'm going? Writers make up cute, fairly saleable stories, that entertain and occasionally attempt enlightenment. Authors rattle the god damned walls and scream in the empty hallways of your unconscious mind. They empathize and they sympathize, but mostly they cry the same tears as the mother of the dead child because somewhere inside of them, they died at that very same moment. If you're not bleeding inside while you're putting it all down, you're cheating the world and your self.
 
 
Just a helpful hint from your Uncle Dane.
 
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STAINLESS STEEL EXISTENTIALISM
 
 
 
by
Dane F. Baylis
 
 
 
It is simple affirmation
Embracing frailty
Standing before mirrors
Face covered in lather
Looking like some bloodshot
Santa Claus
Ten minutes a day
Except those
When the shakes were so bad
Suicide would have been a
Natural result.
 
Something of such consequence
Should never be accidental
Never reduced to such banality as
He was cleaning his shotgun
Didn’t notice it was loaded.
 
I have
And this should now be
No revelation
Stood in morning steam
And pressed hand to handle
To feel the easy parting of skin
Watch the first red trickle
Rivulet on cheek
Or chin
Or throat.
 
Shaving with steel
Is a concise treatise
On the existential.
 
 
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write. Like you fucking mean it!
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Dane F. Baylis,
Author.