This was going to be a Facebook post and it got away from me. It sounds like a video in my head, but that’s because I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and vlogs lately.  Maybe I’ll make into a video, but probably not, Maybe....

So I have a confess to make and I swear it’s not as creepy as it sounds.

Sometimes I look at the “people you may know” feature of Facebook or Instagram. I’ll click on a profile of someone who I don’t know-  or think I don’t know but looks * a little* familiar. I’ll make guesses as to who our friends in common are. I’ll look over whatever they choose to publicly post, particularly photographs.  Occasionally, I’ll do this with people who post on groups too, but then it’s mostly so I get some sense of who I’m talking to. 

 I realize social media is currated. We’re looking at the high points- or in some cases the very low points that people will share for the sake of letting others know they aren’t alone. (You aren’t by the way.)

I realize that what we see on Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter or whatever is coming next is not, in the strictest sense, real. Not quite real, anyway. Even those of us who strive for total transparency in our online lives are restricted by the tools at our disposal, or our ability to express ourselves.

For the record, I’ve always found total online transparency to be very very weird.

But I digress.

Sometimes, I look at the social media of complete strangers, and even within the context of the above, and adjusting for whatever bias I might have, I think... “They are amazing. I hope they know that.”

Hope this clears that up.

Well....

Step One: Have a story that you’d like to tell.

Step Two: Come to the conclusion that you’d like it to be written in screenplay format.

Step Three: Get a book on screenplay format. 

Step Four: Read book on screenplay format.

Step Five: Get confused and re-read the book on screenplay format.

Step Six: Abandon all hope, and give up on the project.

Step Seven: Torment yourself with the idea that you didn’t even try.

Step Eight: Write the script.

Step Nine: Edit the Script.

Step Ten: Rewrite the script.

Step Eleven: Reconsider your life choices, examining them closely, pondering how it is that you came to this exact spot in your life.

Step Twelve: Workshop your script. Have your friends read each of the parts. Make notes on what works. Repeat Steps Nine through Eleven as needed.

Step Thirteen: Declare that the script is finished and there’s nothing else for you to do.

Step Fourteen: Come to the soul crushing realization that unless your script is produced no one will ever read it, that even if you sell your script it will have to go through re-writes often by someone else, and that a script is never a finished production. 

Step Fifteen: Drink.  Repeat Steps One through Fourteen as needed.

Wherein I remember once again that I have a blog.

Holy crap, it's really been since August that I posted.

Sometimes putting words on paper sucks.  Focusing on one thing at a time sucks- or to be more accurate seems nearly impossible. Write a sentence. Check Facebook in the other tab. Fight with yourself to not check it again after the ding indicates three's a new thing. OH! New idea. Work on that thing until you remember something else.  What was that thing I wanted to know. Goes to look up thing. Forgets to what the thing was that I wanted to look up.

Really, as inarticulate as it might be this what it's like in my head, and that's the productive days.

The upshot of all this (Star Wars Commander is currently on my phone by the way.) is that I occasionally take inventory and think "Oh yeah, I meant to write that," or edit that. or finish writing that... or... you get the idea
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Thing I just thought to post on Facebook:

I have a weird request. This will make more sense if you know me well. I'm trying to do a mental inventory. I have theories, rants, routines, as the kids would "things." As in "Don't you have a whole thing about _____?"

Point being, what are mine again? Like, what comes to mind when say this? Kilts, I suppose are a given maybe. I don't know. It just occurs me I might have a finite number of things I talk about. Maybe? Help me out here.

--

But I digress.

Writing about the writing process really bores me. I think I was going to say something about ADHD.

 Oh right... Routine.
So in the month of October, I wore a kilt everyday. The bigger version of that story is that my lovely wife and I started a fundraiser for Heifer Int, but I'll talk about that later. Or not. The relevant bit is that I did it everyday. Put on a kilt. Go out. Take a picture. Post to social media.

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At the words "Social Media" I got a message I had to deal with... I'm back now.

The benefit to doing this thing everyday is not something that I would have recognized at first. In really really broad strokes, it's a routine. and routines are good. Structure and all that are good. And, I guess, good for writing.

I realize this has been three hours of me typing word salad amid, checking Facebook, checking Star Wars, posting on Kiltober, and two related messaging threads. But...

I had a point. I'm not sure what it was.

NanoWriMo word Count is 0.

I made an author page a while ago because it seemed like the thing to do. Patreon too but that feels even weirder. {Rant about Impostor Syndrome Here}

This has been a random unstructured post the point of which I may be wondering about later.

The Curious Case of Charlottesville and the White Supremacist Super Girl.

I've been composing and re-composing this is my head for a while. Long enough, in fact, that it may actually be too late to do any good. The news cycle has moved on and everyone is now talking about Harvey and Houston, and all related things. But this remains important. So... Sorry for not posting this earlier I guess. I have excuses. They are all lame.

So Charlottesville happened. There are a few conflicting about what exactly happened, who did what, etc. The only details that matter to me personally is that a group of people marched on a church yelling and chanting "Jews will not replace us." A woman lost her life. If they aren't actually racist or white supremacist, they've chosen to counted among those that openly are. The fact that I have to point out how is bad, troubles me.

Shortly after, my Facebook feed was flooded with "Oh God. I knew one of them." I won't lie. I wasn't really surprised. My mind went through a list of people. Most of them were the "Heritage not Hate" crowd- which I sort of respect in a kind of misguided way, and then there were the Fox News watchers who thought BLM was a terrorist organization or whatever.

But no...

It was that woman I kind of sort of knew from the Dragon Con scene that hung out with the photographer dude and cosplayed Super Girl. A long series of "seriously?" and "The fuck?" came out of mouth and  I was overcome by a profound sadness.  

Evil doesn't always look like evil. Maybe I don't have anything to say about it.

Day 23.... Where in I remember that I was doing the thing, and kind of admit defeat.

I'm not really broken up about it. I have been more consistent in my writing in the last- how ever long it's been, since May 18, than I have been in  a while. And I feel fairly good about  that.

Marlow's Tale:
I think I've reached a point where I have to actively know where it's going, and I'm not sure I do. I guess I do. The image of the next scene is pretty clear. A random person reading this would have no idea what I'm talking about. This blog is just so  I'm accountable to myself, I guess.

But that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about deserves it's own post. So that's what I'm going to do.

Words are not  flowing like they should- or at least like how I want them to. I spent Saturday and Sunday with my wife, and didn't really make time for writing. Fuck it. "Write Every Day" is a lie. Or at least it's a gross exaggeration.

Nazis. Seriously, man. Nazis. What the fuck kind of world do we live in where I have to get upset about Nazis? Like, we haven't made them comic book villains enough over the course of my lifetime.

Day Seven of doing the thing.

I seem to have missed two days. I am determined to not care.


So I'm wearing a kilt everyday in the month of October to raise money for Heifer International. I also seem to be doing a fair amount of goofing off on social media about kilts. I'm not really sure what else to say about that. It baffles me how much a garment can form communities. But it does...

I swear I've written more today, but it's not worth sharing. The worth sharing might be the tricky part.