Collaboration comes in several forms as well. There is the obvious, the “let’s get together and write a story together about Martian broadway performers who fight crime in their spare time.” And then yourself and your friend sit down and start to write. Sometimes you email, sometimes you use markers, always you fight and eat pizza. In the end is something that either you both hate or both love, and if you did a good job perhaps you both still speak to each other.

And your alien squirrel dopplegangers will make music.

The other kind is more of a moral support sorta collaboration. This one goes more like this: “HEY! GET YOUR ASS WRITING YOU LEFT ME HANGING AT THE END OF A CHAPTER AND I HATE YOU.” Or something similar.

Basically you send something to an artist friend and they read it. They send something to you to read as well and then together you write, using the other as a sounding board and a bit of motivation. Because sometimes getting off of our butts is the hardest part.

Have you seen my pen?

This type of collaboration is more important, I think. Working with someone is fun, creating a world/story/character/Metallica album with someone can bring ideas out, or together that might not have before.

But, by simply talking with other writers/artists/friends/doppleganger squirrles, you give yourself a sounding board. Maybe making your main character actually an exiled tomato isn’t the best idea… When we work together it also helps talk through the hard parts, the ones where you write yourself into a hole. Sometimes all you need is a rope. Sometimes you need a helicopter, some repellers, a bottle of Batman repellent spray and a six pack of Guinness (STAT!).

So find someone you trust, give them a story, take one of theirs, get working together.

For me, there was this pen.

I already have this thing about ink. I prefer blue ink when I write. I am not sure why or when this happened, some of my oldest notebooks do in fact include the forbidden black ink, but not in years.

Getting attached to a pen, saying things like “this is my WRITING pen” isn’t such a great idea. I would spend more time searching through my desk or pockets or car for a single missing pen rather than write. I would push aside piles of blue pens, for the ONE pen, as if it was the only thing I could use to put down my ideas, as if it was the only thing keeping me from writing.

Meanwhile I am not writing. Whatever was in my head is slowly sliding out, and I am proving, yet again, that I excel at procrastination more than anything else.

Throw it out. If you have one of these pens, throw it out. I left mine in a bar, seemed appropriate. Use cheep pens, nice pens, use your keyboard or hammer and chisel, whatever. Just write.

And yes, I am writing to myself, but you can do it too.

But! I hear you think, this is not Mac Journal! This is a Wordpress blog!! And you would be correct. For you it is. But for me, now, it is a program living on my computer.

Now why, oh why, would this be useful? Well the idea is that if I have somewhere to collect my thoughts, spread stuff out, work on it, save it for later, etc, that I wouldn?t have to ponder so much about entries, and, well, post more.

So this is my first post from my new shiny toy, let?s hope it isn?t the last.

Edit: now here is a question.. what happens if I edit one of these? Let us, you and me, find out together, no?

I heard the new Metallica song on the radio this Friday. The DJ then asked for us to call in with our thoughts, all the while saying how they were “trying to get back to the old Metallica” and various other phrases that lead you to believe this is going to be the one.

You know which ‘one’ I am talking about. The ‘one’ that you have been waiting for since the last note of the black album. The song that shows that Metallica is still awsome.

Well, this song isn’t it.

I listened to it. It starts off strong musically… and then he starts to sing. And seriously, he sounds like Weird Al Yankovic. Only that isn’t fair to Weird Al, because if he was singing it, he’d do a better job.

Then the song continues. Forever it would seem. The begining which sounded like a good build up, never actually builds up, it is the song. Where is the metal, METALlica?? Where is my crunch? my double bass? Near the end you get a hint, a taste, like someone had a beer in your glass before you poured water in it, but you know that isn’t going to do anything but make you want a real one.

So then it happens. The callers start up. The first one sounds like he is younger than my shoes and proceeds to tell us how much this song ‘rocked’. OK fine. The DJ agrees. Next caller, same. Next. Next. The “I’ve been listening to Metallica for 20 years” caller, rocks.

Then the DJ says it. The DJ says it sounds like this song came right off of “In Justice For All.” I am speechless. No, that is a lie, I am cussing up a storm. I grab my phone and proceed, for the first time in YEARS to call a radio station.

This song does NOT sound like it came from “In Justice For All.” That album was art. “Ride The Lightning” practically defined a genre. THIS song was not made by that band. If the Metallica of that era walked on stage while Metallica played “The Day That Never Comes” they would have beaten them off the stage for disgracing their name. The only thing I can think of is that Metallica was replaced by alien doppleganger squirrels. Nothing else makes sense.

I can’t get through to the DJ, which is probably a good thing. Calling him a moron on the air would have probably resulted in my getting a sound byte and mocked incessantly.
Look, the song isn’t awful, but it is not good either. It isn’t Creed, or Limp Bizkit. It just isn’t old-school Metallica either. It is their right to change, to sound however they want. And it is my right to pretend they broke up after Enter Sandman.

The question was asked to all of us at one point. Where is your direction in life? Where are you going? What is it you want to spend the rest of your life doing?

The rest of my life.

That is a bit of time for one thing, one task, one GOAL. Seems too much for any one thing to take, a burden even Atlas would cringe at.

So perhaps instead of what do I want to do, it should be what do I want to do for now? Now I seem to be doing well as an engineer, part time writer. If I had a say, it would be the other way. Writing every day and consulting as an engineer. One of these days, no?

That being said, I was a web programmer once upon a time. Something I still dabble in, still mingle at parties with. I’d go back there too if it was something interesting. Database programming for corporate websites would not be my ideal.

So what do I want to be when I grow up? Well, since I don’t have plans to grow up, I suppose I have time to figure it out.

June found the floor of my house after ripping up the carpet to install laminate. It did not, however, stick around to finish the job.

June brought a new motorcycle in my garage that I don’t own, but had to fix. It found my motorcycle in parts and ignored it.

June read a kick as Sci-Fi novel one morning at the pub, pint in one hand.

June called twice, and left messages, but I never called back.

June was a wedding outside with five friends who have never needed tuxes to stand by each other. It was hot, but we were prepared. There was dancing and laughter and re-arranging furniture.

June found ice on Mars.

June never found time for a blog post, which is why this is in July. Or at least, that sounds good.

June taught me capoeira angola, watching as I did cartwheels, ginga-ed, and laughed until my body was sore in new and creative places.

June reminded me I am still young.

Many poets have issued that title on a woman. “She is my muse.” This woman they talk of is beautiful, elegant, they are no doubt in love with her, and equate inspiration to write poetry, happy or sad, about her, to ‘Muse’.

Phillis Levin is my Muse, in the purest sense.

When I starting down this path of creativity, of writing, poetry, of using word as art (ART?) it was a journey that started in the dark (yes, I mean high school). Writings were scribblings in the corners of notebooks, they were mimics of Latin poets, and ‘experimental’ things, which later turned out to be not that ‘experimental’. But this is a part of the poet’s journey, as it is a part of any journey. This part is the beginning.

Then came college, and writing courses, and this strange, but new idea of reading other poets. This idea is a strange one to understand why it is a NEW THING.

A book, Afterimage, was handed to me, by a Ms Phillis Levin.

I read the book twice that night. Three more times in the week that followed. Some where in there I found inspiration.

It was not that I wanted to write like her, or I wanted to follow her journey. Instead what she gave me was the light in the darkness, the direction to start my own journey. I wanted to be that good, and for the first time realized that a bit of work, of tears and cramped hands, that there was more to be done with myself, than simply writing what I had been.

This was her inspiration to me, to start my journey, to take my writing seriously, to turn it into a declaration: “I write.” She is my muse in the purest sense, for I saw her as art, as poetry, as the personification of this undefinable thing I had set off to find.

Her new book is out (alas, the older ones are harder to find, but if you can get them, please do). It is called “May Day” and worth every inch of your bookshelf it will take, of every moment of your life you will read it, of every word that is on the inside leaving the page and haunting you in those moments before you sleep.

Edit: Garrison Kellior’s Writer Almanac has May Day posted, 26 September, 2008

It was a new hotel for March, and they were not ready for us. They say by August they will have enough people, support, back-up support and even moral support, but we will see.

On Friday night there was Rocky Horror Picture Show by the Satanic Mechanics, a group I am familiar with. The show was great. Afterwards found myself and a new bunch of friends and argued, talked and drank about movies, books and of course, Godzilla.

I had a reading on Saturday at 3:00. I read two stories, Island in my Head and “Untitled” which I wrote that morning. I went to most of the readings. The reading rooms were great, but they were so far from the main part (aka, the dealer room and bar) that not many people even knew they were there. We will need signs for August, and whiskey.

Sunday Scares that Care did an auction for some collectibles. It was good stuff and for a good purpose. I wandered home, tired and ready to do battle once again with the real world.

Which is much more scary than anything I found at Horrorfind.

Firefox: (mozilla.com) Web Browser. The best thing you can do for your computer is not use Internet Explorer. Most viruses/ad/spyware comes in to your machine using exploits through IE. This is _not_ to say that Firefox is immune to this, or that this is the only way to be infected. This is a simple first step at protecting your machine.

AVG (Grisoft.com) Anti-virus. High quality, it will scan your system, scan incomming email and help clean and quarrentine infected files.

Adaware (lavasoftusa.com) Free. This removes ad/spyware from your computer. You know that random pop-up window that appears when you aren’t even in Internet Explorer? this will help with that.

Spybot Seek and Destroy (safer-networking.org) Search and Destroy () Free, use with adaware. Where Adaware shines with adware, spybot shines with spyware. Spyware is used to collect information from your computer and send it to another computer. This is usually bad.

Backup, backup, for the love of all that is holy, backup!

caveat emptor! Becareful of what you download! Where did you find it? Is the site reliable? Has the software been reviewed on other sites? Check these things out. A bad software download can cripple your machine.

Seriously. Back up. Get an external hard drive. Get a thumb drive. Burn CD’s or DVD’s. Print them out! Imagine this, if i came in and took a hammer to your hard drive, what would you lose? what would you need? Now take those things and back them up.

I am a Mac user. The luxury of that at this time is I don’t need any of these things. Linux too provides more security than a Windows machine. The trade-off? You would need to learn a new operating system. Not all your software can be found (and most would need to be repurchased).

So what happens when I get busy? The writing is first to go. Unfortunatly, while I consider myself a writer, since I am not a ‘professional’ writer, there are other priorities which involve a paycheck. Perhaps that will change one day, but for now writing is something I do when I am not at work.

My own personal interests do not help the situation. If I were simply fixated on writing, it would be easier to find the time. Instead I am drawn to writing and web coding and video games and camping and aikido and reading and … you get the idea. I am the jake-of-all-trades after all.

I don’t have an answer, this isn’t a post about how you can change your, or my, life and make it better or more organized or what have you. This is more of a statement. This is who I am. I am busy.