I just finished streaming the first season of Star Trek Discovery with a free week of CBS All Access on Amazon. This is a personal review of the show and thoughts connected to ‘Trek’— spoilers ahead. Let me say up front, lest I sound a bit arrogant or fan-boyish, that once upon a time I pitched stories to Michael Taylor when he was an Executive Producer on Star Trek: Voyager. It’s the closest I ever got to being somebody of note. Continue Reading
I wrote a blog post many years ago called ‘Liability Shields Can’t Stop Bullets’. It was a provocative piece about shootings, and it almost made its way into my first novel. I decided not to include it in the book because it weighted the closing in a strange way, opening up a new theme as the story ended. In that context, I felt the piece might be misunderstood as an attempt to justify shootings or appease shooters. Continue Reading
There’s a Lunar eclipse this morning during the blue blood moon of January 31st. To me it feels connected to another eclipse which occurred on July 6, 1982. That’s the day my father died, and now my mother is facing the final days of her life.
If she passed tonight, those two days would become forever connected in my mind. Life is rarely so neat and precise. My father passed rather suddenly of a heart attack while my mom lingers on with a weak heart and other ailments. Only two months ago she felt fine, but now she’s a completely different person in home hospice care. Death’s doorstep—we’ve all been given some time to let go.
61 and 88, the final ages of my parents. They were part of the World War Two generation. I felt like I got to say a good goodbye when I went back east to visit. She kissed my hand when I said goodbye. She seems ready to go, and I am ready to let her go. I don’t want her to linger on.
The moon is turning red. And it’s been a long time coming.
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My Mother passed away on the morning of February 2nd.
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Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. These are the latest sacrificial lands in the great public lands battle in America. I’ve been thinking of writing about this for some time, but it comes forward now because I recently flew over Grand Staircase in a plane. It’s a beautiful place, or so it looks from (near) space. And it seems there’s some idiots who can’t really see that. Continue Reading
I hiked to the top of Blacketts Ridge in Sabino Canyon, Tucson, today in the not so great time of 1:19. I really need to get back to hiking regularly, and I prefer hiking solo. I’ve not been hiking so much because of all the heaviness I carry with me. Not only in the extra 20 pounds, but in the thoughts about that old hiking group I escaped over a year back now. Continue Reading
A solicitor showed up to my door about a week ago. He looked to be about 15 years old. He had a blue tub full of something, maybe candy bars. He handed me a card with some information on it and started his practiced spiel. I’m doing a fundraiser to get to Six Flags Amusement Park in California. I looked at the card, a fine laminated card it was, and I watched him prepare to open the tub to reveal the goodies, but I had already lost patience. Continue Reading
I originally intended to call this post The Writer’s Decision, but the term denouement seems to better capture my feelings. I made my decisions about following a writer’s path in life long ago, and now it feels like I lost on that. Denouement simply means epilogue, the pulling together of strands of a story after the last act, but to me the word has an added connotation of melancholy. Finality. Continue Reading
You can tell more truth in fiction than you can in nonfiction. * disclaimer
In the introductory post to this series, I wrote about two women I met here in Tucson: the beautiful blind optometrist and the doll-faced maniacal masseuse—and of course these are stereotypes, a bit nuanced, but still it’s fiction typecasting. I got trapped between these two stereotypes in my own mind as if they were battling for my future and my soul—to put it dramatically. Continue Reading
The writer’s greatest ally beckons their greatest nemesis: attachment.
The magic (or skill set) that a writer uses is best summed up by the notion of creating attachment. This is true in a simple form where a writer strives to create a character that people will feel attached to and see themselves in, but it goes beyond that. Continue Reading
What if every emotion is legitimate, and there’s no such thing as coincidence?
In essence I believe this is the writer’s mindset. As a writer struggles to find the words to tell a story, this is really what they are struggling with. In a fictional world, every emotion expressed has some kind of legitimacy, or the writer wouldn’t include it. And if there’s a coincidence that doesn’t pay off, a reader will feel robbed. Easy enough in fiction, but what about in real life? Continue Reading
