Drunk Blogging for Amateurs showed up on my radar the other day and made me think about what I am doing as a writer today and what I hope accomplish…tomorrow.
It got me thinking about how I talk about being the author of 39 unpublished books and how even though it is tongue-in-cheek there is truth to it.
I have a ton of stories floating around my head and I need to do something about it. Those of you who are among the long time readers have heard me talk about this before but this time around I have been thinking about how how to organize the parts and pieces I have so that I can follow through.
Last night I came across You Can’t Break A Broken Heart and decided I would spend a few moments pulling some more excerpts from the Fragments of Fiction pieces that are floating around here and other blogs to see what I could come up with.
It is not a comprehensive list nor do I think these are necessarily the best of the best, but you have to start somewhere because a story that isn’t written down or shared in some way might as well be dead.
About Writers & Managing Expectations
I am not a writer because I get paid to write or because I am a dreamer who puts words down on paper or on screen.
I am a writer because it is who and what I am. I am a storyteller and I always have been, from the moment the preschool teachers told my parents about what I came up with to know and forever.
But it took a long while for me to accept all of the parts and pieces that come with it. Took a long while to accept that it comes with a few catches and that if I wanted to accept it I needed to take all of it.
Part of that is managing my expectations, not the readers but mine because I have been my biggest enemy and impediment to doing more than I have done.
So here is the first step for me in 2015, links, lyrics and words. Time to do more than just talk.
“And then I understood what Rick meant when he talked about all of the gin joints in all of the towns in the world.It felt like dawn broke inside my head and the sunrise melted all of the doubt that had lay in the shadows.Wind and waves had forced us apart and now they had brought us back to the same place, but not quite together.”I Found You Again
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
If I had to answer the question I would tell you to shut up and kiss me. Stop thinking and do. And when you did you would remember and you would know.
You would know that love is wild and that love is real. You would know that sometimes it is like standing in the eye of the storm. Everywhere you look there is wind, rain and lightning, except for that one place that we are standing together holding hands.
And sometimes you find yourself standing inside the storm and find yourself searching for shelter but if you can hold on long enough you always find it in the same place it was before.
Red dress, blue dress- it doesn’t matter because I don’t just love you. I fucking love you.
So here we are in the places we stand today farther apart than ever before and still as close as we once were. For it wouldn’t take but a moment for us to remember who we are apart and who we are together. It wouldn’t take but one kiss for our souls to soar and our hearts to surrender. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Sometimes there is joy in being non specific, especially when people know you are capable of communicating with precision and detail except sometimes you can’t.
Sometimes you can’t because you asking someone to explain why a sky painted in streaks of orange, blue and red is beautiful or why certain chords make your heart jump.
Sometimes you can’t because your fingers extend into the sky and touch the face of god, because sometimes when two people share a moment in time it changes them and lasts forever.She Saved My Heart
We were 15, we were twenty, we were 50 and then we were 80. I saw it all. I saw us alone.I saw us together.
Had they lived during the age of magic they wouldn’t have questioned any of these things. They would have accepted the things their hearts knew as truth even when their heads questioned them.
But they didn’t grow up during the age of magic so they relied upon what they knew to be true…science.
Science provided logic, reason and rational explanations for why people were as they were and did as they did. But even though science ruled the day magic still owned the night and under the moonlit skies its influence was more profound.
One such night the boy kissed the girl or the girl kissed the boy and a fire was lit.
*****
For a long while time stood still and they held each other close and made the sort of secret promises you make to those whose hearts and souls you have seen.
They walked hand in hand under that moonlit sky and swore they would never let go of each other and they believed every word they said.
Yet when the day came and science regained control…” A Partial Tale of Two Liars
We were walking down Michigan Avenue. It was bright and sunny. She was holding my hand and she never let go. Even after that car jumped the curb and pinned her against the building she never stopped holding my hand.
I tried to pull it off of her. Tried to push it. Did everything that I could do but it didn’t matter, cuz she died anyway.
I couldn’t save her. Couldn’t hold her and make her feel better or stop the pain. Don’t know why it hit her and not me. I was so much bigger. Why didn’t it hit me. Why did they have to take her. Why not me. She was better than I was and so much better than I am now.
She Died In My Arms
Wichita Linemen– Glen Campbell
We liked each other. We made each other laugh. That is one of the things that I miss about her, that laugh. Or the sound she used to make when I would surprise her, the way she would suddenly inhale. I sometimes called her “airsucker.â€
People used to remark upon it because they thought it referred to something else and I used to just laugh. I never said yes or no, never told them whether they were right because it didn’t matter.
What I miss is the way she and I were able to create our own world. We could be in the middle of a crowd and get lost in each other. It wasn’t something that disappeared either. There was never a honeymoon stage. The lust and physical need for each other never disappeared or dissipated. What I Miss
Hurt– Nine Inch Nails
Suicide is supposed to be painless and maybe if I believed it to be true I might consider it more seriously, but I don’t.
I don’t really want to die but I don’t have too many options. The man on the other end of that call isn’t going to let me stick around. I don’t care what promises he makes or whose life he swears upon.
He is lying and I know better.
I know it because I used to be him. The guys he works for are the same men I used to report to and they won’t ever forget what happened or let anyone else think I got over on them.
This can only go one of two ways and no matter how it goes death wins. That old bag of bones is going to get his quart of blood and then some.
It is just a matter of time before they force me out in the open or before I decide to take action.
All I can do is weigh the pros and cons and try to decide what gives me the best chance of making it out.
This isn’t like the movies. When Is Suicide The Better Option
I knew things then and I know things now.One kiss changed it all. One kiss turned the world upside down and inside out.A moment from the movies come to real life.I told you that I bring the heat and that not everyone can handle the pressure. Told you that and more and smiled when you said it wasn’t a big deal. Listened and heard you tell me that you knew me better than the others and that no one could take care of me like you could.Promises rained down from our lips and the heavens and the things I knew we knew together.
It is not arrogant if you can back it up.
There is more that could be said and more to say. Eye Contact
Two hours ago we stood on the balcony overlooking Kowloon Bay and I asked you to marry me. You laughed and said you would think about it, but then you noticed I wasn’t laughing.I was smiling, but not laughing because I am serious.You said we live in different worlds and asked me for a plan. I asked for six months to wrap up my affairs in Hong Kong and said I would move back to the states.
“Ten years ago you said you would move and you never did so we both moved on, what is the difference now. Back then we lived hours apart, now it is worlds.â€
Your words are still ringing in my ears. I heard the anger and the pain but I saw hope in your eyes. It is why I told you that was then and this is now. We aren’t who we were but that doesn’t mean things can never be. Moments In Time
Time to Drink Up.
We love you! I read your posts out loud to my stroke victim wheelchair bound husband of 44 years. We remember and you write it so well. We truly enjoy every one of your posts!
Hi Gabby,
I am touched and honored. I am glad you appreciate the words of an old hack who pounds the keyboard with reckless abandon. I hope 2015 treats you really well.
So, when is one of those 39 going to be published?
@Lardavbern:disqus I probably should give myself a timeline so I can hold myself to it.
Jack you truly do have a gift with the pen/keyboard. I enjoy reading your posts and what quotes you are going to picture daily.
@disqus_9QhPxUcvr0:disqus Thank you Gary. I enjoy writing so this is always a pleasure.