Gambling & Writing

Good Morning Everyone,

Hope Everyone had a great 4th of July. The picture above if the view from our hotel room at Mohegun Sun, the Indian casino. We went up there on Friday and stayed the night. When you tell people you went to a casino, almost without fail, they will ask the question, "How did you do?" This, as every gambler knows, is an awful question. If the gambler is a winner, he will most certainly find a way of letting you know. He probably won't give exact numbers but a winner usually finds subtle ways of letting you know he or she was victorious. A loser more time than not will move on to the next topic. That is, unless the gambler wishes to rationalize the losing. "It's only money." " I had a great time." "I only do it for fun." "We met some people we really like and enjoyed their company so it wasn't really a bust.", etc, etc...

Not that those sayings are complete lies. I hope not. I've said them more than once. Still, when you win, it's so much better. Without realizing it, you walk taller. You're smiling. There is an extraordinary This Is What Life's All About kind of feeling. For a little while, there's no such things as problems as they are more like little hurdles that life puts in the way to make things more interesting. It's very much like walking on a cloud.

Sadly, I did not leave the Casino Saturday morning walking on a cloud. It wasn't completely awful. I could of left breaking even, but making a latch ditch effort to recapture some of the glory earlier in the morning, I walk away from the weekend short of a hundred bucks. What brings it down another notch is that at one point I was doing very well at the blackjack table so one might argue that I lost more than I think I did. Well, that's just how things go sometime and I'm not going to look at it that way.

Nonetheless, I do have a little rationalizing to do. The picture at the top of this entry is currently my desktop background on my 23" Apple Cinedisplay. I find the picture both beautiful and inspiring and worth the hundred bucks...and I guess the hotel room plus meals. Maybe next time, I'll be able to walk away from the table when I'm up.

Yesterday, I finally finished listening to Stephen King's book On Writing. It's been a long process as I can remember listening to it years ago when I was engaged to another woman. It's one of those on and off again things I sometimes do where I listen, lose interest, lose my place, start over, lose interest, try to figure where I left off and what I remember, so forth and so on.

I was able to finish the book this time as I am doing this writing experiment this week and I wanted all the help I can get. I highly recomend this book to those wanting to learn how to write as well as fans of Stephen King's work. It is both autobiograpical and instructional. I don't believe I'd have as much faith in my ability to go through with this week long experiment had it not been for this book.

Here are a couple things I learned from the book. Adverbs are bad and I mean that literally. (See? I didn't need the last part of that sentence.) You can write about anything as long as you tell the truth. I know nothing about space travel, but if I write honestly from the thoughts that come from my head regarding the topic, odds are I will still have a compelling story. The last thing I'll talk about is self doubt.

The most interesting thing I heard when listening to the audiobook is when Stephen King gets to the end of the book and tells you about his own self doubt. You've just read or listened to this great book that he's written that is a great inspiration and then he talks about how he experiences a lot of self doubt while writing the book and how continuing to write it was painful. What I loved about this part of the book is that it allowed me to know that when I think twice about puting my thoughts on the page that my self doubt puts me in good company with the likes of great authors. As I'm an aspiring writer, I may be a bit biased, but I loved this book and I put it on my highly recomend list.

Speaking of my writing. Today we enter day 2. I didn't put in a full 8 hours yesterday but I feel I got a healthy start. Yesterday, I felt like I was high because I got the impression I woke up a part of my brain that I haven't used in ages. It turns out that dreaming on purpose, for my anyway, is intoxicating. I think I knew this once and I'm wondering why I forgot it. I was amazed at how my imaginative mind was able to overcome obstacles that my rational mind could not. Also, while I find it hard to imagine what comes next, I'm stunned at how vividly I can recall and reinterpret that which I've just written. It is plausible I suppose that I will not be a good fiction writer, but I can tell you I'm certainly enjoying the ride. (Note: I debated whether or not to include the adverb certainly in the last sentence and decided to go with it as that's how I would have said it.)

I'm not going to tell you the story I'm working on now for a couple of reasons. For one, Mr. King points out that it's not good to get early feedback on your work while you're still figuring it out. Also, I'm not fond of where my story is going. After building a couple of interesting scenes and jotting down some ideas that came into my head, my first analysis of where my story would end up was not very pleasing.

I'm going to stick with it though. I know that my writing often surprises me and that it can easily take me into a completely different direction. Second, I feel a little invested and even if the story doesn't end well, I want the experience of writing the story so that I will have the tools to write another one. This experience isn't 100% about writing a great work. It's about knowing that I can get the work done.

On that note, it's time for me to get back to work.