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

As you know, I have been working on a writing project that is set, at least partially, in a village of Newton MA called The Lake. It is a beautiful section of city that is, or at least was, predominately, Italian. I have been working on this project on and off for the last couple of years. With my dad’s illness and subsequent death, I essentially dropped any writing and really felt like I was never going to pick it up again. Though the story is not a true memoir, it was based in reality and it simply was too painful to write about now that my dad was dead. The story includes the death of the main character’s father.

But with the magic and the motivation and guidance of a person that is very important to me, I have picked up the writing again. For the first time with this project, I have begun to actively do research. I am no longer writing in a vacuum depending on my faulty memory. I friended a person, a local legend rather, on Facebook, from The Lake and we have met in a local Italian restaurant , complete with Pavarotti in the background and talk all about the neighborhood. There isn’t a person he doesn’t know. I have already recorded hours of conversations and begun slowly transcribing it. He has introduced me to some really colorful local people and we are setting up even more meetings. I will share with you soon some of the more interesting stories.

I am documenting and recording everything I can and every person I meet. Even my mom has a fascinating story of the neighborhood that I knew nothing about. It is time to put meat on the bones of this project and we will see what comes from it.

At this point, I just want all of you to realize how excited I am to be writing and how grateful I am for the support.

That is all for now.

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.