I was looking at my Google Analytics stats from a couple days ago and was surprised to find a huge spike in visitors. I looked at the search terms that had led so many supposed fiction enthusiasts to my doorstep and found a new phrase on the list:
Thomas McAuley drugs
I slowly raised my hand to ask for an explanation but, being a work-from-home web designer surrounded only by dogs and cats, no one called on me. It would be up to me to get to the bottom of my new association with the dark side. In a handful of clicks I found this news item:
Drugs bust man facing execution
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
A Belfast man could be facing a death sentence in Thailand after being arrested and accused of dealing in a cocktail of drugs in a beach resort.
Thomas McAuley, 48, was allegedly caught in a police sting operation in the Thai resort of Pattaya, 100 miles east of Bangkok this week. Thai police say he was dealing in crystal ice, methamphetamines, known locally as ‘yaa baa’ — the mad drug — and also opium and cannabis.
So, again, if you've happened to Google me and have stumbled across an overabundance of drug references, fear not. I am NOT facing the death penalty...yet.
I don't agree with the death penalty for the crimes my pretender is accused of and hope that the government of Ireland, assisted by those of other nations, will find the middle ground of a living punishment. I need this idiot to live so I can thank him for sending my stats through the roof.
I'm a genetics/evolutionary buff, so when I ran across this insane, acid-driven clip, I could not but share it with all my nerd brethren.
Here is the description provided by the YouTube user who originally found and posted it:
Directed in 1971 by Robert Alan Weiss for the Department of Chemistry of Stanford University and imprinted with the "free love" aura of the period, this short film continues to be shown in biology class today. It has since spawn a series of similar funny attempts at vulgarizing protein synthesis. Narrated by Paul Berg, 1980 Nobel prize for Chemistry.
Can you imagine the amount of coordination and raw drug force this took to organize? Even if you're not into chemistry and the science behind RNA's path through protein synthesis, please enjoy it for its historical significance.
And the next time you see a 60-something person, shake his/her hand for making it through that era with their life. Give them a quick scan too. I'm confident you'll find they've developed a better fashion sense as well, cause for further congratulations.
First drafts of any work are bad. You will be terribly disappointed if you show your first draft to your classmates, teacher, wife, friends. They may smile and say nice things, but that doesn't prove me wrong; it only proves that you have nice friends. Get over it. Like unicorns, finished first drafts only except in fantasy. But unlike unicorns, first drafts should be ugly, messy, scattered things. To think otherwise is a waste of time and energy. But that is not to say first drafts are in any way useless.
First Drafts Are Not Useless
Like iron ore in stone, everything that will become your finished work is locked inside that first draft. Sometimes the raw material that is your first draft will make it unchanged to the finished work; however, most often, what you write will serve to guide you in the right direction. And that is not useless. You have to get your ideas out of your head in order to judge their worth.
Creating First Drafts
Create first drafts with the same focus you would apply to any other stage in your writing. But create in as fast and brave a fashion as you can. This sort of leaned forward writing takes practice. Our inner editor always wants to jump in with its annoying hand raised and waving, wanting to correct the grammar or fix the order of events. Squash that editor if you can't ignore him but he cannot win or your first draft will be tainted.
With your first draft, you are striving for a loose, messy slop of words on the page related to your story. You are not trying to achieve your story.
First drafts are the bones laid down in the pit. They are the dirt in the bucket. They are the scattered stones. Once you're done, you become the archaeologist, sifting through the ideas you've regurgitated. From these ideas you'll know what works and what doesn't, where you should start and end up, what direction to pursue and what to abandon. But this can only happen correctly when you're leaning over a brave first draft.
Keep in mind that second drafts are themselves supposed to be rough, unfinished works and you'll get a better idea of how rough your first drafts should be.
On to the 3rd Round (By the Hair of My Chinny-Chin-Chin)
Goodish news from the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Writing Competition. My story The Hole In One Lofton Cole scored 6th out of 20 writers in my group, earning me 14 more points and securing me a spot in the 3rd and final round to take place this weekend. My points total sits at 56. That puts me in the 22nd spot out of the forty remaining writers.
Though I'm pleased as punch about moving to the 3rd round, the manner in which I did so is less than desirable. I had become accustomed to top 3 finishes in my group. This latest story dropped my into the middle third, an uncomfortable unglamorous place to be. I know I have better in me.
To be clear, I am satisfied that my story earned the luke-warm reception it deserved. My disappointment is entirely in myself and not the process or the judging.
We'll receive our 3rd and last round prompt at a minute before midnight tonight and the bulk of the thinking and writing will take place tomorrow and Sunday. I've all but decided, barring a genius first draft, I'll not participate in the Writers Weekly competition that, as luck would have it, fell on the same weekend. I would love nothing more than to write two stories and have them place well, but logic says that both will suffer if I push the matter and I've come too far in the NYC competition to sabatoge myself for the sake of pride.
Wish me luck. Keep me in your prayers and thoughts. Send me cash. Whatever will get the job done. I just want to do well and place respectfully.
Sometimes events converge. We call these coincidences, accidents, chance meetings, any number of names. Sometimes these convergences lead to bad days; sometimes they lead to opportunity. The jury is still out as to a] whether I will experience such a convergence this coming weekend and b] in what category it will fall.
I participate in many of the quarterly Writers Weekly 24-hour Short Story Competitions. I also may be facing writing a 48-hour short story for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Short Story Championship, depending upon the success of my story The Hole In One Lofton Cole in the 2nd round. If I earned a top 5 spot in my group of 20, I'll be facing a weekend in which I must write not one, but two completed short stories in a 48-hour period.
What's my strategy? I don't believe seat-of-the-pants will work under these circumstances. Without intensive, careful (and brief) up-front planning, I fear I'll flounder.
Can I do my best work given that I'll effectively have half the time to write my NYC story as others will have? Honestly I can't say. Being a website designer has taught me one thing: sometimes a deadline is exactly the right medicine for producing work under a deadline.
I have considered scrapping the Writers Weekly competition. My buy-in was a mere $5 and they prestige and payout is less than the publicity and cashola I stand to gain from NYC.
I may have just talked myself out of the Writers Weekly competition. See? It all comes out in the writing. So there's my plan:
If I move to the last round of NYC, I'll focus on that alone.
If I don't make it, I'll concentrate on Writers Weekly.
Why risk losing both due to my perfectionist streak?
A friend of mine introduced me to Phyllis Weil, a sweet woman who had written a book about a moving religious experience. Come Forth as Gold went to print at the end of August and is now available for direct order
Though I'm not the most traditionally religious person you're bound to meet, I was proud to give Phyllis a design that really seemed to brighten her day.
I know how difficult completing a book is and I could hear in her voice how proud she was to see the finished product in print.
If you're a Christian looking for an inspirational religious memoir, contact Phyllis Weil or contact me for her information. Soon the book will be available in Christian bookstores in the Middle Tennessee. If enough copies sell, Phyllis might be picked up by a publisher and distributed in Christian bookstores in a wider area.
Yesterday (Saturday) I read the short article, "[Exercise Your Pen] New Beginnings" in the September issue of Writers Digest, an excerpt from B. J. Hollars's You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside the Story. In it, Hollars suggests writing 10 to 20 first sentences of stories only. The exercise is a break icebreaker for the artist combatting writers block and had a number of benefits.
Among these is the ability to not be so serious for a change. With the directive NOT to consider the 20 or more pages that might follow any of these lines, the author is allowed to devote his full attention to that one opener itself. That concentration focuses the mind on creating the very most enticing hook for a story.
Once one has begun writing creating the sentences, the directive not to continue with the story idea transforms from a blessing to irksome to torturous.
I created opening sentences for the stories I had done some work on already but hadn't quite developed, then I moved onto the brief notes from a small notebook I keep with me at all times. When I was finished I had closer to 30 opening sentences and I had revealed another benefit of the exercise.
Beyond good practice crafting opening sentences and adding a twist and some freedom to a writing session, I now have a quick go-to sheet I can use the next time I need to start a new story. Not only that, but developing the story ideas from the tiny notebook reminded me of why I had written each of the notes. Now there's a far slimmer a chance I'll let them fester inside, never to be developed into the story i once knew could be there.
I'm not talking about my ripped stomach or a peach when I say "hard in the middle". I don't have either at the moment, a fact which causes me great sadness. I love peaches and I'm sure my wife would love my having a ripped stomach.
No. I'm talking about a phenomenon that I've experienced in my art career including painting, graphic and web design, songwriting and fiction writing: that of the difficulty that shows up in the middle of any artistic process.
No matter how inspired our idea, no matter how energetic the start, no matter how tight the pre-planning, the middle twists around, tempts one to the outside edge where things get unfocused and thin. The middle is where the shapelessness of tedium allows the mind to wander. The middle is where certainty and new intelligence -- what has revealed itself to us in the process of producing art -- overlap and turn into what seems at the time a hopeless mud.
Push through and have faith in the original idea. Your abilities will rewarded with a finished work worth the effort. Once you've witnessed this magic for yourself, you'll have a success in your pocket on which to build more and more successes. For some, one time will be enough to get him over future humps; for others, many victories will have to be won before he can push past the middle point on his own.
This push is similar to running headlong into a forest with the goal of making it out alive on the other side. You enter thinking you'll go straight in, reach halfway and go straight back out. But once you're in you realize trees are in the way, there's an impassible cliff or a swift river. You have to change your plan. You might even have to rethink your path to the point you feel you're so far off track you'll never complete the trip. But the writing process is complex terrain. You'll find you've overestimated the obstacle or it will turn out the long backtrack takes you to a subplot you hadn't planned. That middle point wasn't a problem. As cliche as it sounds, it was an opportunity. More importantly, it was necessary.
The fact that there's not always a gun to your head when it comes to writing makes a middle push more difficult because, when its all said and done, one doesn't HAVE to get to a finishing point. However, a writing life is a craft. You only succeed if you practice the whole game, not only the beginning of the game until you tire or start losing. Games can be won from behind; stories can be completed despite difficulty.
Saying this doesn't offer the writer much specific advice. What specifically does one do faced with the sticky middle? My advice risks sounding boring but again, rule number one holds true: Keep writing. Solutions you might be tempted to think about for days usually solve themselves in minutes in the writing. Not specific enough? If you need an exact first step, I give you this:
Typically, identifying and solving the largest problem in front of you is all you have to do. Identify and solve. When we look at a work, no matter the medium. We're either satisfied (and that means we're finished) or we're not satisfied.
What leads us to feel unsatisfied? Something is not answered or it's answered in a wrong or distasteful way.
The good news is we can, with practice, learn to identify that the one main problem. Multiple problems group themselves together like the funny short characters in films or cartoons who stand on one another's backs wearing a trench coat in an effort to fool another, usually menacing character. Look for the one problem, solve it and move on to the next one. Eventually, all the problems will be solved and you'll be satisfied with your work. You'll be finished.
Drugs bust man facing execution
First drafts of any work are bad. You will be terribly disappointed if you show your first draft to your classmates, teacher, wife, friends. They may smile and say nice things, but that doesn't prove me wrong; it only proves that you have nice friends. Get over it. Like unicorns, finished first drafts only except in fantasy. But unlike unicorns, first drafts should be ugly, messy, scattered things. To think otherwise is a waste of time and energy. But that is not to say first drafts are in any way useless.
Goodish news from the 
Sometimes events converge. We call these coincidences, accidents, chance meetings, any number of names. Sometimes these convergences lead to bad days; sometimes they lead to opportunity. The jury is still out as to a] whether I will experience such a convergence this coming weekend and b] in what category it will fall.
A friend of mine introduced me to Phyllis Weil, a sweet woman who had written a book about a moving religious experience. Come Forth as Gold went to print at the end of August and is now available for direct order
Yesterday (Saturday) I read the short article, "[Exercise Your Pen] New Beginnings" in the September issue of Writers Digest, an excerpt from B. J. Hollars's You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside the Story. In it, Hollars suggests writing 10 to 20 first sentences of stories only. The exercise is a break icebreaker for the artist combatting writers block and had a number of benefits.
I'm not talking about my ripped stomach or a peach when I say "hard in the middle". I don't have either at the moment, a fact which causes me great sadness. I love peaches and I'm sure my wife would love my having a ripped stomach.