Diary Entry, 17 Oct 2012, The Day of My Mother’s Death.

Yes, I actually have a diary AND a blog. Most of what goes up here is not personal, but I recently suffered a tragedy, the loss of my mother, and I think the only way to share that is to share the diary entry for the day. I have cleaned it up a little, given it some context, but it is generally unedited.

Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Up late, running behind in the morning. Come into work knowing I must get a report draft done at work for the Disaster Recovery Test that happened Sunday, so I have time to get it reviewed and edited before Friday.

Novel-wise, after reading and digesting some plot books last night, I really feel like Jesus and the Red Baron is about to come together. This causes a conflict in me, a need to do one thing and a feverish desire to do something else. Ah, the minor dramas life are founded on.

Immediately after writing the above lines, probably somewhere around 7:30am, during a break, my cell phone rings, caller ID saying it’s my mother. I open the cell phone and say, “Hi Mom, what’s up?” but a man’s voice responds. I think for a moment I’ve simply misread the caller ID, but then he says, “Sir, this is Officer (I don’t remember) from the Hawkins Police Department.” and I’m immediately chilled. When he continues and says, “I don’t know how to tell you this,” I know immediately that my mother is dead.

There is no other reason a police officer would call from my mother’s house and say those words. He continues to explain that she was found dead this morning and that they needs someone in the family to come down and release the body to the funeral home. I am not much use for several moments, all I can say is, “Oh god, oh god,” but I finally remember that her brother, Uncle Tim, lives nearby in Tyler. I then wonder how I forgot that I had an Uncle at all. I guess in shock/grief, the mind does some crazy stuff.

The second I am off the phone, I type up a careening 3-sentence email to my boss that mostly apologizes that the DR report will be late, and then I shut down my computer and call my wife. I am not thinking clearly, still, and tell her to take Sami to school. Just before I leave work, I tell my co-worker Nesbit what’s happened, and he asks over and over if I am able to drive or not. I must look shaky or staggery or something. I tell him I am NOT sure if I can drive, but I don’t really have a choice.

Nebit’s right, I drive like a madman — I’m just lucky not to hit anyone. At one point, I pull through a stop light like it was a stop sign. Future reference: Driving while crying, not safe.

When I get to my house, I call Uncle Tim, and he says he’s heading down and asks when will be there, and then I realize that yes, of course, I have to go down immediately. I should’ve know better than to put Sami in school, I should’ve known I would have to go out to mom’s house ASAP, but my brain is not working well. I tell Tim we will be there as soon as we can.

We pick up Sami Faye, throw some clothes in a paper bag, and head out for the two-hour road trip to Hawkins. On the way, I call Betty Brown, my mom’s best friend who lives near her, but Betty’s not in. Her husband answers instead and is terrified that it’s me. He thinks he will have to tell me that my mother is dead, and it’s tearing him up like a tiger from the inside. I manage to choke back my own emotions, and quickly tell him I already know what’s going on, and just have Betty call me when she gets back. Tim and Cheryl  call to tell me that they’ve left while the body is removed; Tim cannot stand to see dead bodies, and I think he should probably counted sane for that. They are at the only restaurant in town, having lunch. I ask them if they have a key, because we do not, and if the door is locked, we may be locked out. They don’t have a key, and they think the house may already be locked.

We get out there, though, and the house is not locked. Tim and Cheryl are inside, holding down the fort. The house is wrecked — not dirty — very few dirty dishes, actually, all in the sink, and a steak on the table she had intended to eat, yes — but the mess is primarily paper. Bills, statements, and junk mail going back twenty years, every prescription bottle or health supplement or medicine she bought in the past 10 years, many of them sealed in the wrapper in valuepaks but still expired. The pantries are the same: huge boxes of food and expensive teas, expired for years, but unopened and still sealed.

She was a collector, my mom, but unfortunately she collected a lot of things that were useless.

We spend most of the day cleaning the papers out of the kitchen — they’re stacked three feet high on the dining room table and most of the counters, shoved into shoeboxes, shoved into every drawer. One huge drawer overflows with phone books, all of them she’s ever received. And everywhere, everywhere, we find pictures of Sami Faye. My mom really loved her, I guess, even though she seemed so distant during visits. Like my  wife says, I don’t think Mom figured out how to be a Grandma, but she was happy to be one.

At some point during the day, my wife tells Sami Faye that Ma Jo is dead and gone away forever, and that her house is ours now. Lucky for us, Sami is too young to understand. She takes it very well, and is sure that Ma Jo will come back one day.

Sami, it turns out, loves Nick, Jr, and watches it for hours, especially this show called UmiZumi. We don’t have cable at home, so this is an unexpected blessing and really frees us up to work.

Call Steve D, mom’s retirement person, call a lot of relatives, but I don’t get to the bank before it closes. That will be for tomorrow.

The amount of trash is unbelievable. Near dark, there is an entire corner of the yard full of trashbags, all full of paper.

There’s a moment of panic in the evening as I remember there are guns in the house, and our daughter is loose. We go searching and find a BB rifle, and for a few minutes we think it’s real, so we call Uncle Tim. He tells us that if we find any guns, just lock them in the trunk of the car.

At the funeral home, earlier in the day, we sort out most of what will happen at the funeral. We will come back tomorrow to pick the urn and pay the bill. Mom always wanted to be cremated, and she owned a plot next to dad, so we know where to put her. Cremation, it turns out, is very inexpensive. Betty B doesn’t know that mom wanted to be cremated, and I am very concerned about this as she is my mom’s closest living friend. I am upset for a while, thinking maybe my mother didn’t tell anyone but me, and that I am going to be looked down on as a cheapskate and as a someone who has dishonored the memory of his parents, but Brother Bill, the pastor who lives next door to Mom, says Mom told lots of people about cremation, and to not worry about it.

We sleep at the house, bringing in the mattress of the daybed into the bedroom that was mine in my youth. We know for sure that we will stay mostly through the weekend, but we have to go back up briefly before Friday to ship an Etsy sale and get stuff for us. Still, it is hard to sleep with all the work left to do.

Cousin Darrell is Dead… Finally!

I’ve been trying to remove a particularly bothersome character, Cousin Darrell, from my novel for a while. For those of you following along at home — he’s dead. At last. Or, more properly, he has ceased to have ever existed.

This coincides with me reading a passage in Donald Maass’s “Writing the Breakout Novel” about keeping the number of characters to a minimum. I am tempted, indeed, to put the nix on another one of the troublesome Bascom cousins… But I don’t think I should. If I do, some of the plot changes get pretty intense.

I will continue to reflect. I hope I choose wisely.

A noticeable lack of writing that must be corrected

I have not been writing. Instead, I have been “researching” wuxia fiction and TV shows for the past several weeks — that’s my official excuse.

I’ve always wanted to write a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon style story — possibly a whole epic fantasy trilogy — and, for some reason, I decided to start researching it now.

That said, I still have not finished the Dark Sequel. Instead, I’ve been watching a Wuxia TV series. Bad me! I know! But now that series is done, and I have my life back — I believe it is time to start back on the Dark Sequel and knock the rough draft out of the way so I can start writing other stuff.

Monty Python is the Meaning of Life

Well, I’ve done it. To improve the silly, Monty Python-esque, surrealism-inspired book I am currently writing (in truth, I’m currently writing two books simultaneously, and only one of them is silly) — I’ve determined that I need to come to a greater understanding of stand-up, skit, and other forms of comedy. Essentially, I need to rapidly, efficiently develop a high level of expertise in something I’ve never done. Yay! MORE impossible goals!

So, how do you graduate from being just a snarky writer and entertaining guy/gal in a crowd to a full humorist? No idea! But here’s my current strategy:

1) Read books by and on Monty Python:
– The Complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus: All the Words (Vol 1 and Vol 2) (reading one episode a night and acting out key scenes to practice movement, elocution, and emotion)
– Michael Palin’s Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years (the full 700 page book, not the abridged audio (which is also good) for an inside perspective of Python in it’s heyday and the personalities involved)
Monty Python Speaks (for the opinions of the other members)
– Graham Chapman’s A Liar’s Autobiography (I only have the abridged audio read by Chapman, I’d love a hard copy so I can get past the abridgements but they are rare and expensive! I re-listen to this regularly to try and get that madness back in my words)

The goal of this research is to be able to build a sort of mental armature or model of each member of Monty Python as they were back in the old days, to try and estimate how each of the six members might think. Not sure if this will prove to be of any value, but I’m hoping it will give an extra perspective and polish to my work. As a note, I am finding Terry Gilliam to be a particularly fascinating individual, and John Cleese is a strange type of hyper-analytic genius.

Note: I would really like to read The Pythons: Autobiography, the classic Monty Python’s Big Red Book (which is blue, of course), and Brand New Monty Python Bok, but I haven’t been able to find them for a reasonable price — and I’ve spent so much money already, it’s really hard for me to justify it.

2) Read books on Comedy:
The Comedy Bible by Judy Carter (very interesting insights to modern joke and sitcom structure)
The Comic Toolbox by John Vorhaus (Vorhaus wrote “Married With Children”, but I can forgive him, there are some great brainstorming techniques in here, but his plot advice is pretty rudimentary)
Step by Step to Stand Up Comedy by Greg Dean (not very far into this one, but it gives you a lot of information about the classic punchline that is missing from the Comedy Bible, as CB focuses on “Act-Outs” and performance.)
– Signed up for Dean Lewis’s Comedy Workshop, where I will have a last performance at the Dallas Improv. (I sat in on one of his Level 2 classes, and everyone was HILARIOUS; if there is any hope for me to really learn this, this may be it)

The goal of this is to learn performance and modern joke structure, to give me more insights into the old Monty Python mindset. This is far outside my normal limns and safety zones, a dramatic shift for myself personally, and the stage work especially is a stretch for me — and fills me with a terror of a uniquely gut-clawing and nauseous breed. A bit like gas, really. Or a chestburster.

3) Listen to Watch Comedy
– Eddie Izzard’s Dressed to Kill (he is the heir apparent to Python’s style, and it’s amazing how effortlessly it all comes together; especially trying to work out when and how he does his faces and changes in intonation)
– Steve Martin’s Wild and Crazy Guy (some obvious influence on Izzard, love his body mechanics)
– Steven Wright I Have a Pony (great surrealism, but I crack up when I try to be that stonefaced)
– Comedy Central Presents and Comedy Central Death Ray, whatever other stand up I can get used/cheap
– I’d say Flying Circus and all the movies (Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Meaning of Life), but I’ve seen them so much they’re almost memorized.
Beyond the Fringe (A strong influence on Monty Python, where Dudley Moore got his start; really kicked off the wave of satire that Python later rode)
Do Not Adjust Your Set (Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle) and At Last the 1948 Show (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle) (both series are Monty Python pre-cursors)
I’m Sorry I’ll Read that Again (John Cleese and Graham Chapman radio show, another precursor)
– The Compleat History of Britain (Palin and Jones) (another precursor that I’ve only found on youtube)
The Goon Show — Spike Miligan, Harry Seacombe, and Peter Sellers (a strong influence on the 5 British Monty Python members when they were kids)
Fawlty Towers

The goal of this is to identify what I like best and to analyze it, to see what is being done. For instance, how to Martin and Izzard fill time when they’ve forgotten what’s next? What do you do if a joke fails? How do you make the audience accept surreality in their humor? And HOW IN GOD’S NAME does Martin walk around on his toes with his knees bent without falling down?

4) Constant Practice
– Carry notebook to jot down ideas constantly
– Carry Digital Voice Recorder to record act-outs and ideas and test runs of jokes and anything that gets a snicker during the day
– Do brain storming exercises every day (this also helps with serious writing)
– Somehow learn to have no shame on stage, practice Act-Outs as part of every day stuff, but only if appropriate
– KEEP WRITING BOTH OF MY NOVELS (this has been difficult and slow since I broke my thumb (hey, did I mention that my right hand is in a cast? typing now requires gymnastic effort), but it is critical; this is all about making me a better writer.)

This is the part where the rubber meets the road, practice, reciting jokes aloud, opening up myself and uncoiling the stresses that keep me mousy and quiet during the crushing banality of ordinary life. I don’t LIKE being quiet and mousy, and I’m NOT, not with my friends or on my own time. While I obviously find this freeing — downright revolution-inspiring — there’s one part I don’t like a about it: Comedy is built on negativity in an almost universal manner. Comedians talk about what scares them, annoys them, upsets them, weirds them out — jokes about things they like usually flop for the same reason long periods of happiness with no conflict flop in fiction… Conflict is central.

In fact, what I’m finding out is that the elements of comedy — even stand-up jokes — have a lot in common with fiction writing. Minimalist verbiage, good hooks in the setup, universal themes, punchy pacing, the importance of being unexpected. My hope is that my expertise in one area will transfer easily to the other.

Special thanks to my writing friends (Jonathan Wood (author of No Hero), Michelle Muenzler, William Ledbetter) and to my wife for supporting me on this crazy project. Especially to my wife; she has to put up with most of it.

A Fun Stylistic Analysis of Monty Python, and a Request for Help

If you know me at all, you know I like Monty Python. It would not be far from the truth to say I was raised on a steady diet of Python (and, of course, Doctor Who. But that is off topic — GET BACK IN THE BLOODY BLUE BOX, TIMELORD!! It’s not your post!)

The result is that I have a zany, surreal sense of humor, and I tend to like my humor British. Despite the fact that I have lived most of my life in Texas. You can imagine the complications (the skits write themselves, don’t they?)

So… When I decided that I should write something funny for a change (instead of all this dark stuff I’ve been struggling to sell, as full of irony as it may be (i.e., “Teddy Bears and Tea Parties: A Horror Story”)), funny to me meant Monty Python.

This left me with quite a problem on my hands (and when I say problem, I mean a twenty-foot tall electric penguin with green tentacles shooting out.) So I did what any self-respecting only-child of two college professors WOULD do — I started studying.

I downed the whole Python series again in one go (doing my best to keep an eye on how things worked), and then all of the movies. This of course was not enough. I needed something I could analyze at a much more leisurely rate. Rather than driving my wife mad by rewinding skits and sketching out scripts for them, I dived into the written materials out there… (Pardon me while I elide time for convenience and pacing — if I had the skills, I would insert a Terry Gilliam-style animation, probably about monkeys using books as wings, but at some point turning into monkey-headed cherubic angels all shooting plungers off their harpstrings at each other, while a large, decapitated head of Graham Chapman (he’s dead already, he won’t mind) eats large parts of Parliament in the background. However, I do not have any animation skills whatsoever, so there is no animation, and you’ll just have to deal with it.

Ahem… I seem to be rambling. Let’s hope I keep it up, it’s a downsight more interesting that me actually saying anything.

Python then kicked me to the “Goon Show”, and the “Goon Show” to “Firesign Theater”, and then back to Python (Graham Chapman’s “Liar’s Autobiography”) who — with a sharp pass to Westminster Cathedral — sent me spinning under the feet of “At Last It’s the 1948” show, then to Kingsley Amis who gets the ball stolen from him by Cyril Connolly and book on Pythons and Philosophy — who shoots — and SCORES! GOOOAAAAL! And all the books and TV and radio series are all hugging each other now, in this, the first FIFA finals in untaming one man’s sense of humor.

It’s been quite an adventure so far, and I guess I will see if it pays off with the new novel, but the new novel is not what this post is about.

It’s about something I didn’t expect to find. Way down deep in the dank, cavernous mazes of Michael Palin’s Diaries (somewhere between the plastic skeletons chained to the wall and the fake rats squeaking and trying to nibble my toes off with their little rubber teeth) — and simultaneously in Graham Chapman’s “Liar’s Autobiography” — and simultaneously-again in “Monty Python Speaks” and again-again in the audio-commentary for the Monty Python Autobiography, I stumbled into a strange sort of perspective:

Success rarely happens in a day. It’s random. It is, in a way, luck.

These guys were good — really good — arguably the BEST at what they did, but they were still “lightly paid writer/performers” until one day… They just suddenly realized they weren’t. They didn’t expect it to happen. They were just plodding along, and then, all the sudden, they were hanging out with famous people, making a little more money, and then a LOT more money.

When I go back and look at “The Complete and Utter History of Britain” and “At Last the 1948 Show” and other things, I see that they were doing very Python-style stuff before Python. Not as extreme, no, not as experimental, not free from the constraints of format or punchline — but still very Pythonesque. In effect, Python was just another logical step in what they had been doing all along — and it went big.

…And this makes me think it can happen to anyone. Most of us work hard at our arts and never get noticed. But it CAN happen, and it does happen, and you don’t even realize it’s happening, usually, until — BOOOOM! — you’re being shot out of a cannon with a raving maniac shouting, “You better learn how to land, son, or this is really going to hurt!” up at you.

And that thought… Well, it gives me hope. (Not the cannon one, the one before that — oh, you know!!)

And now we come to the dream-portion of this post. Terry Gilliam once described several of the incredibly lucky events in his life as, “It was like I was willing them to happen.” That he knew such crazy strings of coincidences were possible, so he put himself out there in the way of big events, where they might be, and — well — they just hit him.

I want to be like that. I want to put myself out there in the middle of things, so this is my dream:

I’d like to meet all of these guys (the living ones, obviously.)

I know a lot of them are tired of Python. They’ve moved on (and rightly so!), done huge bodies of wonderful work — Terry Gilliam has some absolutely astounding and amazing movies, Terry Jones has his documentaries, Palin his innumerable series, Cleese as always is a genius, and heck, Eric Idle has even written a Science Fiction book called “The Road to Mars”!

But that’s my dream, to one day meet all of the living Pythons. Why? I really don’t know. They just seem like they’d be a blast to hang out with, really. Who could ask for more than that? That I’ve found their work hilarious, moving, and even inspiring may also enter into it.

The problem is, I don’t know these guys, they don’t know me, and, really, what chance does a minor-league-short-story-writer-wannabe-novelist really have of meeting (much less shaking hands with and sharing a pint of beer or a cup of tea) with mega-stars that live anywhere they want to live and do whatever they want, when they want?

Here comes the hard part, and if I don’t say it now I won’t ever say it:

I need your help — specifically, your brainpower, your voice, maybe a little bit of your time.

I want to meet these guys, and the way I grok it, the only way they’re going to want to meet me is if the situation fascinates them. So what I need is the crazy, the surreal, the absolutely impossible:

I need an internet movement.

Specifically, an “S. Boyd Taylor wants to meet Monty Python” movement. With buttons! Fliers! Silly goings on!

If you want to help — post a link to this, retweet it, talk about it at work, facebook it, tell your budgie, or call up John Cleese if you used to share a toothbrush with him at University and are still close, or even post YouTube videos of you in a Gumby outfit with a handkerchief on your head chanting, “S. Boyd Taylor wants to meet Monty Python.”

Anything harmless and humorous, really.

Then we’ll see if it works.

Update

Things seem to be roaring along. +1350 words today.

I wish I had hit 2,000 words, but I think I need to build back up to that kind of output or I might sprain my brain. I also did quite a bit of work visualizing and high-level outlining Book 3 in the series. I just want to crank these two books out, so I have them done — mostly so I can prove to myself that I can write a series.

Once they’re done, I have dreams of going back and completely retooling my Epic Fantasy (Trunk) Novel from the ground up. Then finishing THAT trilogy. I need to be able to write faster, consistently, at least 2,000 words every weekday, so I can get all of these books FINISHED.

Also, side note — I practiced Kung Fu (Xingyiquan Ba Shr Chui and Wu Xing Lian Huan, also Yang Taiji 24 Postures.) I will try to play a little guitar when I get home to get a trifecta.


Reading Notes: (You have to read to write, it all goes into the grist mill)

I have given up on Milan Kundera for now, and have resorted to Abercrombie’s “The Blade Itself”, which is pretty damn fun.

I have finished the Michale Palin Diaries Audiobook and am listening to an audiobook of Graham Chapman’s “Liar’s Autobiography” still (almost done). I will re-listen to both of them immediately when I am done. It’s amazing how they dovetail together.

FenCon!!

Went to FenCon this weekend and met soooooo many people. Pardon me, I am part geek, I’m not good at keeping lists of them — but everyone (really everyone) was so nice. It was a blast to be there. Among the many great folks:
– The usual suspects (you guys should know who you are!)
– Chris of Books-a-million (who gave awesome insight into the state of libraries and book stores and what people are expecting to happen next, technologically)
– Felicia of Geeky Blogger Fame, and crew.
– Lou Anders (nice enough to talk to me for about 20 minutes on the state of Epic and Low Fantasy, thanks Lou!)
– Toni Weisskopf (publisher of Baen Books, who graciously allowed me to ramble on and on about completely unimportant things)
– And a whole host of new people who I am still sorting through business cards for, and will be catching up with shortly.

Trifecta-in-waiting

1) Already did Kung Fu today — 2 hours, different forms. I think I have finally learned the second Yang Fan form all th way through; it is a gorgeous form, and I’m happy to have finally learned it. Now I just need my knee to cooperate enough to hit the low stances cleanly.

2) About to take a shower and leave for writing; I have work to do reformatting my novel slightly. It is not new words, but it is something I can do to increase my chances of getting a novel sale; this will be writing for the day.

3) Since to hit a trifecta, I only need to play some guitar, right after this post (and before the shower) I will go play a few songs.

That will be a rocking day.

Accountability – Trifecta

Accountability details.
1) Writing: +1000 more words on that shortstory I am rewriting from scratch. It’s going pretty well, really. It’s a funny little story, all I can hope is it makes people laugh. I like it.
2) Kung Fu: Did Yang Taiji 24 today, and Xingyi Wu Xing Lian Huan (Xingyi 5 Element Linking Form). Not much, but some!
3) Guitar: Played the stuff I normally play. I really only have two songs.

Trifecta complete.

Writing Again

I’ve been writing again, +1000 words Thursday, +1250 words today (Friday). Rewriting an trunked short story that was more summary than action. originally it was only 2,000 words long, now it looks like it may hit 4k or 6k.

No trifectas recently. To be honest, I’m not sure that since the baby there is time to do trifectas anymore. Two things per day I could fit in — but three? Man, it will be hard. We will see.

Still, I intend to keep the posts up for personal accountability more than anything, but right now it looks like there won’t be any more writing until Sunday (or even Monday) at the earliest.