Hello, There. I’ve Missed You, But Then, I Haven’t Been Here

Perhaps, I required a cloudy day, full of needed rain, to bring the miracles..as they may be.  I was finally able to log into this site.  For the past few months, the Universe has been dangling the carrot of “How Bad Do You Want To Write?” as it relates to everything from this blog to screenplays, in front of my face.  As I would pull back to get a good look, that da*n carrot would get yanked up into the stars.

This Blog?  Well, believe it or not, since I have two blogsites, the default login system would not recognize this one, and I could not post here.

And, while I’ve been locked out from here, my waning professional world has called me to action – in a recent missing person’s case.  Sure, very valuable work.  But, not my first choice in terms of what makes me happiest.  And, then, today, the login for this Blog worked.  It’s nice to finally take my shoes off.

Where have I been?  What have I been doing?  Well, there are writing projects that demand one be present:  Follow the Protocols, Do the Work.  But, I have been in another world of writing for these past months:  The World of:  Find the Voice, Speak the Words and Sounds – even if you do not at first understand the language.

The process feels like this, the stack of Stacks I completed in real life recently – Wood like Words:

Sure, I’ve been in a 6-month screenwriting class through ScreenwritingU.  But, that hasn’t been what has colored my writing journey.

It’s that, this comic at heart, this serious goofball, longing to be more lighthearted, actually sits in the corner of a dim, proverbial watering hole (with a Shirley Temple), and pretends it’s aged whiskey that will garner some vast insight and unlocked paradigm..a paradigm that allows for a breakthrough – a right turn onto some fruitful biway.  And, such an undertaking yielded a gamechanger recently:

I was suddenly somewhere new to me, a winding wooded route that took me to:

Dark Water, Shadowed Trails, Lurking Unknowns

Then, to places that I could not at first, traverse.  The foreign landscapes called me down sheer rock faces and up the indigenous ancient ladder of a ghost tribe.  I roamed washes and canyons and excavated the cave dwellings of Lost Souls – of my heart, mind, and subconscious — to release the voices that have resided in Invisibility.  Thankfully, never wandering the desert in search of Writer’s Water.

I have discovered from within its eye, a swirling mass of wind, dusty mist, and unstable, changing pulses..The F-Meter of my Writing Twister, from 0-5 and back again.

The result of this vortex has been characters, dialog, and plot weaves that tickle and gobsmack this writer.

I will relish your squeals when my words from this trip finally find your eyes and ears.  And, the images find themselves perhaps etched to Digital, to score the retinas and gray matter that house the stored images you cherish and berate.

Where have I been?  In a writing funnel cloud, waiting for the house to fall.  And, Here I Am.  I have missed you.

Look for more to come from this Blogger, not too far behind this funnel cloud.

Transformation Prelude: The Cake’s In the Oven

I love the phrase “The cake’s in the oven.”  Not a darn thing you can do to make that cake bake to its best any faster.

This concept comes up a lot in appointments with clients about some part of their life – my work’s not the point of this blog.  But, what I hear that relates to the ‘cake’ is: “It’s taking so long!”  “What am I doing wrong?”  “It hasn’t come together.”  And, “Maybe I’m not good enough to…”

We’re all waiting on a cake – of some kind. I don’t care who you are, or what you do. If you are a writer, filmmaker, director, screenwriter, plumber, banker, gardener, salesperson, someone searching for some kind of fulfillment. We all wait on the cake.

If we rush the cake, its flavor may suffer from poor composition.  If we turn up the heat, it may get burned.  If we often open up the door of the oven to check on it, we slow its progress. If we take it out too early, it tastes like batter.

This is the great risk for any writer, filmmaker – even a seeker of love.  We rush the deal, the career, the publishing; we pinch, we look, we insist – the ART, the DREAM.  What we don’t realize is that as soon as we’ve conceived something and brought it into this world, it is orbiting around some planet in some solar system, that has to do much more with Itself than with us.  And yet, we act as if we can control it.

Enter the cake. The cake is the project, the intention.  Can we give it the time it needs in our head, in a drawer, in the mail, on a desk, in discussion, in production, in printing, in editing, in uploading – in time?   Can we wait with our blessings?

If we opt to wait and let it do its thing, then that work of ART, that realized DREAM will be the best version of Itself that you can deliver, like a midwife out into the world – whether viewed by only you, or by millions.

Getting Down To It

Sometimes, there is nothing left to do but jump in.  You’ve circled the rim, looking for stairs.  You’ve thrown in stones to see if you can see the bottom.  You’ve watched the surface, looking for signs about what lurks beneath.

If you can’t recall the last time you did this, your brain does.  It’s trained to scan and surmise data.  It’s programmed to factor and consider and rationalize to good conclusions.  But, we sometimes prolong the process that our nervous system would make in good course, because we are indecisive.  And then again, sometimes the indecision leads us to our decision if we will just listen.

Indecision is a wavering that puts us nowhere immediately, and somewhere instantly.  It puts us right where we started, albeit with a slightly different view of shadow, a slightly different tilt of the head.  But, make no mistake we are essentially in the same place – in that we remain uncommitted, and free to continue to consider.

The beauty of indecision lies in the process of remaining undecided.  The perceptions that percolate; the issues that float and wave.  The eventual theme emerging, that even we can’t ignore.

Indecision happens for me in writing a lot.  A plot comes to life, but I feel uncertain.  How will it be received?  And yet, the camel’s nose is under the tent, the cat is out of the bag, you get the drift.  My indecision in my writing life almost always ends with a decision to jump in. Write it.

But, indecision is sometimes a voice to be listened to.  This happened for me when I was offered a very prestigious opportunity on Capitol Hill.  I could not shake the feeling that indecision was as close as I wanted to get to the offer.  Hindsight tells me that it would have been a dead-end road for me, as speaking out of both sides of my mouth is not a pleasure or a talent.  The opportunity gleamed in the darkness of all of my “shoulds”; but the intuitive voice that would not be silent saved me.

Sometimes, indecision is the last place we go before we decide to jump into no, yes, maybe, or do nothing.  Listening to the bridled voice in you that will move no further is sometimes what saves you, and allows you to jump in the body of water in writing and in life, that will sustain you – floating, swimming, fishing, dreaming.