Whenever I show my Kindle to people, I inevitably get a few “oohs” and “aaahs” as they flip the unit around in their hands and try to use it as if it were a laptop or a touchscreen smartphone. They may bemoan the fact that there is no backlight which is EXACTLY what makes the Kindle so easy on the eyes; it doesn’t glow. They flip it around in their hands, lose my page in about 5 books and then hand it back to me with a conclusive “I prefer the feel of real paper.” Oh, OK. That totally sums it up. Thank you.

Here is what I have said in the past and want another chance to say it again. To the people who prefer the feel of real paper (as if I prefer the feel of plastic and electronics) I ask a simple question: Do you enjoy the sound of live music? Do you get excited when U2 is coming to your town or your local symphony orchestra will include a Mahler repertoire that you have been dying to hear? If they have answered yes to this question, then I simply ask them if this love of live music stops them in any way from purchasing a CD or an MP3 from ITunes. If it hasn’t, then why eschew a digital book because you prefer real paper?

Don’t get me wrong, I know the analogy is not precise. I understand that the commitment to attend a concert is typically greater than purchasing a novel. I own 300 CDs (I have a feeling I will have to explain what a CD is one day soon) and yet I have not seen 300 concerts in my life. A concert is much for of an event than picking a book off a shelf. Not to mention the cost differential. It costs about the same to purchase a digital book vs a “real” book but it usually costs substantially more to attend a concert than it does to order a song off Itunes.

But the point stays the same; The fact that I TOO prefer the feel of a paper book (as well as attending live concerts) should not prevent me from opportunities of the digital age. What are those advantages?

A. I currently have about 30 books on my Kindle and a subscription to the New Yorker (shamefully unread) all taking up the same physical space as a single paperback novel.
B. I will always be able to select a book based on mood. How many times have you had a book in your hand and thought to yourself that this was not the book you were “in the mood for?”
C. I can be completely spontaneous. If I want a book, I connect to the Kindle’s whispernet and shop Amazon.com and download a book in about 60 seconds. This is perfect if I am at the airport and pass a Borders and something catches my eye.
D. I own 1000 books and 95% of them I will never open again. Not EVERY book needs to exist beyond the timeframe in which I am reading them. Of course, there are many sentimental books that I want to have a hard copy of (ie collectibles, gifts, sentimental books, etc), but those are far and few between. I just finished a trashy corporate espionage novel. Why would I want to keep a copy of that book around?
E. I really can’t say which is “greener;” a Kindle or a paperback, but I can confidently state that a Kindle uses less paper…lol.
F. As a side benefit, I can easily use the Kindle on the treadmill at the gym. I can adjust the font size and not have to worry about how to hold the book or magazine open. This has helped me immensely with my motivation to run.

So there it is. My justification for welcoming and embracing the digital book age. If this means that publishing houses go out of business (not sure that it does), then so be it. Blacksmiths are also out of business too.

Basically, yWriter works best in the basic unit of the scene. Up until now, I was working chapter by chapter. So, in order to import my writing into yWriter, I had to read my story and break it out into scenes. I worked a lot on that last night. But as I was reading, a painful realization came over me: I really hate about 40% of my words. This isn’t a phishing expedition; I am not looking for people to tell me they like what I write. This is just a sincere assessment of my writing. Don’t get me wrong, I REALLY like many of the scenes (interestingly, those scenes are the ones that have been edited many times especially following the critiques by my Grub Street writer’s group, and therefore I still have hope). But the 40% that I hated, I DESPISED! They were poorly-structured, self-serving and ultimately irrelevant.

Then I began looking for a metaphor in my real life and I thought about my father. Here was a man that could do anything in the house. It was not unusual to come home from school and see him starting a new project that would normally take three or four men to accomplish. He was truly a jack of all trades and master of none, to perpetuate the cliche. Whether he was working on plumbing, electricity, carpentry or the garden, he never doubted his ability to get the job done and it always got done. But the reality was, his handiwork was always less than perfect. He took his resourcefulness to an extreme. Instead of buying a new can of paint, he would mix together near empty cans until everything in the house became various shades of brown. He never bought clean lumber, so the garden shed he built was patched together with wood paneling leftover from refinishing my bedroom, to 4X8′s split to make 2@2X4′s for the wall studs. He unbent rusty nails and painted the basement floor with wall paint. He used coat hangers to hang a drop ceiling and removed one side off an old shopping car to make a grill rack for the BBQ pit.

But, the garden shed has stood there for 40 years without a leak and we have been grilling on the improvised grate for 25 years. To this day, we see his handiwork. Anyone could have done it better, but it would not look like my dad’s. I see him in everything I touch in the house.

He simply got it done. He wasn’t proud or not proud. He just knew that it had to get done. He didn’t beat himself up when corners did not meet at right angles. He worked around it. So, as I became really discouraged last night that “all” I have created are corners that don’t meet, I stopped to think of my dad. He got it done and so can I.

Thanks for listening.

Posted via email from Dan’s posterous

The blog is for posting my writing or longer ramblings. But, I also want to use sites like Red Room, where I can highlight any writing and share them with other writers and maybe seek relevant critiquing.

Speaking of writing, I wanted to give myself a State of the Writing update and share it with you. So here it goes.

At the surprising urgings of my Creative Writing professor, Jim Murphy of Boston College, I began writing a work of fiction about the section of Newton Massachusetts in which I was born, affectionately called The Lake. The Lake is a predominately Italian neighborhood and has maintained this quiet state for decades. There are stories to be told about The Lake and I wanted to write one of them. The working title is The Son of His Father (to this day, I have never Googled the title for fear I couldn’t use it).

The Son of His Father is a story about a man of Italian-American heritage who spent much of his life running away from that heritage. When confronted with the death of his father, my protagonist returns home. He is forced to face and ultimately reconcile with his roots. I will be honest with you, dear reader, this is the first time EVER that I have been able to explain the story in just two sentences. I’ve always said that when I am able to do it in one sentence, the book will be available for public consumption.

I am no different than most writers. I enjoy the process of research more than I do the process of writing. I am the master of playing the “research card” whenever I don’t feel like writing. The good thing is that I truly have a lot of research to do. The Lake is filled with compelling stories the span the spectrum of the human drama. The Lake is also filled with beautiful people, many of whom I call friends. Though I am absolutely writing a work of fiction and am taking liberties with some of the local details, I also do not want to lose site of the essence of this place. The concept of place is extremely important to my writing. I have always considered both “place” and “process” to be what I bring to the writing table. Not to say that these things are more important than plot or characterizations by I am not as tuned in to these.

For research, I have been spending a lot of time just hanging out in The Lake and re-familiarizing myself with the area. I admit that I have a hard time approaching people and asking them questions, but I am VERY good at observing and I take advantage of that. More than one person has seen me wandering the streets trying to be discrete as I take photos that I believe are relevant. On a side note, I am also fascinated with images of the “Madonnas on the half shell” on people’s lawns. Any religious icons used as part of a home’s landscape just intrigues me so I am definitely going to try to snap a few pictures of those when I get the chance. I also carry with me a voice recorder. This is for planned and spontaneous interviews as well as capturing thoughts when I cannot get to a pen and paper easily.

My greatest source for information about The Lake has been a surprising find. His name is Eddie and he is probably 26 years old. He comes from a very prominent family in The Lake and his grandfather was the man who got things done in the neighborhood. Whether someone needed a street light fixed or to gather some volunteers to donate blood to a particular patient in the hospital (my mom was one of those patients), “Fat” was your man. Eddie is a wealth of knowledge, stories and a palpable pride in his heritage and his neighborhood. This pride is contagious. We have spent hours sitting at Maria di Napoli Ristorante with just an espresso or an appetito. I recorded every word and let him guide the conversation. I have replayed the tapes a hundred times and each time I hear something new. Stories of love for family and community and culture. I am eternally grateful to have met Eddie on Facebook.

Facebook, despite it’s flaws, has been a tremendous asset to my writing and I cherish the connections to writers, to The Lake, to other Italian Americans, to long missing friends and family.

Additionally, I use a couple pieces of software that I would like to share with you. The first indispensable application is Evernote. If it is part of your job to remember anything, ever, then you need to be using Evernote. I agree that there are a bajillion substitutes, but until I am able to use those applications across multiple computers, networked or not, and use it on the internet and inline with my browsing and now on my iphone, then I won’t even consider them. I have one workbook for work and personal, but many tags and sub-tags to organize my writing (ie, @writing, @TSOHF_research, @TSOHF_contacts, @TSOHF_history, @TSOHF_ideas, etc, where TSOHF = The Son of His Father and is used to distinguish it from other projects I am interested in pursuing…someday).

I currently also use a mind mapping website called mind42.com and am searching for alternatives. But, I REALLY cannot see my way out of a project without mind-mapping and some form of low or high-tech solution is always close at hand.

The entire project, with copious backups are housed on Google Docs. I may be revisiting that decision soon.

For low-tech solutions, I have been using the Junior sized Circa binder from Levenger. I have not jumped on the Moleskine bandwagon, but I do own a couple. I just need the flexibility of the Circa system, but even that is far from perfect. Also, from Levenger, I am in love with their Concept Pads, I believe they are called. The other item I cannot seem to live without is my whiteboard. On this board is just a couple of columns: “New Chapters” and “Edit Chapters” I either handwrite or use sticky notes to remind me where I am in the process. Some days, I feel like creating from scratch and will put the chapter numbers in the first column. When all I want to do is edit existing chapters, I use the second column to tell me which one I am actively working on.

For any burst of writing, I have to use my laptop with my Levenger (of course) Laplander lap desk on the living room couch. I have become quite good at tuning out distractions and if I am don’t, I can always blame the noise on any lack of productivity.

Wine and winemaking will make an appearance in my novel and this year will be my first ever attempt at making wine for real. I will be documenting that process for either this or future projects.

2 years ago, before having to deal with the mortality of my own father, if you asked me what page I was on, I would have said somewhere around page 80. Two years later, I am probably on page 100. I openly admit that these last two years have been extraordinarily difficult for me to deal with. I feel like I am on a tight rope and on one side of me is greatness and the ability to share a story that I feel is important to tell and on the other side, the image of a 45 year old man, lying in the corner in the fetal position. I am scared to move forward, but I am not sure that I have a choice.

Thank you for listening to this ramble. I am not going to edit or rethink my words. Please forgive the randomness of this post. It is important for me to take stock of the process and “put it out there” for my friends to read. Your opinions and support mean the world to me.

Dan

(Me drinking mate. My sister next to me and my grandfather watching)

There is a thread that weaves its way through our days and links us to our past and our past’s pasts. It can be as ethereal as a spider’s web and yet when we stop to take note, it can completely envelope us. Over the last few months, and perhaps few years, I have felt like I walked face-first into that web. It seems every thought connects me to my history which then blooms into quiet reflection and, in the case of my book, moves me into action. I crave the research and love the discovery. Hopefully, I will connect all those dots into a coherent chain of words that other people would love to read.

In the meantime, I have stopped to consider many of the traditions and rituals of my life; once again, with the thought of how that connects me to my past. Many of these things I take for granted. As of late, I no longer want to take those for granted. With my connections to my future firmly established with my three baby goats, I want to be aware of the traditions that pass through me into the lives of my children.

It is funny that I mention the word rituals as I consider myself to be the absolute antithesis of ritualistic. I have written before that I practically seek a non-ritualistic life. But that applies more to the mundane. I don’t order the same food in a restaurant, I don’t wake up at the same time, I don’t “have” to run, write or sleep 8 hours in order for me to feel consistency. Additionally, I have no religion to turn to for maintaining traditions whose reasons are long since forgotten.

So, I don’t consistently put my left shoe on before my right or towel dry my hair before my body, but I have begun looking at the more profound and sacred moments in my life. I am trying to stop and reflect on them and even am willing to discard them if they no longer serve me. But mostly, I meditate on them and have found a corner in my little brain to keep them.

One example, I would like to share with you. It may appear trivial, but it is so “steeped” in tradition, that I just had to write about it.

My mom is from Uruguay, South America. This surprises some people as I always talk about and seem to connect with my Italian side. To some extent, this is true. My mom and dad were married for a very short time before moving to America with the proverbial five dollars in their pocket. Since they lived in The Lake, a predomintately Italian neighborhood, outside of Boston, she was forced to learn Italian rather quickly…while at the same time, learn English. She was also still a teenager without any family in this country so her connections to her culture were severely severed.

We did manage to go a few times to Uruguay as a family when I was growing up. I believe I was around 14 years old the last time I went, so I really do not remember a lot of it. But there are few memories that stick out in my head. One memory that shines is how everyone I knew drank a hearty tea, called Yerba Mate (yeerba matay). It is easy enough to go to Google and figure out exactly what it is. But, in Uruguay, everyone from old to young would drink this tea. You would see bus drivers sipping it and businessmen walking down the street with thermoses under their arms This was not your ordinary tea where you plop a teabag of Liptons into a cup of hot water. No, this was a true ritual, more closely aligned with the Japanese tea ceremony than a simple cup of tea.

My grandfather (abuelito) was every definition of a true gaucho and I remember him sipping the tea using a metal straw called a bombilla. The “cup” is typically a hollowed-out and cured gourd. These can get very fancy and decorative. You can see my collection here:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2048/1986107844_11a705cdcf_b.jpg

The tea is a loose, green tea with a very earthy aroma and a powerful, grassy flavor. Sincerely, it is not “everyone’s cup of tea.” If every square foot of my grandfather’s house didn’t smell like this tea, I bet I would hate it. The memories of that aroma is what I crave every day. The true beauty of this tea is that it really is meant to be drunk communally. Once the person who poured the mate is done sipping all the water out of the gourd, it is his responsibility to fill it again and pass it to the next person. That person will finish the water, pass it to the host who will refill it and pass it down again to the next drinker. I fully understand if you are wincing at the thought of everyone sipping out of the same straw. In my opinion though, this is what makes mate such a special bonding ritual amongst friends. My reality is that there is no one in this house, or anyone I know, that actually enjoys mate except for me, so I just drink it alone. My son will occasionally have some, but that is because he likes to put forty teaspoons of sugar on anything.

That is why when I wake up early enough (this doesn’t happen EVERY day), usually at four, I will boil a pot of water and make myself some mate. The mate gourd I typically use belonged to my grandfather. It is probably fifty years old or more. It rests in a handmade leather holder, stamped with the words URUGUAY on it.

Here is a closeup:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2036/1986147464_cec172697e_b.jpg

For the next hour, I sit and read, watch the news, write or think about running and I refill the gourd until the thermos is empty. Every time the I raise it to my mouth, the aroma hits me first and I am transported back to Uruguay, sitting around the fireplace, playing chess with my cousins as my grandfather fills the gourd again.

He is no longer alive and I have no idea if the younger generation in Uruguay still drink the stuff or if it is just a relic of days long over, like Moxie and snuff. But I know I need this tea coursing through my veins to bridge the gap between cultures.

Do YOU have rituals or traditions, that may even seem odd, but you will not let go of?

I am honored that you read my words.

a. plan on writing a book
b. beginning a diet
c. read a book per week
d. train for a marathon
e. etc

is to tell people what you are planning. In fact, whenever I read about these plans from various social networking sites, I immediately roll my eyes. Clearly, they are setting themselves for an embarrassing disappointment. I am not so stupid that I don’t know that we are just primed for failure…and publicly at that. But, there are times when “putting yourself out there” is all you can.

This is precisely why I posted today about my writing project. Again, I know that EVERYONE in the world is writing a book and most of just come across sounding like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuUBgkdFMqs

But, I am not the type of person that can operate in a bubble. I need to know that I am accountable to others. I do not think I would write a word if it wasn’t for the fact that others are expecting me to give an update.

So, I have put myself out there and said way too much. But, at this age, I am too old to be subtle so I purposefully and with a little naivete I put my heart of my sleeve and hope for the best. I sometimes feel like Bear Grylls is going to make a pit stop at my house and begin chewing on my raw, still-beating heart because “it is full of chewy protein and it is on his sleeve, after all.” In the big picture, it is a small price to pay for the wonderful support that I have come to crave and dearly miss from all of you.

Thank ALL of my readers. AoMR!

You died and you rotted. There was no reason to call an ambulance. An ambulance is for the living. Dead people get wrapped in a glad bag and unceremoniously thrown into a van. But the police on scene knew that my partner and I were rookies and perhaps would be interested in something different than the usual; pick up the homeless guy off the streets, take him to the hospital then pick him up again the next day. We pulled up to the three-family house in Southie. Police and medical examiner already on-scene. We started to walk up the stairs and each step brought us closer to the smell you left behind. My partner was the first to gag. I was quite proud that I was able to hold off. Early on, EMTs learn to breath through their mouths, but when we did that today your putrefaction blanketed our taste buds. We literally tasted death.

We entered your room. The first thing I noticed was that your TV was still on; tuned to The Price is Right. I saw the drug paraphernalia, such as spoons, candles, crystalline substances, pipes and other stuff I never saw before.

My eyes went over to your body.

Your bloated head was the size of a beachball. As a body decomposes, the skin, whose job in life was too keep the bad stuff out was now serving as a container for the by products of decomposition. As bacteria breaks down the body, it produces the equivalent of a fart; billions of farts. This fills the body like it was some cartoon character balloon at a 4th of July parade. Your naked torso showed the violaceous, tell-tale sign of “really dead”, called the line of lividity.

The bloating did not shock me. It was the surreality of seeing the casual, almost peacefully normal position your body was in at the precise moment that your life ended. Your hands were behind your head in a self-satisfied, head-propping manner perhaps to better see the TV at the foot of your bed. Your bloated face contorted your mouth unnaturally agape, which almost made it look like you were smiling. Your feet crossed at the ankles were now rigid with death.You could not have known that your final breath, final heartbeat was pending. You would have fought; you would have flailed; you would have fallen out of the bed. But you looked perfectly content.

You even had a picture of a woman on your nightstand. Will be police be calling her to tell her of your fate? Will she weep for you? Will she be surprised? Who was she? At that moment, that was all I wanted to know. Who the hell was this woman?

My stomach held it together up until this point. But then, I looked more closely at your face. I noticed your skin undulate as if a balloon was filled with jello. Then I saw what made my knees weak; the maggots crawling out of your nose and mouth. One of these maggots crawled out through the corner of your mouth. This made me involuntarily itch the corner of my own face as I imagined how it would feel. I then realized your “human-ness” was no more. You became food for microorganisms and a condominium for insect larvae.

I ran to your bathroom to throw up. The veteran officers on-scene laughed at me. I continued to wretch as I made it out to the ambulance. Your smell permeated the polyester threads of my uniform. They say that you never forget the smell of rotting flesh. I say that smell has never left my nostrils.

Since that moment, I have seen many bodies in various stages of life and death. But, I will never forget the day I understood that death was final.

This post is no different. It is a post about not writing.

I have put down my book recently (did you notice “T”, that I didn’t put quotes around that word this time?). I feel justified in doing so. With all the various stresses in my life and the fact that my dad is a very sick man, I felt that I could not commit myself to write a novel about a man who loses his father. It was simply too painful for me to deal with.

The book hits too close to home.

Over the last few months, I have been doing a lot of procrastinating, more like avoiding my blog and my book. I have poked around and wasted a ton of time on Plurk (that won’t stop!) and found the act of writing greater than 140 characters to be simply more than I can handle at this time in my life.

But, recent events, have made me revisit my book and the story I am hoping to convey. I hope to go into those reasons as soon as I can wrap my head around them.

In the meantime, just know that I will try to update more often and hopefully regain some of my readership that have since jumped ship due to utter boredom.

My words may range from the utter mundane (my kid picked his nose type stuff) to painfully maudlin to sincere expression of the anguish I have been feeling recently.

Whatever the case, look for more of me on your blogs and I hope you will find mine again.

Thank you!

The first event was a self-diagnosed adult onset attention-deficit disorder (which merely replaced the self-diagnosed child-onset A.D.D when I became an adult at 38). The second event was the realization that I actually enjoy putting words on virtual paper. Sometimes, yes, SOMETIMES, I even enjoy stringing those words together into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs back into sentences because I scare easily. You can think of it as “literal” rock-climbing where the higher I climb, the scaredier I get.

This first event has made it nearly impossible to stay focused on the task of writing. When I open Microsoft Word (or for your Mac users, the Mac-Touch, Better-Than-Breathing, Bill-Gates-Sucks, Write-a- Novel-While-Sleeping, Pretty-Artsy-Bubbly-Interface, I-Don’t-Care-If-It-Costs-Seven-Hundred-Dollars, Edition software), I am faced with so many distractions like the ever-annoying Clippy and deciding what font to use today (I write in Wingdings).

Not to mention that the internet is always seducing me by whispering mesmerizingly in my ear “Ohhhh Dan, I need you to run your fingers over my series of tubes…” and I happily succumb. Then I feel guilty and dirty and used…but sated. So, I am quick to Alt-Tab (or just think about it for you Mac-o-philes) my way through life (How I wish I could Alt-Tab people in much the same way I do screens).

Both of my readers (BoMR) are unfortunate witnesses to this internal conflict. You may have noticed some of it in the previous 8 million words of this post just to say what I am about to say in the following 150 words.

One of the tools that I really enjoy using is called JDarkRoom. This is a full-screen text editor and offers NONE of the distractions that the fully-loaded Word does. With this editor, you do not choose fonts, underlines, paragraphs or any other formatting. In fact, the screen is simply a black screen that takes up your entire monitor’s real estate. You do not see the Task Bar, System Tray, Menu Bar, Desktop or anything else. Just a black screen with green text (You can also change the color of the screen and text if green-on-black is not your thing).

JDarkRoom has many other distraction-free features. From their website:

* Change your colour preferences, font and font size – via the settings screen (F6)
* JDarkRoom remembers the file that you were working on last time
* Support for central-european character sets
* JDarkRoom notifies you if you might have forgotten to save your changes
* Word/line/character count (Ctrl-L)
* Specify a file on the command-line for JDarkRoom to open it at startup
* Text antialiasing (where possible)
* Mouse-wheel scrolling
* Adjustable margins to fit any screen resolution (F9 to reset)
* Auto-save backups – so you never lose your work again
* Text search (F7 / Ctrl-F)
* A command-reminder strip can be displayed at the bottom of the screen

Of course, I am not sure what anti-aliasing is, but I think they are building a wall along the Mexican border and a plastic bubble over Califronia which should help with that. Honestly, I do not believe I can live without the Central European Character Set! I don’t even know where Central Europe is!

JDarkRoom is shareware, which simply means that donations are gladly and deservedly accepted. I, too, am shareware, which simply means that I am shareable.