BLOG POST HIATUS EXPLAINED

 The Church of the Open Road gets Published!

 

Our last post to the Church of the Open Road was last April.  You may be wondering why.  

 

Was it COVID-19?  Nope.  We didn’t travel as much but that doesn’t mean we didn’t travel.

Was it that cancer diagnosis?  Nope.  Radiation ending in June seems to have cleared things up.

Was it a lack of motivation?  Nope.  I’ve been writing away, just not bloggy stuff.

 

And that gets to the big announcement:

 

Eden, Indeed: Tales, Truths and Fabrications of a Small Town Boy, a compilation of my growing up stories has been published!  

 

When I was just a little kid, I used to love it when Dad would sit at the foot of my bed ~ I still recall his weight pulling the covers snuggly around my feet ~ and tell of his adventures growing up in the Mojave Desert.  Fast forward a few years and I was married with a lovely child but soon divorced.  It immediately occurred to me that I would not have the opportunity to sit at the foot of her bed and tell my growing up stories.

 

While the pieces in the collection are arranged roughly in chronological order, the first piece I wrote was about a little old lady that lived down the street from us.  Initially, I composed it when while assigning my fourth graders the task of writing a short biography of someone they know “…but it can’t be a relative…” one little boy said, “You do one, too!” And the class chorused “Yeah, Mr. D!”  Thus, I was stuck.

 

What now exists are my hazy impressions of growing up on five semi-rural acres during the tumultuous late 50s and 60s and beyond, building tree forts, catching poison oak, crashing canoes, surviving a pre-teen crush or two and remembering some dark national times from which me and my gang of friends were pretty well insulated. The target audience is my grandkids.  Implicit is the desire that they have an impression of my youth similar to the impression Dad gave me of his own.

 

The stories have been critiqued and vetted by members of the Cloverdale-based writers’ group with which I’ve been engaged. It was designed by Personal History Productions LLC in Santa Rosa so it looks much more professional than anything I might have imagined on my own.  https://www.personalhistoryproductions.com  The CEO of Personal History, upon reading the text (many times) said that she grew up in a small town in North Carolina but that my stories reminded her of home.  With that generous comment in mind, I’ve asked the company that prints the volume, IngramSpark, https://www.ingramspark.com to add it to their wholesale catalog.  

 

 

At 230 pages, the cost is twenty bucks. Available by ordering through your independent, local book seller (also online from Amazon, but the Church of the Open Road always prefers you shop with the local guy.)

 

While I don’t want to commercialize my blog, I hope you will consider ordering a copy. 

 

 

Now, for 2023, the Church of the Open Road resolves to return to the Open Road, take a few photos, write a few words and tell folks about it here…

 

© 2022

Church of the Open Road Press

 

TEN RULES FOR CLARITY IN WRITING

I AM CURRENTLY READING A NOVEL with a good story line, but one that is hard to read because it is so poorly composed. I’m hanging in there, because I want to see what happens. However, as I read, I’m getting a bit bent out of shape with the author.  I don't like my time consumed wading through poor construction, pedantic rants or typographical errors (for which there is no excuse.)

Not having been published myself, I may have little standing to be critical of someone whose words I am holding in my hands.

With that in mind, I have drafted the following ten rules (give or take) that I will post on the bulletin board in my studio if only as a reminder to myself:

1. Few nevers exist in good writing. Nothing is absolute.
2. Get grammar. Get tense. Get modifiers.
3. Know there, their and they’re; know also to, too, two. Know the word you want to use and spell it properly. Remember that a homophone is not some sort of alternative lifestyle hotline.
4. Avoid over-use of unique words in close proximity within text: “The angry birds’ angry squawks angered the sleeping giant.”  Using a word like "palpable" more than once in every hundred pages or so (excluding when it comes up in dialog) is probably too frequent.  Using it three times in five pages means someone didn't access their Thesaurus.
5. Vary sentence length. Long descriptive or technical sentences are best punctuated by short declarative statements. It keeps the reader engaged.
6. Suspend grammar rules when writing dialogue. People in conversation don’t subscribe to the King’s English. We don’t casually talk as good as we write, except, perhaps when we’re being deposed. Don’t make dialogue sound like a deposition.
7. Understand that poetry makes prose better: think alliteration, rhythm, cadence. (The last sentence in above tip might be a good example.)
8. Figure out what “passive voice” means, how it may slow down the pace of the text, when to use and when to avoid it. “Timmy was bitten by Lassie.” vs. “Lassie bit Timmy!”
9. Use spell check, but don’t depend on it. Most spell checking programs do not harbor many technical terms, nor do they get dialect. When spell check checks, check to make sure it didn’t introduce a new error.
10. Acronyms confuse readers who are not hip. Assume all readers are not hip. (This is a cogent point for those on the speaking circuit as well.) Similarly: Don’t expect everyone to know your colloquialisms.
11. A good paragraph has five sentences. A great paragraph has as many sentences as necessary to fully convey the point. Some excellent paragraphs contain only one word.
12. Oh.
13. When writing about a current event or composing a technical piece, such as a users manual for the DVD player or a how-to for leadership or administration or boat building or cake baking, report if you must. When writing fiction, don’t.
14. Typos kill kontent.
15. Self-publishing is for folks who are smarter than editors. However, too many self-published books prove that too many writers are not smarter than the editor they did not hire.
16. Reading is a creative act that involves conversing with the author. Successful authors ensure that their writing can hold up their end of the obligation that is inherent in that reader/writer relationship.
17. Effective writing is focused on truth – that goes for non-fiction and fiction.  Especially fiction.
18. Finally, avoid writing ten rules for this or ten rules for that. You’ll always either run over or short.

© 2012
Church of the Open Road Press

MR. BRILLIANT RECOMMENDS III

My posts to this blog have become a bit irregular – not for lack of roughage – but due to efforts to ramp up on other matters. Those other matters have highlighted a few must haves:

WEBSTER’S SEVENTH NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY © 1965. Inside the front cover, written in the hand of a 14-year-old, is my name. Given to me as a graduation present from mom and dad as I matriculated from Chico Junior to Chico High, this volume is better than anything available on line. While now I have to use a magnifier to read the text, once I can focus, the completeness of a Webster’s entry proves to be almost nonpareil, Oxford English not withstanding. Beyond just how to spell the word, its etymology – yes, I just looked that word up – pronunciation and samples of use make me smarter with each new investigation. More time-consuming than spell-check, which I also rely upon, a good dictionary links our words today with the very origins of language. What a gift.

THE NEW ROGET’S THESAURUS (IN DICTIONARY FORM) © 1964. Same as above. As a bumpkin growing up in Chico, this volume – a companion gift to that listed above – provides easy access to broader language than does the Thesaurus preloaded on my computer. It helps me to appear much more learned than I really are.  Thanks mom and dad. These two volumes have proven to be among many life long gifts you have given me.


LITERARY JOURNALS. I need understand more about contemporary fiction to better inform my own writing. Fiction, like all art, does different things to different people. Fiction presents in different forms, styles and genres. Like looking at a really good abstract painting, much contemporary fiction, I find, I don’t “get.” Some stories, however, invite me to read further and stay with me after I’ve closed the book or periodical. As I battle my personal bumpkin-ness in an effort to become more literate, I have discovered the immense value of literary journals. These are wonderful sources for seeing what the good established writers and the good new writers are doing. They have set a high bar. My goal is to write, revise and/or market four to six hours every day. A good dose of daily reading is part of that.

[Interestingly, I can easily find literary journals at independent booksellers like Lyons Books in Chico, California; but not so much at the larger mega-book sellers. I know why that is. Literary journals are small volume volumes, and corporate booksellers can’t, many times, justify the shelf space. Bully for the little guy!]


SHORT STORY AMERICA http://www.shortstoryamerica.com/ Short Story America is a source I have stumbled upon recently. I have been impressed with the quality of the writing and the ease with which it can be accessed. While a log in and password is required, it’s free and each story I’ve read thus far has been more than worth the investment in time. Kudos to Short Story America for providing this platform for both authors and readers. Mr. Brilliant recommends you check out the link, bookmark the site and check in on it every couple of weeks or so.

“I’ll write good some day.” But it will take a lot of work and success won’t happen without lots of reference to the tools listed above.

© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press

LONG DAY IN 100 WORDS

WRANGLERS – worn threadbare at the butt and pocket, frayed about the back of the cuffs. Justins – mud or crap caked in the welt between the sole and the upper. Dusty chambray – partly tucked in and deeply stained at the armpits. Stetson split neatly through the crown.

The rider cantered into the saloon, looked for a chair, found only a stool, took a second look around, then climbed atop, leaning on an elbow – longing for a more comfortable repose.

Requesting a 14-year-old Oban, which presently arrived “neat,” he reflected on his fifteen hours since daybreak, and wished this roadhouse favored jazz.

© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press

LITERACY: AMERICA’S DEFICIT - WHAT?

OVER WHISKEY ONE NIGHT, the following was raised: “If you could pick just one major issue confronting America today, and you were to dedicate 100% of your efforts to its resolution, what would be the issue?”

Almost immediately, a list of concerns was aired:

• The deficit we are leaving to our children;
• The rise of corporate power in our democracy;
• The intractable ways of our dysfunctional Congress;
• The quagmires in both Iraq and Afghanistan;
• The inability to confront climate change;
• The social injustice of poverty;
• The polarization of our populous brought about by the far right and the far left (but mostly by the far right, I must say, admitting my bias)…

A day or two mulling this question brought me to this singular conclusion: The major issue confronting America is our collective inattention to literacy.

When an author writes, he or she is engaged in an act of creativity. When a reader reads, he or she, too, is engaged in a creative act. The act involves making meaning from abstract symbols. It involves gathering data or information and drawing conclusions. It demands a tenacious examination of all of the elements present in order for a defensible solution to be proposed. (A lousy mystery is one where the writer throws in a fact or element right at the end to justify a conclusion. We’ve all read ‘em.) Literacy provides the foundation for making the abstract concrete; it affords us practice with questions for which we can devise answers.

WERE WE A MORE LITERATE SOCIETY, we would understand:

• The value of money and influence (ours or the government’s) over time. We would recognize that there are limits to the good credit can do for us and that there are limits to the things we really need to have. We would embrace the consequences attached to debts we accrue.
• “What’s good for General Motors is good for the US,” is credible only if the ethics driving the business balance what’s good for shareholders with what’s good for the country. We’d know that disconnects between the shareholder and the citizenry are natural and predictable because of that darned “love of money” oracle.
• We vote for people to make policy on our behalf. We’d know that the implementation of autopilot initiatives and ballot box budgeting inhibit representatives’ ability to fulfill their responsibilities, while affording us opportunity to make policy the impacts of which we cannot fully conceptualize.
• There are those who do not “hate our way of life” but are jealous of it; and that there are good people who fervently worship in a different manner. (We’d know this because we’d choose to read the Qur’an, rather than have somebody tell us what’s in it.)
• It is easier to criticize the science than to actually do the science.
• Assisting the poor to self-sufficiency doesn’t take away from us; it contributes to the betterment of all.
• Nothing is absolute. There are aspects of life that can be done independently and for profit. And there are equally important societal functions that are done for all. Police and fire protection, education, the justice system and, perhaps, even health care (think: promote the general welfare) come to mind.

AUDI PARTEM ALTERAM: “hear the other side.” When literate, we “get” that the opponent’s point of view is not a threat, it is simply another point of view. When literate, we converse to answer common questions and solve common problems. When literate, we develop the tools necessary to address (dare I say?) all the major issues confronting America.

Societies lacking the logic, reason and thought commonly associated with literacy are mired in conflict, poverty, crime and ignorance. Security, safety and well-being suffer.

Preferring to not go there as a country, I'll put my efforts behind greater literacy for all.

© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press

BOOKS FOR TOTS (instead of toys)

BETWEEN ABOUT THE END OF OCTOBER AND CHRISTMAS, we are often asked to contribute to Toys for Tots drives. The California Highway Patrol sponsors one. Your local Chevy dealer sponsors one. Even big, bad motorcycle groups conduct toy runs. The results are lots of – but never enough – trinkets for the less well off. Ever wonder just what becomes of those gifts, when the battery dies, when the flimsy plastic fitting wears out, or just when the excitement of its newness runs its course? Household clutter comes to mind, as does the word landfill.

With that bias in mind, the Church of the Open Road offers a modest proposal: It is a verifiable fact that young readers are more successful than non-readers. School folks know that in impoverished areas, students struggle with literacy more frequently than kids from well-off communities. Since early exposure to literature is a key to success as a reader and therefore, success in school, it follows that a book is a gift with far more potential for good than almost anything else one can receive.

So, what if, instead of a plastic toy requiring a battery or, perhaps, what if along with a plastic toy requiring a battery, the less-well-off in our communities received a brand new book? (And idea doesn’t just have to go for kids.) Here are a few thoughts on the benefits:

• Reading is an act of creativity. While a battery-powered toy prompts the child to watch what the toy does, a book prompts the child to create images based upon the stimulus of print. Unlike television or film or any of a number of other popular distractions, while a book is a creation of the author, the reader engages in a creative act by reading.
• Reading takes the reader places. While a computer game allows the player to travel through fantastic animation (and vanquish all who get in the way), a book can take a child around the world allowing him or her exposure to cultures and climates far different (and perhaps more fantastic) than their own.
• A good book never wears out. With a battery-powered toy, once the battery dies (on or about December 27th) unless the battery is replaced, the toy becomes less toy-like. A book can be opened and closed time and time again. It can be read and reread, sometimes the second reading reveals more than the first.
• Literature is easily recyclable. When the joystick busts or the player has finally outsmarted the game creator, the product is thrown away. It goes to the dump or, if we’re lucky, goes to a place where its toxins and heavy metals can be safely recovered. A book is recycled simply by handing it to the next person.

MOST FOLKS on the Church of the Open Road's shopping list, by now, know they’ll be receiving a bag o’ books for Christmas. Each of the books will be a copy of something I’ve read and with which I’ve been particularly impressed over the past 12 months. The collection may include some light, contemporary or classic fiction, perhaps an atlas or other resource, and, quite likely, a memoir or non-fiction work that broadened my understanding of our culture or the human condition.

The Church would like to think that each carefully selected book will be appreciated, but if not, the good news is that the book can be re-gifted to someone who may find worth or insight in the author’s work.


WHAT CAN YOU DO? Think about the best half-dozen books you’ve read over the past twelve months and consider passing copies to folks on your list this holiday season.

And for the kids across town? Think about the books you loved as a child and give copies of those. Some child you’ll never meet may grab your insight and your love of literature. And maybe they’ll have a better chance because of it.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press

HEY JULIAN, WIKI LEAK THIS!

MY POSTINGS MAY NOT HAVE ANY INTELLIGENT VALUE, but what if there’s intelligence value? I wonder this because, on the domain server which hosts mine and a zillion other blogs, one can keep track of traffic by clicking on a button labeled “Stats.” I did this and discovered that the Church of the Open Road has been accessed by readers around the world, including India, Great Britain, Romania, Russia, China and other countries we've only recently heard about - given their existence was behind the iron curtain not so very long ago.

This got me to thinking – never a good proposition. If my stuff could be, you know, leaked to, I don’t know, somebody somewhere somehow, perhaps I’d get discovered! Fame would be mine (along with the associated riches) and the rest would be history!

Having attended three or four writers’ conferences, participated in a semi-local writers’ critique group and hooked up with the Sacramento chapter of the California Writers’ Club, I find that many fledgling and many successful writers, early on, develop a web page. We are told that this is a good way to “get your name in front of people” and “show off your work.” I checked into some of these web pages and found to my surprise that the excitement each creates varies based upon the author’s ability to, well, create excitement. (Not an easy task, to be sure. I am reminded that the Pontiac Motor Division was unable to “create excitement” for the final thirty-five years of its existence.)

That said, I’ve also spent some time looking over the cables that Wiki-Leaks has made public and guess what? Their content ain’t all that exciting either. Still, they’ve created quite a stir.


SO HERE’S MY REQUEST: Julian, baby, please leak the content of the Church of the Open Road website as follows:

• The entries tagged “Motorcycle Day Trips” or tagged with a State Route number, if you could leak those to Clement Salvadori or any of the staff at Rider Magazine, I’d appreciate it. I’m sure they would find that the wit and insight in my work, brought out in me by the "spirituo-chemistry" of riding so many miles of open road, would fit nicely with their editorial content. I can imagine even more issues flying off the shelves of newsstands world wide, just because Mr. Brilliant is now a regular.
• The entries tagged “Great Potty Stops,” please route to the editors of magazines catering to parents of little kids or magazines catering to husbands of wives. Both of these demographic groups certainly could use a potty stop resource as they find themselves travelling here and there accompanied by family members – the majority of whom can never find a loo when called upon to do so.
• Those entries that regard finding a political middle ground, please leak to our human brethren in the Middle East. Perhaps they will learn that at least some Americans respect and appreciate the cultural and religious diversity planned into this world we share. Maybe a dialog might develop. Also, consider leaking these entries to Congress so they’ll understand that not everyone who votes is of one fringe or another. Perhaps they’ll decide they don’t have to be, either.
• Finally, those referencing new life, death or God, please leak directly to the Almighty. I know, the Church of the Open Road may not look like a church when viewed through the omnipotent eyes of a deity, but perhaps some of the thoughts are redemptive. God knows I don’t attend a traditional service often, if at all, but I’d like Him or Her to know that I readily acknowledge a greater spirit than my own. Frequently this spirit visits me when I’m in the saddle heading somewhere. I’d like God to know this.

Mr. Assange, I know you’re likely to have some time on your hands, but I also know you possess great technological skill.  It would be a shame if those talents went to waste.  Thanks for giving this request some thought. Know that it won’t get you into any deeper crap than you may already find yourself, but it may help me get discovered. And that just might benefit all of mankind.

Or not.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press

YOU DON’T SAY “NO” TO MOM

FINALLY, THE MACULAR DEGENERATION had worked its evil on what used to be known as the good eye and mom was now, for all intents and purposes, blind.

“Are you still safe in the house?”

“I do fine. I sometimes have to use the flashlight to see what temperature I’m adjusting the oven to, but I keep it at hand, so I’ve figured that one out.” She paused for a moment of thought. “And since Peke died, I don’t have to worry about tripping over her. It’s been a year, you know.”

“I know.”


COPIES OF THE MEMOIRS, histories and little fictions I compose, I send to mom. Although she was a masterful touch typist in her day, when they brought computers on board, she’d have nothing to do with them. At 62, she quit. “Never used one, never needed one,” and she doesn’t own one at home.

Living 90 miles apart, I call on her once or twice a month. A couple of visits back, I heard the usual neighborhood gossip, the successes and failures of my nieces and nephews and was reminded that it had been more than a year since Peke died. After the news, mom picked up copies of my three latest posts and came to where I was sitting. “Can you read these for me? I can’t see to do it anymore.”

You don’t say “No” to mom.

She settled into her platform rocker – the one she purchased in 1946 and still holds the sales receipt for – as I began, stumbling over several poorly crafted words. When I finished, she asked a question or two, then said, “Read the next.”

You don’t say “No” to mom.

The second piece was a bit embarrassing. It was poorly written, didn’t have an arc and contained a couple of typographical errors.

Note to self: For God’s sake, read the stuff you write out loud, maybe in front of a mirror, before you waste electrons posting it.

The third piece wasn’t much better.

“I used to be able to see,” she said, “but now, well… I can tell where you are and that your legs are crossed, but if I didn’t know it was you, I couldn’t pick you out from your brother.” She sat with both arms atop the familiar arms of the old maple rocker. “I think I’m legally blind.” Then she added, “but I’ll get an additional tax deduction for that.”


RECENTLY, AT AN ELECTRONICS WAREHOUSE, which, for some reason, also sells refrigerators, candy bars and girlie magazines, I found an adjustable floor lamp with a circular fluorescent tube that ringed a powerful magnifying lens measuring about six inches across. I thought about it for a day or two and then returned to pick one up.

Setting it up over the right arm of mom’s rocker, I took her hand and directed it to the switch on the back of the light, having her turn it on and off a couple of times. Then as she sat in the rocker, I adjusted the lamp’s arm so that it could pivot out of the way for rising and sitting and pivot into position for reading.

“Try it out.”

Slowly she moved a copy of the local paper under the lens reading aloud the words that seemed to me sized large enough to be printed on one of those highway billboards between her house and mine.

Suddenly, she stopped reading and looked up at me. “It’s like Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one,” she said, showing rare emotion.

That day, I picked up her mail just before getting in the Nissan to head south. Another one of my stories had arrived.

Mom: Before the good eye gave it up.

LAST WEEK, cruising north on the motorcycle, I decided to drop in on mom for a moment. Surprised her. After formalities – the neighbors, the kids, Peke: It’s been nearly fourteen months, now, you know – she handed me the story that had arrived when I last departed and told me to sit down. “Read it.”

“Doesn’t the light work?”

“Read it,” she repeated.

You don’t say “no” to mom.

She settled into the chair and I read. Something about Butte Creek Canyon – a something in my history that I think she remembered.

When I finished, she thought for a long moment and said, “To answer your question, the light works fine.”

I looked at mom and then at the story and sat for a long time after that.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press

I’LL WRITE GOOD SOME DAY

“I can teach a fencepost to read, but I’ll be damned if I can teach your son literature.”

Mrs. Lundin – commenting to my mother (over a glass of wine) 

about me as a student in her high school 

literature class: circa 1970

BEFORE THE ADVENT OF THE WORD PROCESSOR, weren’t we more measured in what we wrote? Didn’t we choose the elements of language with a bit more care? I’m not a student of literature. Mrs. Lundin, my 12th grade literature teacher would attest that I was likely one of her biggest career failures.

True to her concerns, it has only been since I retired from education that I’ve found the time to read much of anything. I started with popular fiction. Stuff I’d missed. Series stuff. Best sellers from the New York Times. I made sure to read a modern work of fiction - a mystery - written by an author I'd met whose final MBA project was to create a successful business plan. Her plan: To write a commercially successful novel. The result? A 300 page sit-com.  There must be more compelling reasons to read, I thought.

Then I picked up a book Mrs. Lundin had hoped I’d understood some forty years back: Huckleberry Finn. I read slowly. In part because of the dialect Samuel Clemens had mastered and used. In part, because the story was a little like an onion. The more I understood, the more I peeled away, the richer the experience became. Each sentence had something to say. Each took me deeper. My pace slowed. I didn’t want to miss a syllable. And my appreciation grew. Man, this guy can write! How many revisions must Sam have done in order to create this masterwork?


BACK IN WYOMING a year ago, I purchased a copy of The Virginian by Owen Wister. Published in 1913, it is a difficult book to read, partly because the language of 100 years ago is not the language of today. The Virginian is not a novel one simply breezes through. Between its covers is exposure to the wide-open landscape of the wide and wonderful Wyoming high grass range. Morning sunrises that shiver. Long saddle-bound days that ache. Conflict that grows to be played out over months, not moments. And character: character that came to define the persona of the western cowboy and the West itself. Did it just spill out this way or did Wister write and revise and rewrite?

Mary Austin is an essayist who was transplanted from Ohio to the rugged Eastern Sierra by her husband-doctor who hoped she’d give up on being a writer and take on the honorable role of wife and mother. Her collection Land of Little Rain draws upon her explorations of the Owens Valley and the high Sierra around the turn of the last century. Paragraphs that are page length or longer describe in explicit detail a squall creeping across the ironwood basin or the nature of a starving coyote stalking for the kill. Just as Wister defined the character of the western man, Austin defines the character of the landscape.


I DON’T LIKE READING SLOWLY. Or, I didn’t. Now I don’t like reading crap.

I look at what I write and realize that’s what I write. In part, because I have so many skills still in need of refinement. And, in part, because I haven’t exposed myself to good literature. (You win, Mrs. Lundin.) I have something like a shoot first and ask questions later methodology about my work. I blame a computer-as-crutch syndrome because anything I publish today, I can fix tomorrow: correct the errors, whittle on a sentence, or just change something for the hell of it.

Mark Twain, Owen Wister and Mary Austin were afforded no such luxury. Nor were William Shakespeare, James Fennimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, F. Scott Fitzgerald or anyone else whose words saw print prior to about 1975. Perhaps it was because in the day of quill pen or Remington Standard, revisions cost the author a whole bunch of time and a full sheet of paper. Recopying three hundred words simply to change the way a character utters something or arches an eyebrow must have been rather inefficient in those days before electrons. Without a delete button, the great writers of yesteryear were disciplined to think first and write phrases later.

I HOPE THAT I'LL WRITE GOOD some day. As I look at the work of the giants that preceded our generation, I realize that just as I must read slowly to fully appreciate the genius of their work, I must write slowly, to have any chance of approximating a good story. I must think first and write phrases later.

As should most authors. Because, if today’s writers create literature that stimulates no more thought than a sit-com, will it matter if anybody reads it?

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press

WHAT’S THE STORY MEAN?

FOUR PEOPLE STANDING in four different positions at a crossroads witness a collision between two speeding motor vehicles. Each sees the exact same event. Each reports exactly what they saw. But each reports a different story.

Four readers are provided with a story to read. Upon completion they are asked, “What was the story’s theme?” Or, “What is the author telling us?” Chances are, each of the four different readers will have received a different message.

As a kid, I always struggled with “what is the story’s big idea?” questions. I figured, “Hell, he’s just telling us a story.” Regarding Chaucer or Hawthorne or someone else, I responded with those words once in Mrs. Lundin’s literature class at Chico High in about 1969 and discovered immediately, and in no uncertain terms, that I had given the wrong answer. To this day, I still consider myself not nearly as literate as I should be, because sometimes, by God, the guy’s just telling us a story. And isn’t that good enough?


I’D BEEN TOLD, over and over, that a writer gets an idea and then formulates a story to make that idea come to life for the reader. Then, last summer, I heard from Ron Carlson, director of the graduate program in fiction at UC Irvine and author of Five Skies and The Signal – two wonderful short novels. He also authored Ron Carlson Writes a Story in which he says:

The word “idea” has always made me vaguely nervous when I’m speaking about story because it has such a neat and narrow definition. An “idea” can be articulated. And sometimes things that impel me into a story cannot be articulated.” [pg. 17]

I raise this because upon the completion of my own work, I am:

a) never sure there is an idea communicated;
b) never sure I’ve communicated an idea if there is one; and
c) never sure if the communicated idea is universal enough to create resonance with an audience. 

In short, not only did I not get Chaucer’s message back in high school, I can’t guarantee I get my own message now.


I LIKE TO WRITE. I like to create images and tell stories. I like to start with a small incident or recollection, gussy it up a bit and see what comes of the thing. I don’t always know how it will finish or what truth, if any, will be revealed.

I recently provided a draft of a story to an associate, then another, then another, until I reached about six friends or acquaintances. I asked them to “tell me in a sentence or two what the story was about.” If it has some universal resonance, I reasoned, maybe it’ll be a story I can market. I was gratified to receive several thoughtful responses about big, universal truths – none of which were in any too similar to the others and none of which aligned exactly with what I thought the story was about once it had spilled out on to the paper.

I don’t know whether this is good news or bad news. I think Mr. Carlson’s words have taken me off the “main idea” hook so to speak. But I wonder what Mrs. Lundin would say. I don’t know what to do with the story in question, but maybe, that’s all it is: a story.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press

WHILE USING A REAL DICTIONARY…

I WAS DOING RESEARCH. Well, just researching the meaning of a word. I leafed through the ancient Webster’s – five and a half inches thick – lost in lists of words I would never use, let alone know.

Dad had built a stand for this gold-cloth-covered behemoth from plans in a handyman’s magazine back in the fifties. I’d perused this volume before, but today I was thumbing through it again. Looking for “philoprogenitoveness.”

Didn’t find philoprogenitoveness.

I did find, however, tucked in at about page 742, a hundred dollar bill so old that I learned Ogden L. Mills was treasury secretary in 1932.

© 2009
Church of the Open Road Press

READING LIST

MY BOOKS NEEDED REARRANGING. Too many volumes for the shelf space available. Works lying prone atop those standing neat and straight as soldiers. I would either throw out some or build more horizontal space.

I cleared the shelves.

Beginning to sort, I found each title endeared. Ones I’d finished or read more than once – and ones I’d dog-eared where I’d quit on them. These were the ones I owned finish to.

Within minutes, distracted by a bookmark, I restarted one, as if paying down on a debt.

The rest rested on the floor.

My little project would take some time.

© 2009
Church of the Open Road Press

On Backtracking - The Trip Home from Green Island Lake

MORE THAN A HALF MY LIFETIME AGO, I hiked in to one of the hidden gems of the northern Sierra for a little camping and fishing. I’d never caught a fish before, but Green Island Lake was the sure thing neophytes dream about and true fisher-people laugh at. So with friends Randy and Patti and their faithful Collie–Shepherd mix Sheba (may she rest in peace), we hiked down the two-and-a-half miles to the lake from the parking area where I’d locked my ’71 Super Beetle. Prepared for at least two days, we set up camp a few paces from the marshy shore, and I pulled out my Fenwick rod and Quik reel. My dad – the Old Timer – would be joining us for the second night of this trip, so I needed to be careful not to harvest all the fish in this one afternoon.

Hours passed.

Fortunately, we had packed some frozen “Hobo Stew,” a concoction of ground beef, chunks of carrots, potatoes and onions seasoned with salt and pepper; wrapped in aluminum foil to be set in the coals of a campfire for baking. These, with a morsel each of a seven-inch rainbow trout (arguably the stupidest fish in the whole lake that day) would suffice for dinner. Rain began to fall at about dusk, smothering the clouds of mosquitoes but soaking my hastily erected pup tent.

The morrow dawned foggy and dank and we determined that if we broke camp early enough, we could save the Old Timer from hiking down to this miserable little spot.

With backpacks hoisted and secured, and following trusty Sheba, we trekked away from the lake and down the trail toward the car. We passed through glades knee high with lupine and paintbrush, across chattering brooks and beneath black-barked firs. And it was at least an hour and a half before we realized “down the trail” was not the direction we should have gone. Sheba was a trusty and loyal companion, but no scout.

We paused and cursed. The fog had melted. An azure canopy stretched above the towering firs.

“Return to camp?”

“Back track to the trail junction and head home?”

I hate so to undo what I’ve done. I didn’t want to hike back up the untold distance to find the junction.

I sat on a stump.

We’d have to make a decision before nightfall.


SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME, I was writing the novel like the carefree neophyte novelist that I am. Following a trail known only to my imagination, I took a similar wrong turn. It was well after completing this my best – well, longest – work that something became clear: one or two of the major elements of the main characters didn’t fit. Their actions didn’t advance the story. In fact, their actions were so out-of-any-norm as to be contradictory. And the story flagged. Many of my prized lines and funny quips just didn’t belong. I knew it. I had let my imagination lead me down the wrong path at some unmarked trail junction.

Now I sit on a stump. It’s been three weeks.

I know what to do. I just need to muster the gumption to do it.


ABOUT 4:00 PM we arrived back at the parking area. There, parked next to my ’71 Volksie, was Dad’s yellow VW Type 181 “Thing.”

Days later, the Old Timer reported that the lake was beautiful, and no, he didn’t fish, but some other camper at the lake – because he’d exceeded the limit – gave him three fresh trout that Dad gutted and fried up that night in butter.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press

FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE – CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

IT IS FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE and a winter storm advisory has been posted for the foothills twelve miles east of here. Snow level down to 3,000 feet. Carry chains. Outside, the sky approximates the underside of an antique pewter serving tray. Mottled tarnish. Edward the impulsive black lab mix pup, who regularly finds delight in nipping Jax the Dog’s aging rear ankles, instead lies by my side as I read a winter book atop the quilted bed. The terminally nervous Aussie, Jax the Dog, rests uncomfortably at the foot.

IT IS FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE and I am thinking I should either activate the furnace against this unseasonable foul blast, or set a log in the fireplace and add some cozy to the environ. Maybe pour a dram of whiskey into a glass and watch the weather advance across the neighborhood and through my back yard. But that would mean disturbing one or both of the dogs. So I continue to read.

IT IS FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE and from somewhere inside that leadened sky, a roll of thunder reports. Distant. Subtle. Soft. Edward leans closer to my body. He sighs. I look up from my text and realize his eyes are fully shut: his body in still, peaceful slumber next to 'Dad.' Jax the Dog shudders at this first distant report and with the second, springs off the bed seeking shelter where there’s none better to be had. Jax knows what will happen if she’s not on her guard. If she’s not on her guard that thunder will shatter a window and burst through. It will clutch her wriggling, helpless body and drag her to a hell where she will spend eternity protecting her weary old haunches from being nipped by a million or more impulsive little black puppies. It will be worse than a bath.

IT IS FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE and I stop my reading, rise, move to the computer and compose this entry. Edward disappears. Jax the Dog follows me to my desk and squeezes into the footwell. The rank smell of her nervous panting rises from the floor, past the keyboard and into my nose. Suddenly, there’s a muffled deluge behind me, just through the double-glazed windows. The thunder again claps. Closer now. Louder. Jax the Dog presses my ankles and emits an involuntary whimper. I want to tell her, “It’s all right, Sweetness. All dogs go to heaven,” but her fear constricts my throat and I am silent. I understand, but she doesn’t – and Edward doesn’t care. My shepherd’s shepherd, I run my fingers through thick, soft fur and hope her panting will subside.

IT IS FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE and normally, on a date as late as this, I’d fancy myself exploring some road or canyon or vista on the motorbike. But Jax the Dog needs me. And really, there is nothing better than being needed.

IT IS FOUR DAYS UNTIL JUNE and as soon as I finish this sentence, I’m going to pour that dram of whiskey and watch this storm, all the while cuddling Jax the Dog.

© 2010
The Church of the Open Road Press

ELIZABETH GILBERT on GENIUS

ELIZABETH GILBERT speaks about genius. Genius, she says, is not embodied in a person who does something nonpareil. It is not a gift that some have and others do not. It does not exclude.

Genius partners with the artist/worker. Each day, both should show up, but some days, one does not.

After a day of non-productivity – a day of staring at the ream of paper, blank canvas or unmilled stack of wood – one can look heavenward and curse, “I showed up today? Where were you?”

Successful workers – successful artists – show up every day. And on good days, genius joins them.

© 2009
Church of the Open Road Press

CHARLIE AND THE WRITERS’ CONFERENCE

[Summer, 2009] CHARLES MANSON showed up at the writers’ conference I was attending. Perhaps he, like others beholden to the bankrupt State of California, was on furlough from normal obligations. Seemed odd, however: The lovely environ in which we were meeting was a bit far afield from the “B and B” in Chowchilla where I’d assumed he was so securely residing. Or was it Vacaville?

Anyway, I could tell it was Charlie right off the bat: by the hair – still amazingly true to its original color after all these years – and those signature, sunken cheeks. The eyes, however, threw me for a moment. They appeared calm, even placid. Not drugged or anything like that, but not crazed, either. And certainly no match to his most recent photos in the San Francisco Chronicle of a few decades back.


CONFERENCE ATTENDEES of my generation drew, I think, a connection similar to mine and chose to sit none-too-close to him in the auditorium.

Younger folks: not so.

My contemporaries appeared taken aback by Charlie’s presence. You know, uncomfortable. The communal aire of warmth, openness and artistic acceptance condensed into something more reserved: clammy, damp-blanketed – perhaps even phobic. During passing periods between workshop sessions, I’d pick up on diverted eyes and hushed conversations – whispers – accompanied by cloaked yet pointing fingers.

I wasn’t sure it was appropriate to be so concerned. I simply figured that, hell, like the rest of us, Charlie had a novel or a book inside of him and that conference participation with its attendant feedback was one of the necessary steps in getting the damned thing out.

Still, I sat none-too-close.

© 2009
Church of the Open Road Press

IN ATTENDANCE AT THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN ROAD: A WORK DAY WASTED

I WAS SUPPOSED TO WORK today. Punch the clock. Of course, now, it’s my own clock. But still, I'm supposed to work. Especially if I want to get that novel done. The one that’s been sitting in my head and on my desk since back in the Clinton administration.

But the sun was out – hadn’t been in some time – and an idle BMW conspired with it to prompt my sin. So, to the lord of the independent contractor, freelancer and writers everywhere – anyone whose income is derived from their personal, intrinsic motivation – I ask forgiveness.


IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER where I go – I’d decided on the delta – because I’ve ridden almost everywhere around here many, many time since I initially sold my soul and the seat of my pants to the demon of roadway and wind roar. Today I just got on the bike and went slicing through that day-after-a-good-spring-storm air – air so sweet that if I could package it, they could tax it.

I stopped for an omelet at a greasy spoon I’d passed by numerous times before. Local chain. Lousy gravelly parking lot – easy place to tip over. I could build a better omelet at home, but here, there’s no clean up. I’m not annoyed that the young waitress fails to keep my coffee hot and fresh. I’m on a ride.

Back in the saddle, the road unwinds and so do I. The self-imposed deadline for finishing my manuscript dissolves and my only real interest is the discovery around the next bend or over the next rise.

Viewing the Coast Range invites another visit along its twisting roads through rolling horizons of tall grass and Spanish moss clinging to ancient blue oaks. The delta is forgotten. Cattle dot the grasslands and that familiar derelict barn is a bit further toward oblivion.

People make a living out here, off this land. They wake up in this bucolic scene each and every day. I coin a phrase: “good bucolity of life.” Wonder if they can play hooky – let the chickens go unfed or the cows unmilked? Perhaps the pastoral is more romantic to those of us who are just passing by. To those enraptured by a combination of the physics and the spiritual nature of riding, maybe every day seems better than it actually is.

Never really had a bad day on a motorcycle – outside of the day I hit some sand, high sided and busted my shoulder. And that wasn’t really a bad day, just a bad moment fostered by my own bad judgment. My buddy once hit a deer on his bike. Even that wasn’t a bad day either. Just a bad moment with a bit of an aftermath. Really bad day for the deer, however.

Somewhere, I missed an intersection. Must have been daydreaming. I made no attempt to correct this. I found myself on one of those rare area roads I’ve not travelled before. The road is as straight as a rifle shot for countless miles, ranging across the pan of the Sacramento Valley. In a Frostian moment, I wonder if this road not [previously] taken will make all the difference. A rusted tractor sits choked in waist-high grass. A barn pancaked, its siding splintered beneath a still-intact corrugated metal roof – rusted in some areas, glinting mid-day sun in others. A field of thigh-high mustard is in full bloom. Thankfully, my Claritin knock-off tablet works. A snowy egret stands in a ditch like a lawn statue. A bit further on, another. Hawks stand sentinel on old wooden power poles. One dives into the grass to prey upon a hapless rodent. He rises with lunch wriggling in his talons.

After a time, I end up someplace I’ve been before. No, not the town. I’ve been there. But the feeling. The spirit. The new road is now an old friend.

I pause for a stretch along the waterfront in Rio Vista. I wish I’d stopped to photograph the egrets or that old barn. But some days, when attending the Church of the Open Road, parishioners simply ride.


AFTER COMMUNION, vespers, the sermon and a hymn or two inside my helmet, I am home. I ask for forgiveness for having played hooky. Tomorrow, I promise, I will write.

Depending on the weather of course.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press
www.churchoftheopenroad.com

NO POINT A, NO POINT B – SHIRTTAIL CANYON ROAD

YEARS AGO, following a misplaced directional sign way to hell and gone out in the woods, I ended up on a road that I hadn’t intended to take. Yesterday, I found that road again. This time, with intent, I took it.

Lost in the region bounded by Colfax, Iowa Hill, Sugar Pine Reservoir and Foresthill, Shirttail Canyon Road, doesn’t really go anywhere. It simply follows a creek in to and out of a little eight-mile long ravine. There was no point A at one end; no point B at the other. No village or berg or derelict mining camp anywhere along the route. No alpha. No omega. No reason at all, that I could see, for this particular road to go in this particular direction. To be certain, there are better roads – smoother with more engineering – in the immediate area.


I MAKE SEVERAL STOPS to explore things I might otherwise miss if I simply raced by.

A wonderful cluster of bush lupine – actually several of them – clung to the top of the cut bank on the uphill side of the road. Dismounting a moment, I scramble up the little bluff to examine the blossoms and to uncover that hidden claw for which the lupine derives its Latin name. I snap a digital photo which comes out remarkably well.

A few hundred yards on, one of perhaps dozens of spring rivulets seeps down the mountainside, running through thick, verdant moss. After a week or two of dry weather, this moss will turn brown and disappear until the rains return in winter. I touch the spiraling, spongy leaves and let the water squeeze through my fingers. Then I struggle to pull my riding gloves on over wet – and now cold – hands.

At a point, an ancient madrona is locked in battle with a black oak. Roots entangle one another, wrapping around a slate-like chunk, grasping for nourishment from the scant soil in this rocky terrain. Limbs stretch skyward seeking the energy of a sun that rises and sets within mere hours deep in this canyon.

A doe that has chosen to run along side for a few yards surprises me.

Poison oak grows vigorously in select spots.

Then there’s the suspension bridge, built probably a hundred years ago, still in rickety service to the rare passer-by. It swings and gives and sways side to side as the weight of the motorcycle clatters across the ancient steel decking, warped by a century of travel.


AS I RIDE, I think about story. I think about the elements that go into writing a compelling piece. A piece with an arc. A story line. I recall that every element the author places into his or her text must contribute or move the story forward. When editing, one must jettison those words or phrases that don’t move the reader from point A to points X, Y or Z. A difficult task for a writer who has given birth to those words he or she is about to axe.

Then my mind wanders back to this road. There is no point A or point any-other-letter along this route. Perhaps it is a road with no story. No place names or passions. No human drama. No life or death quandaries.

When all was said and done, my ride down the Shirttail Canyon Road really didn’t take me anywhere. However, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the lupine, or the cascade, or those tangled roots, or that jiggly, antiquated suspension bridge. Like a good story, once I’d descended to the other end of Shirttail Canyon, I knew I’d been somewhere.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press

A TREATISE ON TRYING TO WRITE WITH A DOG IN THE HOUSE

THERE IS A NATIVE AMERICAN MYTH telling the people that when the world was created, a great fissure began to split the earth. Humans were caught on one side of the chasm, animals on the other. The dog, however, seeing the gap widen, leaped across to the human side, where he has been ever since.

IT IS MARCH, only a week before the spring equinox; normally a time of rising temperatures with lows not as low as a few weeks ago. But not so today. An air mass from the Gulf of Alaska has slipped southward and it feels like January. Edward, the once-stray lab-mix puppy, has, in his year, grown into a full sized black dog. Now weighing about forty pounds, he is sleek and shiny, has a pleasant face, and is generally of good disposition. He stays on a pillow close by.

Working on my project, "The Curious Demise of Pug LeBreaux," I alternately sit at the computer to type and revise, and retire to the futon where I can recline and read, edit and reread the section I’ve just burnished. On this cool morning, Edward believes this is his time. Without asking, he climbs atop my supine body, placing his butt at about my knees, and stretches forward with his pleasant black face atop my sternum. There, he exhales twice or three times and, soon, is in some other realm.

Dog temperature is superior this morning to the temperature in my chilly office. I set my work aside, touch the velvet fur near his whiskers, stroke his head a couple of times, and when I awake, another twenty non-productive minutes have ticked by. Edward is still at rest atop me. I feel his soft exchange of air, punctuated by a quiver of a front paw followed by a muscle in his hip. His eyes begin to roll beneath their closed lids. Soon, still sound asleep, his body is a swarm of tremors and quakes and little paw twitches. He is chasing a bunny, stalking a squirrel or, perhaps, reliving the moment when his ancestor leapt across the great fissure.

WHEN I DIE, I pray that the last thing I remember will be a human touch: someone ushering me over to the other side, wishing me peace and wellness and asking me to be patient until her arrival. Short of that, if my final sensation could be that of an Edward or a Jax (the Aussie) or a Sadie (the boxer) loyally, lovingly next to me, keeping me warm as I journey across the divide, heck, that’d be okay, too.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press