Learning to be a Writer

“Have Gun – Will Travel.”

Paladin was the first to grab hold of my fertile imagination and inspire me to go out West and face those bandits just like he did. Every Saturday night, in stark black and white, the old man dressed in black faced down his opponents and always won the gunfight. If I couldn’t be him, I could at least tell his story. Or so I thought.

It didn’t work out quite that way.

Writing long hand on that yellow legal pad wasn’t the same as my trusty LC Smith typewriter that came years later. So, after toiling for weeks, I ended up with a great story (or so I thought in my 7^th grade imagination) but no idea what to do with it. Paladin ended up with a stack of other disjointed attempts at storytelling and was forgotten by the challenges of 8^th grade math.

After Paladin grew stale and went nowhere, I turned to the jungle and tales of Tarzan. He then morphed into Conan, the Barbarian. Unfortunately, none of these super heroes (before there were real super heroes) ever came to fruition. They all withered away on the vine called distraction, lack of patience and total ignorance of this thing called the craft of writing.

After youthful efforts at cartoon drawings, poetry scribbles, comic book rough cuts and very short stories, there came a long period of nothingness. Then, after entering the real world of work, I ever so slowly began adding writing projects to my side hustles. Most of them were educational television scripts. They proved useful fodder for conversation when I met my future bride who was an education major in college. Gradually more writing projects became a standard part of my own video production business.

Fast forward many years and I found myself giving workshops on ‘How to Become a Writer.’ After years of stumbling around the world of writing, I was finally getting a grasp on the task ahead if I wanted to cross the Styx and add the handle of ‘writer’ to my mantle of achievements.

Statistically, something like eighty-one percent of the population would like to write a novel. In reality, only six percent ever finish the task. There are many and varied reasons why so many people fail. I try to emphasize in my class that it’s really just a series of simple steps to climb that Everest called writing.

First and foremost, remember that writing is a craft, an art form, a learned skill, and a discipline. Like anything else worth pursuing, it takes time and effort. There are no shortcuts or magic pills to take. You need three things to become a writer:

            Desire…you won’t know if you have it unless you try.

            Perseverance…you won’t know if you have it unless you try.

            Talent…you won’t know if you have it unless you try.

Believe it or not, writing is one of the easiest things to learn to do no matter if it is a novel, a play, a screenplay or anything else. You just need a process / a routine / steps-to-take to do it. Too often, beginning writers focus on the end result and are intimidated by the thought of completing a novel, an essay, a blog or even a short story. As the old Chinese proverb goes, a long journey begins with one small step.

Where can you get your ideas if you have no idea what to write about? The caveat here should be: what is your passion? what drives you? what topic would make you want to get up each morning and write? Remember, you are not writing for anyone else but yourself.

The source of ideas is endless: newspaper and magazine articles, books, movies, television, conversations, people you know, your past experiences, other people’s experiences, things you have witnessed, etc.

So then, how do you organize your ideas?

First step, find a place to write and only write. It will become your magic place and will set a mindset for you. If you can set up a time schedule, a routine, that’s great. But just having a place (only for writing) will help adjust your mind to the task of writing.

When I began writing a long time ago, I had an office in the basement of my home. At the time, I was working fulltime for public television, running my own business, managing two apartment buildings and trying to be an involved father. That office was where I conducted my business. But right around the corner in the laundry room was a countertop and that was my writing area and I only wrote there…nothing else.

Everyone has their own body clock. Only YOU know when the best time for YOU is to write. This has to be the best time for you (and not someone else). My most creative time is early in the morning or at least by 9:00am after my quiet time and breakfast. When I was still working fulltime it was whenever I could find the time.

Organizing your ideas is the next step.  Begin by just putting ideas, phrases, dialogue, facts, etc. on paper or the computer screen. Two things will happen:

1.      First, you will have captured your thoughts and ideas. Do whatever research is necessary.

2.      Secondly, they will organize themselves.

Then build a Treatment / Outline. Once you have enough information then begin to organize it with a beginning, middle and end or by chapters, or chronologically, sequential order.

Take that treatment to final written form.

1. Once you have an outline you are ready to begin.

2. Begin by filling in each scene with your notes already written.

3. Once that’s done, let it cool off. Walk away for a period of time then go back to it.

4.  ALL writing takes place in rewriting, not the initial first pass at writing.

Surrounding the art of writing are universal standards and truisms:

It’s all about story-telling

The essence of good drama is conflict

Focus on the story itself and character development verses sets, casts, scenes

Don’t preach (be very careful with your message or you’ll turn off your audience.

So far, over a period of roughly eighteen years, I have written: 14 novels, 2 novellas, 18 plays, 8 movie scripts, 2 children’s books (each in four languages), a comic strip, a book of poetry, 700 blogs and 9 original songs (for one of my plays.) Now comes the hard part. How do I get my product out into the ‘real world?’

Writing is step one, sharing it with the world is step two. Yet, even if I am not able to produce more plays (eighteen so far) or expand my reach of novel readers, I still have to soul-soothing satisfaction of knowing that while Paladin got away, I’ve corralled a whole lot of other stories and they’re pretty darn good, if I say so myself.

Good luck on your journey of becoming ‘a writer.’

Staying Relevant in Old Age

Sailboats and airlines move in exactly the same manner, never in a straight line, self-correcting all the time. Our lives should be pretty much the same. That sounds about right during most of our lifetime until things gets harder with age.

Staying relevant for anyone at any age can be quite a challenge today. These are trying times for even the most blasé among us. Normal political practices are tripping over themselves with standards and norms are being adjusted, maligned, and dismembered on a daily basis.

Now, artificial intelligence makes anything digital questionable; what is real and what isn’t. It’s bots for breakfast and cloud-based data swirling in cyberspace all around us. No wonder we can no longer trust news sources to give us the truth; straight and honest. It seems as if everyone has an agenda; for themselves, their clients, and their objectives in life.

For older folks it gets even harder to filter the shaft (BS) from the real and authentic. I think that’s why many of us in this older generations just want to ‘gave it a rest’ once they reached retirement age. It’s happened before; just as Tom.

News correspondent Tom Brokaw celebrated his generation by calling them ‘the greatest generation.’ He hero-worshipped their struggles during the Great Depression, their heroic actions in World War Two and their resiliency during the post-war recovery.

This was my parent’s generation. The one I was supposed to look up to for guidance, inspiration and an idea of what one does when one has lived a full life and was now retired. I am of the boomer generation but each succeeding generation supposedly possessed unique qualifications that made them something special too. Yet, it was the ‘greatest generation’ that had supposedly started it all. I beg to differ.

While most of us morphed into adulthood and were facing daily challenges and struggles with our jobs, career advancements, relationships, and world events, many of the ‘greatest generation’ had divorced themselves from current events in their lives. It was if they’d been through all of that before and now, they just wanted to enjoy their retirement and shed themselves of the challenges most of us were facing on a daily basis.

On the surface it seemed a well-deserved retirement schedule forged out of long hours at work and raising a family. The downside of that entrenched isolationism on their part is that they were not staying relevant to the world around them. The world continued on and they stayed in their old place, stuck in the past even as it became more and more irrelevant.

One of the frequent laments that Sharon hears from women her age is the fear that their spouse is ‘getting old’ on them. It’s a real concern that the man in their life is closing down to the real world. They fear their partner’s opinions, attitudes and reactions reflect a continuing disconnect from everyday reality. Many of these men see a world that is changing all around them and they don’t like it.

Monday morning quarterbacking became a favorite game to play because they had the time. Old men gathered at the coffee shop to talk at one another and seldom if ever listened to what was being said. If and when they did happen to listen, the conversation usually centered around bitching about taxes, local and national government, believing the propaganda all the political parties were spewing forth on the air waves and in print. It was seldom if ever positive and more likely a sad lament of times past and the failures of future generations rather than their own.

Now I and millions more like me are of that senior generation. The boomers are getting older and some, unfortunately, have morphed into that same isolationist routine of living. The corner coffee shop is full of old men bitching about taxes, politics and politicians and the futility of trying to talk sense into that younger generation. Here we go all over again.

Staying relevant to the world around us seems to be the only answer for my generation. To stay informed, involved and committed to something is far better than to remain entrenched in yesterday and the glory of one’s past. The world cares little for our opinion. They do respect our action. And in the end, our actions may be the only thing that counts.

High Lonesome

Far from the crystal-clear pools of Palm Springs and its emerald green golf courses lies another world. A world of vast nothingness peppered with the sad remnants of past lives and etchings scratched in the rocks. It’s a place where stillness thunders louder than the wind and God did some of his finest work. High and lonesome.

Sharon and I have been traveling to this wilderness mecca ever since the kids were still in school and offspring weren’t even a part of the equation. We’ve taken friends there as part of the Palm Springs experience when they’ve come to visit. It’s part and parcel of the Southern California magic. Joshua Tree is a world unto its own.

This world-renowned national park and its surrounding communities embrace another form of existence; all of which is surrounded by endless horizons. The area is a mecca for aging rock stars, artists and modern-day bohemians along with ordinary people all in search of a new beginning. It’s the place where people go to get lost and then forgotten.

The high desert of the Morongo Basin is like a modern-day outback of more than 9.5 million acres of public land in the California desert. Its home to old walking trails first used by Native Americans between seasonal encampments then followed by Spanish explorers and finally 19^th century gold seekers and pioneers.

1.7-billion-year-old rocks compete for attention with the ancient land mass of Rodinia and King Clone and 11.000-year-old creosote bush that began its life during the retreat of the last Ice Age. It was a desolate wilderness and home to cowboys, outlaws, roaming Indian people and Mexican traders.

Reminders of past human lives are everywhere. Abandoned mines litter the area with their relics of past hopes and dreams scattered about the ground. A restored railroad depot stands alone with its tracks still leading nowhere. Ramshackle old cabins planted amid miles of sage and scrub brush, sit isolated and lonely in the desert. The evidence is all here if you can look past the dust and dirt and castles made of boulders to imagine all the past lives that once past through this place on the way to a better life.

Before and during the 1950s, the high desert was home to simple shacks on homesteaded land. No water, electricity, or amenities. Initially L.A. outlaws, urban rebels and the adventurous few gravitated to this Spartan existence. Over time, the elements took their toll and many shacks were abandoned and forgotten. Most reverted back to the Bureau of Land Management.

Then in the 1960s and 70s, artists, musicians, urban castaways, and bohemian rebels found the high desert a perfect refuge from the craziness that had overtaken most of the coastal cities. These new explorers flocked to the area in their VW pop-up campers, tents, sleeping bags and simple woolen blankets. It was like an unorganized gathering of like-minded souls each of whom was lost inside their own head.

More recently, high architectural drama followed in the form of classic modern dwellings. Gradually, there grew a vibe, an undercurrent of interest and excitement about high desert living. VRBO and AirBnB locales began sprouting up everywhere.

A whole new generation of architectural aficionados, Gen Xers, boomers, urban pioneers, and retirees are reclaiming the desert and rebuilding those dilapidated shacks into something more attractive-only this time with all the amenities. A lot of the Airbnb listings are remodeled versions of these old shacks that used to be part of a homesteading craze decades ago.

Right from the start, we wanted to introduce our grandchildren to this playground for the imagination. Much like the high-altitude cerebral vacuum of the San Jacinto Mountains, Joshua Tree is the perfect setting for letting their minds wander and bump into thoughts and ideas and feelings they never knew were lurking there.

It means nestling into a large boulder, resting your head on its warm pillow of granite, looking up at the pure blue flawless sky and listening to your surroundings. The stillness will batter your eardrums with a quiet so loud that all you can do is retreat back inside your head for peace and serenity.

The high desert is a cornucopia of images, lifestyles, attitudes, ambitions, and dreams from a plethora of characters; real and imagined. It’s where you go to lose yourself and perhaps find the unexpected. It’s where the ghosts of past rock and roller stars still play their mournful ballads for no one to hear but the wind.

And it’s where writers go to ask ‘what if.’