The Storm of Death
I’ve lost a lot of people in the last year around me, and awhile ago, I lost my brother. Whenever I mention my brother, I don’t pull my punches and say he “died” instead of “passed on”. Mostly because I think we need to be faced with the harsh reality of death and that we are mortal pieces of flesh. Now, I wrote my first manuscript (Primo Capite and the Others) and used terms like flesh, corpse, or meat in order to drive home the fact that we are mortal – for certain reasons that book will never be released (mostly it isn’t written well and it has some mistakes due to the use of tropes). However, the terminology was to drive home the reality that we aren’t immortal… but our memories are. [click “Read More” to get my personal philosophy on how to handle death]
Read MoreMy Condolences
This will be a quick one, stop saying “I’m sorry” unless you add in “I’m sorry for your loss”. However, that still isn’t a great way to speak to someone. The reason is simple, saying sorry is an implying of fault; you say sorry when you step on a toe because you did something to the other person. You say sorry when you cheated on someone and ripped their heart out of their chest. So, unless you have the cure to the ailment the person is suffering from but didn’t give it to them or you actually caused their death, don’t say “I’m sorry”. Instead, might I suggest you say “my condolences” as it is a far superior term. As someone who had to hear, “I’m sorry” about one hundred times in a single day, I find the phrase false and empty – but the fact that you were there to say it means more than anything else.
So, just show up and be present, share a memory and if you say “I’m sorry” that’s okay too (but you should choose a better phrase).
Read MoreChronological Order
While writing Manuscript 8, I realized that the story I wanted to tell was much larger than my initial scope (maybe not in words, but in content). Perhaps it was a weird place I ended up, but I felt that the novel needed to go deeper and deeper into the two main characters and their struggle. I began to spiral and twist in the wind. Knowing what I wanted to do, I had to decide what to do with Manuscript 8: 1) to keep going with sheer willpower or 2) take a break and research the necessary non-fiction to make that novel rich and multifaceted.
I chose the latter, and I ended up moving forward with Manuscript 9. Which has thrown me into a confounding predicament: which one came first? I’ve had this feeling before when I thought about how my manuscripts would be listed on a website or in the front of a book. But this is even more problematic because, in that situation, you could use the publication date to add their chronological order.
But here, in my internal filing system, I have two manuscripts and I jumped over an incomplete version to focus on the next one in the list. I fully plan to go back to Manuscript 8 and have been researching it, but can I still call it Manuscript 8? [Click “Read More” to… well… watch me spiral]
Read MoreNew Category – In Memoriam
Writing is how I deal with loss and questions. I don’t know why, but when I hear of loss, my first thing to do is write haiku; perhaps it is me attempting to emblazon my feelings into a notebook at that moment in time and never let them slip away or be corrupted. Now, I’ve shared these haikus before but didn’t call them out as being for a specific person or the passing of that person. Moving forward, and with heavy heart, I have created a new category: In Memoriam to better help me tag and organize these memories. I have been contemplating this for a couple of years and finally decided that I would be implementing the new category due to losses around me recently. I don’t want to use it much and I may not use it at all (these feelings tend to be raw and I am not sure I do want to share them).
Read MoreGearing Up
A little while ago, I posted about getting back on the horse (wagon?) and writing. Shortly after that, I wrote no real blog posts. As always, it is important to note that writing for me has a priority order and this website is the lowest on that list. While I love waxing philosophical, it doesn’t grow my fiction content. However fiction may be a great place to hide those theories, my writing on the website and in these blogs, can be more pointed and direct.
Thus, I am hoping to get more posts out throughout this year. I made a challenge to myself awhile back to put out at least four posts per a month. I missed that mark at the end of the year even though I took off most of December to focus on manuscript 9 (working title, was: Captivated by a Dick in the Sand, now it is An Unforgettable Truth). However, I put down 25,000 words over two weeks and fleshed out the rest of the world. It was a great time.
Even as I say this, I realize that I’m postponing writing fiction to get this post out for the New Year (I said I would start on the 1st but… well, I got 6,000 words written that day). With that, I must away (not literally, I am going to stay in this chair and write on this keyboard, but it will grow manuscript 9 not the blog section of this website). Have a wonderful New Year and be productive!
Unsolicited Conversation
Cold Coffee, bitter
Smiles dot the morning – Relax
embrace the discourse
~Theodore Maestranzi
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