The End Of Road: Time to Retire This Blog

Southeastern Utah: My logo for the Easy-Writer blog since the beginning.
Symbolic of the writer's path.

Today, the sky is blue, and in the horizon there are few clouds. Beneath my tires is well worn asphalt. I've driven through cities, red rock canyons, along streams and rivers. And finally, I have come to a fork in the road.

Since March of 2006, it's been a good ride, but it's time to put this blog into mothballs for a long while. I've already moved onto other topics, and in doing so have stepped into a much different world. This isn't to say that literature and books have been left behind, rather I've taken them with me. Since 2008, I've been working with this new pastiche over here.

There are many terrific pieces here that I'm proud to have written. I have to thank the Los Angeles Times Pressmen for giving me my start as a blogger. It was an appreciation I wrote for Otis Chandler, which kicked off this blog. The Easy-Writer blog led to the creation of several others about writing: The Writerly Pause, which hosted a writing group and also held author interviews and reviewed ARC's. Writer Impossible, is an ongoing collection of my articles on writing. I also posted my poetry on a separate blog. I even started The Literary Fashionista, which took on fashion week, and earned the appreciation of designers and publicists.

But like a book, even blogs must have a final chapter, and this one has been in the writing since 2008 when I started to lose interest. Good writing shouldn't be a struggle, and yet writing across the blogosphere trying to keep all things separate has proven to be untenable.

My reasons for keeping things separate is I knew most who inhabit literary circles and read this blog, had no interest in anything military. In the worst sense I was pandering to them. They didn't want to hear about war, a few disagreed with it passionately, and didn't want to read about soldiers. I never forced it, even though I wrote some fine posts, and gave a viewpoint of war that was unique.

But my world has changed, and it's natural to reflect this. Besides, writers have to be a part of the world, and I'm grateful for the door that opened onto this new terrain.

If a blog is a reflection of who the writer is, then certainly everything should go onto one blog. Those who can't take the variety, will leave. I'm not looking for big numbers or accolades. No, if I can have my preconceived notions blasted away, learn something and grow, then that's the real payoff. Hence, I'm turning onto the road that leads to my permanent digs, The Kitchen Dispatch. I've found the military community broad enough it can handle my ramblings on writing and also my stuff on yoga. This blog shall remain. People can hunt and peck on the archives. I feel it's far better to write a final farewell post than to just abandon it without any indication of what has happened. This has been a terrific blog, and it deserves a graceful farewell.

I'm thanking all the readers who have supported me over the years. So join me on The Kitchen Dispatch. You can even click on the little "Follow Me" button and get it onto your feed.
Same me, only more.
Keep writing, keep editing, keep submitting. The dream is very much still alive. A writer never stops writing. They just go onto finishing other books.

Irreverence Requires A Bit Of Knowledge, Or Stupidity Abounds

First, read this article about a school in Northern California. They were kicked off campus for wearing t-shirts with US flags on Cinco de Mayo.

Okay, I can't say whether or not those students who all decided to wear the same t-shirts and bandannas were doing to incite a fight. What I can say is those of Mexican heritage, the administrators and the alleged perpetrators were completely lacking historical knowledge.
And that should be more of a pisser than anything else.
I mean, c'mon, get it together.

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. It's to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla in 1862, when a small Mexican Army fought off a much larger French Army and won.

I can't say whether the French Army was drunk off their butts after a night of imbibing the best tequila (and you know, the French would only have premium stuff). However, if one wanted to be irreverent, those students should have worn French ones. They could wear berets, screen films by Truffaut, perhaps have a picnic with serving French food made from recipes straight out of the very American Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," and yes, blare Edith Piaf in the cafeteria. They could practice pithy pick up lines and say, "You have a certain je ne sais quois."

The Mexican students could counter by offering up their own well known cuisine, which we here in California eat everyday (salsa and tortillas are staples in our house. Proof of some kind of gastronomic victory). They could have a film retrospective of works by Cantinflas, display artwork by Diego Rivera, and wear their own t-shirts as well. They could have any number of musicians --take your pick. Maybe they could ask Salma Hayek to make an appearance. If she did, well, there's no doubt, Mexico will have won again.

But both ought to think about being the melting pot rather than the salad bowl with all its various elements, which has led to separation. Read about that here in Victor Davis Hanson's "The Remains of a California Day."

Lessons In Balance In A Field In Afghanistan

Watch the video at:
The Kitchen Dispatch: Lessons In Balance In A Field In Afghanistan

A David Mamet Writing Lesson: GOT IT?

So true.

Especially when shouted by playwright David Mamet.

"THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. YOU THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE EVERY SCENE IS DRAMATIC."

Now, get to it.

On Writing and making films: Restrepo - One Platoon, One Year, One Valley

“I don’t want to not have these memories, because they’re the moments that make me appreciate all that I have.” -From the documentary, Restrepo

Over on The Kitchen Dispatch, I'm running an interview with filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington.Read the rest at:
The Kitchen Dispatch

Power Point: An Oafish Bulleted World

At my daughter's school, technology now takes a firm foothold in the daily curriculum. By grade eight, all students are proficient in Word, Power Point and Excel. Unfortunately, under the sway of technology marketers, the school board has minimized former mainstays of the primary and middle school experience. Orchestra, chorus, art, photography and band are a glimmer of what they used to be when children and teens had time to explore. It's been reduced to this, which while worthy, is yet a pale imitation of what we once had.

A bus full of computers and video equipment that makes the rounds to the schools.
No doubt, a valuable communication tool, but everything we bring to the bench must be met with a critical eye to ensure its being used properly.

Parents are to blame, too. They are convinced if their child doesn't have his or her own lap top by the eighth grade, he or she will be consigned to a life of penury. Glibly allured of success and riches, the parents (at some schools) whip out their high-percent credit card to lease a lap top in a 1:1 program supported by the board. And so it is, children should be able to put the history of California missions on an eight page Power Point presentation. That's right, all sixty four years of it.

To be fair there isn't an institution that hasn't fallen sway under the false promise of higher efficiency and clearer understanding that Power Point promises. Power Point presentations are de rigeur in businesses, governmental and non governmental agencies. Armed with laptops, people stride into rooms with a presentation guaranteed to bullet main points. No where is this more true than in the military. Want to understand the intricate military strategy Afghanistan? How about this:
In a great article titled, We Have Met The Enemy, and He Is Power Point in The New York Times, General McChrystal was said to have dryly remarked,

"When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war."

He's not the only one tired of the endless slides. General Mattis, upon deciding not to use it when speaking at a conference in North Carolina said, "Power Point makes us stupid." And General McMaster said,

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

As he points out, adhering to a rigid bullet point style presentation with frequently changing slides, often doesn't account for the intricacies and nuances of social, political, economic and ethnic forces. It doesn't take into account history, either. “If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise,” says General McMaster. And yet, officers and NCO's spend inordinate amounts of time on this technology.

So onward we let our children trudge a path that Generals are claiming is shaded by falsehood. Sometimes the less information you present, the less information you actually comprehend. If only some points are presented, this means the big picture might be an abstraction. Power Point presentations are akin to slimmed down Cliff Notes: you know the main characters of a book, you have a general idea of what they do, but you have no idea of why they carry out their actions. And I'm not saying, hey, don't do it. But I am saying we have to keep it in check. Perhaps parents should spend far more time hauling the kids to the library, letting them check out whatever books they want (no matter how looney), than spending it on the computer. In-depth knowledge is everything. Observing, listening, communicating and trying by doing is everything. Making a Power Point presentation about The Thirty Years War reduced to 10 slides may be interesting and time consuming, but it doesn't necessarily increase the depth of one's own understanding.

Orchestra, band, chorus, and art are important because through those we learn intricacies, nuance, and relationships. We see and hear how notes strung together can create a harmony. We experiment mixing colors, fiddle around with how to shade, figure out what perspective does to the appearance of an object. These are all nuances, finer points, and taking those out of the big picture leaves us with one thing: a bulleted Power Point presentation of life. This gives rise to half formed opinions and clumsily made decisions for an oafish world where no one wins.

The Writing Path: An MFA might matter less than you think

Today, I was reading an piece in AWP's The Writer's Chronicle about "theme" in writing. Written by Eileen Pollack, she's the Zell Director (as in Helen, wife of Sam, owner of the bankrupt Tribune Company, and has induced the LA Times in a near coma...talk about irony) of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She revealed that when she spoke about "theme" in her class, she avoids the word altogether and talks about aboutness.

Okay, I'm game for huge philosophical discussions. But if we're reducing theme to aboutness, I can do without the 2 year expense of a master's program. To be fair, she had plenty of great examples to help us understand the intricacies of meaning as it pertains to the development of story and character. She offered this truism:

"paradoxically, the more you understand your story's meaning, the less you need to say."

There were also examples on how to discern when your story is floating on nothingness or headed toward so whatness (my terms). But by and large I had the awful feeling this article was a peril or publish deal. I had to reread passages to figure out what she was saying. There was so much thereness there, it caused my eyes to glaze over. She ended her long article with a phrase that naturally will separate people into two camps: the MFA and the non-MFA writer:

"By the end, if you keep your faith, you come up with a story that embodies in every line what you never knew you knew but now you know you don't know, and damn well wish you did."

I'm grateful there are ivory towers for writers like her. If she had to make her living writing $150 articles, competing with others to blog, tweet or facebook for pay, or take up an offer for press credentials to report in a war zone, I'm afraid she'd never make it. Because most writers don't think like her. If they did --they'd never write again.

MFA programs in creative writing are the redevelopment agencies of the academic world. They exist to keep writers employed. Maybe I'm being a bit brutal, but it seems with the number of them sprouting like mushrooms on a lawn, this assessment is correct. We've gone from a few august ones like The Iowa Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa, to low residency, brief residency, residency in your home wearing boxer shorts. Perhaps an imagined residency program is in the works. Since writers will always desire jobs with benefits and a steady income, MFA programs will continue to proliferate.

Recently, a friend suggested we close down all the MFA programs in the U.S. He isn't the only one to issue the battle cry, look at this discussion between five successful authors about MFA programs. They have all have been published and have even taught. If you want to see a hilarious comparison between MFA and non-MFA writers go look at Letters to Moby written in 2005 in The Final MFA report (I suppose it doesn't have a hypertext link because the MFA who wrote it hadn't figured out HTML):

"Non–MFA people seem to need more food than MFA people and were often super–concerned with who is in charge of the grill. The MFA grads were more suited for tube–floating and complaining about the food. Both groups suck at fishing, but MFA people have the capacity to catch small frogs." -Michael A Fitzgerald, Boise ID

I don't think we need to shut down MFA programs. But when we read pieces like Eileen Pollack's, we need to ask if getting a master's degree is going to make a better writer. Well, it might. There's no denying that time spent with other writers talking about their stories, or even hashing out topics like theme is inspiring, and energizing. Intellectual stimulation is a good thing. A program will probably give you easier access to a wide breadth of material. What it does above all else, is give you the luxury of two years to write and think about the nuances of the things Pollack writes about. The about of aboutness, so to say. And really? Who wouldn't want some of that? Especially writers, who tend to be awful procrastinators.

Will it help you write more interesting stories? Well, no. It might not.

Perhaps the question is, will it help you make your living as a writer? The answer is no. There are no guarantees you'll be able to pay the rent as a writer --especially now, when most are doing it free on the internet. The truth is that it will always be a lot of work.

This being said, I think there are many other ways to become a better writer. The first is to read a lot, and stretch yourself to read outside of your genre. Find a university extension program and take a ten week course. If you can't do that, take a two week workshop, a weekend workshop, even a two hour workshop with a writer whom you respect. Read magazines, join writing groups, keep up on what's being published now. Go ahead and have those heady intellectual discussions. I don't think writers do that enough.

But the most important thing is to be open to feedback and discussion with other writers. No one learns how to write alone, no one learns how to make something passable into a great piece without the example of others. One can't underscore the importance of something bloggers don't talk about enough -- word mechanics. Learn to write to the end, and don't be surprised when you discover editing your work is more painful than writing the first draft.

As I have said before, a writer is always learning and honing their skills. The majority of writers in the world have never gone through an MFA program. There's only your desire and determination to get you started and keep you going.

A Writer Unraveled

Just a bit of Coldplay for you this morning.

Complete with lyrics tossed in.

I was listening to this music when I was struck by how much it resembles the fate of a popular journalist who seems to have fallen off the rails through a series of rambling Facebook posts. Perhaps it was predictable, given that he'd wrongly been compared to Ernie Pyle, a writer of great dexterity, wit and could jump from funny to poignant in one single sentence. People might make the comparison, but believing it is a distraction from the reality: writing skills are continuously honed. Wordsmithing is hard work.

Earlier this week, I (along with many others) took him to task for assuming and writing from a point of view in which he had no authority to be filling in the blanks. He also compared the staff charged to help him crazy monkeys. Now he's pissed off that he's been shut out of a key office because he forgot: they're the gatekeepers. Perhaps he was spoon fed for way too long. He forgot that new and better writers are already on the same path.

Anyway, going through this and watching his general unraveling, I know how people felt when they watched Dylan Thomas drink himself to death.

The Case For A Better Flip Flop

Really, now. We must expect that people will drive to the Coachella Valley, listen to music, get wasted and wear flip flops. The flip flop should be made fail proof!

A better way to get around that nasty cloud

It can be said that one can get anywhere in the world if they have money, time, or usually both.
As for getting to Europe right now, I say a cruise would get around that nasty cloud just fine.