Monday, December 17, 2007

Dilettante or Thug?

Webster defines the first as a “dabbler in the arts,” the second as “a gangster or tough.” Is it possible for both to describe the same person? Am I or am I? I have always struggled with the contradictions in my nature, the seeming walking contradiction of my personality, partly truth and partly fiction.

As previously written, I relish physical contact, in many ways, and do not shy away from physical confrontation. I also love musical theater, my favorite being “Les Miserables,” mainly because I saw it from a seat in “the stalls” in the West End of London with my brother. I wore cleats to play baseball and football in high school, but I also wore loafers to see “The King and I” at the Memorial Auditorium. Why is there this dichotomy in my personality and where did it come from?

Conflict is a key ingredient in any narrative; it makes the story interesting, contributing to tension that ultimately results in climax. Internal conflict is something we live with everyday. As a writer, my inner conflict is whether to write what I want or what sells. Lately I have been writing romance; because it is fun, because I am able to get published and because I learn from it. Anyone who has read my dreck knows it is tame, but, I am tempted to write more graphically.

I guess, while sitting here pondering my writer’s navel, my concern is whether I should be more graphic in my efforts at romance. Should I maintain my dilettante’s detachment or embrace my inner thug and write graphically? Hmmm, what do you think? Either of you, feel free to answer.

Spike

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Conflict and Conflagration

Have you ever had the urge to blow shit up? To exercise a scorched earth policy? To bring to bear upon others the types of hardship that have been brought to bear on you? I know I have felt that way, and I have acted on it. My actions have been detrimental to my well being.

There was this punk giving my best friend a hard time, so I confronted him. Things got nasty, so I popped him. He and three hundred of his closest friends visited my friend’s house. We called the cops. I got expelled. That was in seventh grade.

This is not an isolated incident in my life. I am the baby of three boys. My older brother was 18 months older and my oldest is 39 months older. I got beat almost everyday of my pre-adolescent existence. I learned to hit first, explain later. This became a problem.

In high school, this behavior was unwelcome, mainly because I went to a Christian school with sons and daughters of pastors who had never gone to a public school. I was a wolf among sheep, and we all know what happens when a wolf gets together with sheep. Bad things!

So now, how do I explain to my daughter that it is unacceptable to hit, to choke, to spit in someone’s face? If I do condemn this behavior in my daughter, does that make me a hypocrite?

Why is it when my daughter’s teacher tells me about my daughter’s transgressions, I laugh? Why do I find it endearing that my daughter is a thug? Why do my colleagues find this entertaining?

How do I explain to a four year old that it isn’t cool to throw down with classmates when I did the same? “Do as I say, not as I did.” But really, I want her to stand up for herself, but not be a bully. How do I teach that?

“It’s okay to hit when a teacher doesn’t respond and the kid keeps pushing you.” Yeah, a four year old is going to understand that.

I wish my life was about snack time and nap time, about arts and crafts, about letters and numbers. It would be so much easier. Remind me to ask my daughter when she is my age if she feels the same way.

Meanwhile, I have to deal with the bullys and thugs of education. Those who want to bully me as a teacher, to force me to do things that I don’t want to do. Things I don’t want to do because I know they are detrimental to my students; they are just bad practice. But, I have to tell the teacher. I can’t spit in their face, I can’t choke them. My daughter can choke and spit on the bad guys, but I can’t. How can I teach her not to when I want to?

Spike

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Die Now

I have heard that the Greeks would yell “Die Now” to winners of races and events because the competitor had reached the apex of their life and everything following that victory would be shallow and meaningless. When I heard this, it reminded me of my friends that had peaked in grade school, middle school and high school. I always took this to be a cautionary lesson on success. I felt it was best not to peak until later in life. I seem to have mastered that, until today.

I logged on to RedRosePublishing.com and found the compendium of vignettes that I coauthored with Cara Preston, better known as “Pickup Lines From a Pickup Truck,” listed as the tenth best seller in the Mainstream category of my publisher.

Should I die now? Is this the acme of my career? Is the rest of my life to be spent in speakeasy’s and dives, me assuring an aged audience of a toothless entourage that in 2007 I was on the bestseller list of an internet publisher’s list of mainstream romances?

While I love my publisher and believe internet publishing and ebooks are the future of the industry, I refuse to believe that this is my “die now” moment. I just hope that I am still lucid enough to recognize whether it is or isn’t. It would be a tragedy for me to find out that as a seventy year old, after winning a volleyball tournament for diabetic amputees, that this was my moment, and I fucking missed it.

Let’s hope and pray that I haven’t peaked yet!

Spike