Category: Writing

Okabus Dokus

It’s a little known fact that the old Latin term for “okey-dokey” was okabus dokus. Look it up. What did the serving girl say to Julius Caesar when he asked her to get more grapes? I’m telling you, it’s a thing.

Or, maybe not.

I met with some old friends today that I haven’t seen in, like, 35 years. They’re not old, you know, relatively. But I hadn’t seen them for a long, long time.

We were discussing this and that and here and there, and I suddenly got this brain wave. Call me simple – go ahead, everybody else does – but how about this for a metaphor:

When you first start out on your own in the world, you don’t know anything. Here you are, twenty-something, and it’s all so bewildering. You don’t know where you’re going, or what you’re going to do.

One day follows another, and you get along. Careers, lovers, kids, they all come and go. All the while you’re putting one foot in front of the other, doing the best you can.

And then, one day, after a bunch of years, you pause to look back. And not like glancing in the rearview mirror at a red light, but a real look. You examine all the stuff that has happened on your road.

And it’s amazing. You started out at the edge of a dark forest, only seeing that little space just ahead of you.

But now there are towns and people and nations and oceans – all the stuff that you discovered and uncovered on your journey.

And there are the things that you did – stuff you created, accomplishments, awards, accolades, failures, disasters. All right there for you to see.

And loved ones, here in that town, there in that village. Kids, dogs, cats. They’re all there.

And right through the middle of all that is a beautifully paved road. Wasn’t there when you started, but it’s there now, because you paved it.

You linked all those towns and mountains and people and jobs and accomplishments together. You.

No matter where you are in life, at the beginning, the end, or somewhere in between, that beautiful road stretches out behind you, tying all the events of your life into one, continuous expanse of once-unknown but now treasured landscape.

The road ahead? Still an unknown. It’s like those video games where you clear the forest just enough to see what’s coming, but not where the road goes.

Which is cool, right? You can’t change the road ahead – no matter which way you take yourself, the road paves right underneath you.

So, what can you do?

Take a page from Julius Caesar. Put your thumb up in the air, smile, relax, and enjoy the ride.

Okubus dokus.

I can’t Afford to Drown

Once upon a time, in what could only have been a former life, I drowned.  I don’t think it was this life, because, well…

My wife and I went sailing with my college-graduate daughter today. She teaches at a city-run sailing and kayaking camp and has weekend access to the sailboats they use during the week.

If you know anything about me, you know that I have a great love for the exploits of Horatio Hornblower, Captain Aubrey, and my secret man-crush, Captain Bolitho.

C.S. Forester based his fictional Hornblower on the exploits of Thomas Cochrane and Horatio Nelson. O’Brien uses those same logs, plus others he’s researched, for Captain “Goldilocks” Aubrey. And Alexander Kent, the pen name of the well-established author Douglas Reeman, carried a lot of those same stories forward for Captain Richard Bolitho.

All of these fellows sailed for the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, chasing and capturing and sinking French and Spanish ships whenever the plot line needed it.

It’s hard to imagine that strangely elite brutality – packing 700 sailors into a ship of the line, sailing the seas to find a similarly-sized enemy, and then to fire iron balls at it until either he or you could fight no more. Victory is ours! Or theirs…

But, it calls to me. And I’ve written a book called Marigold’s End that predates Napoleon, but features that same kind of brutal combat. I love that book.

If you read it, you will love it, too. Or you might merely like it. Or perhaps even dislike it. Hate it. Loathe it. This isn’t going well.

Anyway, today we took a tiny 14-foot sailboat out into the frothing waves beyond the breakwater. Green waves that blotted out the horizon, lifted us way up so that we could see far down the coast, and then dropped us back into the deep trench again.

My daughter told us that last week one of her 9-year-old campers wasn’t dealing with the rise and fall very well. He leaned over the side for a moment, and then sat back up, much relieved.

“There goes my sausage!” he cheerfully announced.

We felt that the wind had gotten up a bit, so we circled around the 1-mile buoy, and then headed back to port.

I must tell you, I was absolutely panicked. I did my best to hide it, but, in a 14-footer, you are right on the water – like, it’s right there. And those waves were green and huge and omnipresent, and I could feel myself drowning right out there. That boat was surely going to tip over, and I would drown.

She turned the boat so that the waves came under our counter, pushing us back into the safety of the breakwater.

But I was in the water, holding onto a rope slung around the quarter of a large sailing ship, plunging under the wave each time a roller happened by. I can see it this moment. I can feel the cold and the panic and the sense of futility. This moment.

The image stayed with me all the way back to the dock, and rides with me here.

I dusted off my old model of the Black Falcon – oh, no need to be nice. It’s a dreadful model, I know – trying to see if I could shake this drowning feeling. No luck.

Now I know I have to write about it seriously. Deal with the story that’s literally dying to be told. I think I actually drowned while hanging onto that rope.

I’m pretty sure the image pops up in Marigold’s End. Now I have to reread it.

I want to rewrite it, but all rewrite projects are on hold for the next few weeks while I concentrate on selling Sawdust Man.

You see, it occurred to me, and this applies to you, that no one will sell your book for you. You have no representative, no agency, other than yourself.

If you don’t represent your book, it will remain unread. If you don’t sell it, it will never sell, and your story will remain untold.

So, I am actively beating the bushes until I find an agent to represent my current offering, Adventures of a Sawdust Man.

Once that is sold, well, maybe then I can afford to drown.

Secret Query Intel

You gotta keep this on the down-low, the ixnay to anybody, you didn’t hear this from me.

But.

My wife heard from the lovely sister-in-law (she read Adventures of a Sawdust Man a loooong time ago, in case you haven’t kept up with The Saga of Me), who has been inspired to begin her own writing project.

Hello? I call that a win in anyone’s book. Not that I inspired her, but that she’s inspired!

Anyway, she confessed to my darling wife that she never sent her notes, for which I waited so many long, desperate weeks, because she didn’t have any! She felt it was ready to publish.

Funnily enough, you can find it published here.

So, Fred Flintstone and I have been having this confab, you see. My Wilma told me she still sees a million clams in the cards. Now comes this notice of non-notiness from the lovely sister.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Pinky?

So, back to how to write a successful query letter.

Step One: Select an agent in your genre.

Step Two: Find an author in your genre that writes somewhat similar so that the potential agent can see your book on the shelf.

Aha, says I. So I have to nail it down that way, does I?

Well, I guess my book is a fantasy, becuase it uses a lot of magic, and it’s historical because it uses a lot of Shakespeare, and it’s Young Adult because one of the protagonists is 17.

So, here’s something to do on a foggy afternoon: do a Google search on the best fantasy novels of 2023.

OMG I’ve never so many lost kingdoms, overrun kingdoms, hidden, secret, forgotten,  blah blah blah… not to denigrate the many authors, but it’s all so, so dark.

Finally, after much searching, I found my guy. Liked him right from the git-go. Can’t tell you his name or I’ll screw the pooch.

But, when you find your author, you find their publisher. Dig just a little deeper, and you can find their literary agency.

Yeah, I said it. Literary. Agency.

Boom. Pay dirt. Scroll through the list of agents, pick out that certain someone, pray to the gods of all things printed that they’re open to queries, and go pick up your million clams!

Nobody tells you this, or maybe they do and I’m too stubborn to read it, but, hey, there it is.

Enjoy your million clams!

Fred Flintstone Calling

I’ve got this great idea, see. All’s ya gotsta do is get everybody in Uruguay to visit your site just once – they don’t even need to linger. That’s over 3.4 million views! Man, you are gonna rake in the dough!

So, the deal with Fred Flintstone – if you’re too young to know – was that he was a caveman, see, the head of a modern stone-age family. His wife, Wilma, and his neighbors Betty and Barney Rubble, lived in the town of Bedrock. A town just like yours and mine, except made out of rock.

It was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series made in the early 1960’s and it was dopey fun.

Fred was every man’s everyman. He was living the caveman equivalent of the American Dream – good job, house in the ‘burbs, picket fence, nice ped-powered car.

A regular Joe, except that he had a penchant for making outlandish, foolproof plans to make a million clams. He was gonna quit the quarry and live the life of a millionaire, just as soon as his ship sailed.

“Barney boy, by this time tomorrow, we are gonna be livin’ like kings!”

Of course he never quite succeeded – Dino the dinosaur dog ate the proceeds, it turned out the ptero-chickens were all ptero-roosters,  Ann Margarock had to be in Rock Vegas on the night of the big event, etc.

At the end of every episode, there was Wilma, reminding him that he already had everything he needed right there in his little family. And he always sheepishly admitted she was right. “Wilma, you are the greatest…”

If you’re reading this, and I imagine you are, you probably have an inner Fred Flintstone yourself.

You’re thinking there’s always a chance, a long shot maybe, but a chance that this one, this stupid crazy-ass scheme, this could be the one. One in a million chance, but, hey, somebody’s gonna make it… Ten bazillion books get published and read every year, why not mine?

So, I recently gave up on my inner Fred. I was a little depressed, maybe. A little tired. I dunno.

I decided that this is the dish, this life o’ mine: this is my someday. Someday I’ll have a nice house in the ‘burbs and a pretty wife and 2.5 kids and a good job with a decent salary. Hey, I have all of that, so this must be it.

All righty, then, Fred. It’s been fun. Good luck with your crazy schemes. I’m hanging up the bronto-phone now – I gotta go mow the lawn.

So, I go and tell my wife, the very love of my life, that I’m hanging up my bronto-spurs, and quote that line from All Things Great and Small where Herriot tells a fellow that someday he’ll be a millionaire, and the fellow replies with “Nah, it’s not in the cards. Was I to be a millionaire, well, I’d be one already, don’t you see?”

My darling wife replies “well, let’s not be too hasty about that.”

Whoa, whoa, hold on, there. That’s a Fred Flintstone line, not a Wilma line! YOU can’t say I’m gonna make a million clams, because YOU’RE the voice of REASON!

Like a bolt out of the blue, I was gobsmacked, thunderstruck, and over the moon in a tizzy of heaven for-fend, she, she, she believes in my crazy schemes!

To quote Goofy, “gorshk.”

So, I’m opening everything back up – Skippity Whistles, California Air Museums, even hauling The Book in for a rewrite.

Do I have a plan?

Heck no! I’m making it up as I go! Never quote me the odds!

My wonderful wife, she, she believes in me!

Wilma: “Oh, Fred.” (Sighs and exits)

A Shift of Wit

You’re a writer – you know how it goes. You push and pull and shove your story into a nice straight line, solving problems and ironing out the bumps. And then a character pops up, and the whole thing goes to heck!

So, if you’ve followed along in The Story of Me, you’ll recall that I finally published the book – Adventures of a Sawdust Man.

It was great fun to write, and rewrite, and rewrite, and, well, finally to finish rewriting.

Here’s something I have to admit to you. I’m a little embarrassed,  but maybe it will help you, too.

Back at the end of the 90s, my life was an absolute mess. A dreadful divorce, a voice-over career that was stuck in the garage, and a management career that fell straight into the dumpstah. I couldn’t make anything work.

And I mysteriously got the idea that I had somehow screwed up back when I got out of college 20 years earlier. That I should have  gone to Hollywood to make my career and fortune, and, that had I done so, my life would not have been the shambles it had become.

I was kind of kicking the can  backward down the road,  blaming my current failures on an imagined failure 20 years in the past.

That sounds crazy, I know, but it was pervasive – it shaped my every thought.

I bought a partnership in a dreadful little business that failed at every turn, reinforcing the idea that I’d run away from my opportunities when I was out of school now almost 30 years before, and was, in effect, a dud. Thank goodness, the Great Recession put that awful business out of business.

As my world solidified and got better, that imagined failure ceased to be imaginary, and became true to me.

Since then, lo these last fifteen or so years, I’ve been scrambling to make up for lost time, to pull off a creative miracle and prove that, even though I turned my back on the opportunity to be like Steve Martin amd Robin Williams, I am NOT a dud.

I crafted all these websites, all these posts, scratched out these novels – somehow, somehow I can fix it. I’ve learned so much, somehow the Universe will see that I’ve changed… digging in the Unknown mines of the Internet to find the jewel that would restore me to my rightful place as a successful talent, wealthy, famous, etc, etc…

And then, just three weeks ago, I had a sharp and stunning memory. In discovering it, I felt as dumb as a box of rocks.

When I got out of school, way back in the late 70’s, I DID consider a Hollywood career. I remembered that I looked at it long and hard and that I orbited the citadel that was Variety magazine, reading the casting calls and actually driving to their locations.

And I remembered that I made the conscious choice to stay OUT of acting. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was a good imitator,  but not a good actor. I could imitate good actors, but I could not act.  I decided then that an acting career was not for me.

Whether I could act or not, the notion that I’d later picked up, that I was a Delbert Dumbbutt who somehow managed to miss a golden opportunity, simply wasn’t true.

OMG, you cannot imagine the weight that has lifted off of me, and off of my work!

I got nothing to prove, man. Nothing.

So, now, in the re-rewrite of that book, there is no weight, no pressure to prove that at least I’m a good writer. Now I can just tell the story my characters want me to write. A new one has already popped,  completely  changing the course of the book!

And yet, and yet, I have started all these websites and all these projects, and I do earn my daily bread as a professional writer. So, all was not in vain.

The message to you, my writerly friend, is to look long and hard at your assumptions, for they may not be what you think!

Searching for Los Alamos

Over the weekend my wife and I drove up to the Central Coast town of Santa Maria to shoot another California Air Museums episode.

The day was blustery, with rain squalls rattling the roof of the old hangers that house the Santa Maria Air Museum. It’s a fascinating little museum, more displays than airplanes, but, if you’re a movie buff, it’s one to not miss.

We got there late in the afternoon, just an hour before they closed at four. Once done, we weren’t quite ready to rush back to Ventura, and decided to visit a little burg called Los Alamos.

Now, here’s a story: back in California’s stagecoach days, a bandito named Solomon Pico stored his loot in a bunch of caves near Santa Maria. Of course, the loot’s never been found, and now the caves are buried under the Main Street of Los Alamos – oh, to have a sinkhole!

We got lost trying to find that little town and found ourselves in the even littler town of Casmalia.

A town so small that it literally has more letters in its name than it does buildings on its main street.

A post office, a boarded-up feed and grain store, and a big building that used to be a hotel back in the stagecoach days, rather swank from what we could discover. Now it’s a high-end steak house.

Having postponed our search for Los Alamos and Solomon Pico’s gold, we decided to find Point Sal Beach, and Point Sal Road turns out to be the main drag in Casmalia. In fact, it’s the only drag.

Jutting off from Highway 1, Point Sal Road quickly becomes one-and-a-half lanes, and takes you straight through Casmalia’s sleepy downtown, and, just about half a mile later, dumps you out in front of a Dead-End sign.  

It has nothing to do with Point Sal.

We dove into the steakhouse to answer the call of nature and spotted a lady sawing away on a steak that was easily the size of a baseball catcher’s mitt, except much thicker.  We tried not to stare, but, shoot, lady. What part of the cow was that thing?

And, here’s a stunner, there was no cell service in Casmalia! Like a scene from the Twilight Zone – we could get in, but couldn’t find our way out. Picture, if you will…

Eventually, after we figured out that Point Sal Road had nothing to do with Point Sal Beach, we retraced our steps back out of Casmalia, found the real Point Sal, and followed the looooong road to get to the parking lot at the bottom of the hill.

A hill? I thought Point Sal was a beach. Yes, yes it is. But you have to hike 5 miles over the hills to get there! Well, now it’s six o’clock, and the wind and rain and setting sun, and the… still, we gave it a go.

And got a mile and a half into the hills before the rain came and the clock hit seven and we realized that it would be dark before we got back to the truck.

Cold, wet, windblown, and muddy, we dragged ourselves into the truck in the moonlight that squeaked out between the rapidly moving clouds.

Trying to find our way home, we found Los Alamos, and had a lovely and elegant dinner at the only place open, a place simply called Pico, in the lobby of what was the rather swank Los Alamos Hotel. You know, back in the stagecoach days.

Is there point to this ramble about our ramble?

Yes, and the point is this: no matter where you are, you are always just minutes away from some far flung, wacky adventure.

Our jobs, yours and mine, as writers, is to seek out this crazy moment and use them to illuminate the worlds of our characters.

You know, like they did back in the stagecoach days!

On Being Who We are Not

I find it funny that we spend most of our lives figuring out who we are. Like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh – “that’s what Tiggers like best!” Only to find that we’ve generated what could be a rather longish list of things we are not.

My house reminds me every day of things that I am not.  It looks at me and whispers things like “you sure ain’t no plumber!”

Who made that patch in the wallboard, there? How come the orange-peel texture doesn’t look right? Did you replace the glass in that window? ‘Cause it kinda looks like it…

I noticed over the weekend the scars on my right arm, left over from when I had to replace the spark plugs every month in my Ford van. Because I am surely no mechanic!

Okay, be fair, now.

It was the heart of the Great Recession, and the company I owned had gone belly up. And that van had almost two hundred thousand miles on it, and needed serious work that just wasn’t in the budget. And that van, that thing was a Freestar, and had that transverse-mounted V-6, and you couldn’t even see the plugs on the rear side to get them in or out.

And you couldn’t reach ‘em from underneath, so you had to sort of hug the engine and stretch waaaaay down there into the dark first with your right hand to probe for the spark plug with your fingers, and then again with a wrench to get it out. Torque? Forget about it! And there were, like, the sharp ends of a hundred or so bolts sticking out of the firewall – oh it was tough, and it was bloody. And then you had to do the same thing again to put the new plug in!

Nope, not a mechanic.

So, my Honda Ridgeline ran out of windshield washer juice, see. And it seriously needs to be washed. And I can’t even see out of the windshield.

Now, in December we invested in kayaks, see, and put a set of racks on the truck to haul ‘em around.

But you can’t put the truck through the car wash with the racks on.

And now it’s March, see, and our schedules are soooo tight, there’s no chance of the boats seeing any water until at least May.

So, I’m out there with a 17mm ratcheting-box-head wrench, and my wife is looking at me, asking “why don’t we just wash the truck?”

I look at her for a long moment.

Our front lawn looks shaggy because we can mow it ourselves, thank you very much, but can’t find the time. The gate that leads to the side yard has new boards in it, but they aren’t painted yet, because, well, now I fixed the gate – and one of these days I’ll get around to painting it. And we just invested a huge pile of money in reworking our plumbing because, hey, it’s easy – alls ya gotsta do is buy one of them snake things, see?

“Because we never WILL wash the truck,” I reply sadly. “We will EVENTUALLY get to the lawn. SOMEDAY I’ll finish the gate. It turns out, we’re not those kinds of people. It’s not what we are.”

She looked at me thoughtfully, and then smiled.

“Do you need help taking the racks off?”

Just a quick note – the image for this post was generated for free at Craiyon.com. The prompt was “blue ford freestar with hood open and smoke coming out.” Sort of missed on the hood thing, but it’s pretty cool! Just thought I’d give them a shout out because their AI made the image for free.