Writing and Stuff pt 2

                                                Therapy?

I switched dorms and went to the Therapeutic Unit. It sounded like the place someone like me needed to be. Plus it had the added benefits of a six month cut off my sentence upon completion and removal from my job in the kitchen. A prison kitchen is one of the most disgusting environments on the face of this planet.

   I continued sending C. letters, but by now I was down to one every couple of weeks. She continued not responding. Not that I blame her now, but back then...........

   There was a creative writing class in the T.U., taught by one of the counselors. A guy I had worked in the kitchen with went to the class, and he stopped by my bunk one night to talk about it. I had mentioned before to him that I wrote. He told me I should come to class and I told him I would think about it. He asked if he could check out some of my writing and I told him I was working on a few things and would show him once they were straightened up. Now I had to write something or be a liar.

   The T.U. is supposed to be different from the other dorms in the prison. It is supposed to be peer driven, with as little interference from the counseling staff and officers as possible. You can imagine how well this goes over. There are two reasons why this fails. Reason number one is that most inmates don't like being told by other inmates that they are doing something wrong and most inmates don't like to tell other inmates they are doing something wrong. (There are some who enjoy the latter, but they tend to spend most of their career in protective custody.) Reason number two is that the people in control seldom want to give up that control. It is all nice in theory, and looks good on paper when presented to the people in the state government responsible for funding these things, but it is basically a bunch of bullshit.

   I am not good at telling people what to do, so I took a job as a tutor. This way I avoided any of the jobs which put me in the line of fire. When I wasn't at a class or tutoring someone I sat on my bunk and read, staying out of everyone's way.

                                                      GOD?

The T.U. doesn't require that you turn into a religious wacko, but it does encourage it. Prison in general is home to every misinterpretation of every denomination imaginable, and in the T.U. your are encouraged to find some belief system or spirituality to ease you over those inevitable bumps on your road to recovery. I have known Buddhists who couldn't go more than a day or two without starting a fight, Black Power Muslims who wouldn't think anything contradictory when showing you pictures of their white baby mommas and mixed children, and Christians who felt the the Bible gave them the right to hate any and everybody who was slightly different than them. All you have to do is find out which one of these freaks you think is right and join up.

   I didn't make any commitments, but started looking into religion. I read the Bible, Torah, Koran, and the Buddhist Sutras. I read about Taoism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Paganism. When I ran out of religious isms, I read about Empiricism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Cynicism, Skepticism, Communism, and Socialism. I read about every ism I could find in the library. I didn't know what kind of ist I was or which ism was right for me. I closed my eyes at night and thought about crosses and prayer rugs and infinities and meditation and salvation. I wondered if I had a soul, and what it meant if I did or didn't. I saw Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and Shiva. I wondered about beings and existences and essences and Things-in Themselves.

   The problem is this: I don't get religion. I don't have the part of the brain that is susceptible to that particular ailment. I was raised a Catholic. I was baptized, had my first communion, and was confirmed. I had to attend religious instruction classes until the tenth grade. None of this stuck with me. I don't remember anything other than other than sitting in class wondering what my friends were doing and wishing I was out with them. Oh, and that one of my instructors was Billy Sheehan's, the famous rock bassists, older sister. Of Mr. Big and The David Lee Roth Band fame. Yes, THAT Billy Sheehan! (And yes I did just Google his name to make sure I spelled it correctly.) The two bright spots of my religious experience were the parties after my communion and confirmation and the money I received. I never had a spark or an Aha! moment. When people talk to me about the ecstasy and rapture they feel, and how they "Just Know" things that they can't possibly know, I get embarrassed for them.

   But I was going to try.

   I decided I could be a Buddhist. I signed up for Buddhist Sangha, which met from 3:30 to 5:30 Monday afternoons.

        I don't know if this is what the Buddha had in Mind?

My first encounter with Buddhism in prison was more awkward than I ever could have imagined. I mean, it's Buddhism? Isn't it supposed to be all warm and fuzzy? Calm and welcoming? If I wanted to feel awkward I could have stayed a Catholic. I walked into the room where the Sangha was being held. About a dozen people sat on chairs, which were arranged in a circle. It appeared about eight of the attendees were regulars, and the rest of us were newcomers. I was the only person there for the first time, though.

   The first half of the Sangha went by quickly. I learned that Sangha meant community. I was told that I could enter into a powerful group, that not everyone could understand this power. This group had tapped into the vital forces of the universe, and now had them at their disposal. All you had to do was chant a Japanese phrase for at least 15 minutes a day and this power could be yours. The rhythmic sound of this phrase was perfectly in tune with those forces, and when you repeatedly uttered this phrase the vibrations of your vocal cords put you in tune with this force. Or something like that. The veterans talked about how much this Buddhism had done for them. They said that anything you wanted could be yours if you chanted for it. Some of them had received sentence modifications and had good jobs waiting for them upon their release. Many had chanted for, and received, sums of money to be deposited on their accounts. To my knowledge none of them chanted for world peace.

   When they were done they asked if anyone had any questions. I had a few.

   I asked the veterans if they had ever done any meditation. I wasn't an expert on the subject, but most of the Buddhism I read about at least mentioned meditation. They didn't meditate. I asked them about the Eight Fold Path, and if they thought that chanting for material objects conflicted with the Four Noble Truths and the fact that the Buddha said that our desire was pretty much the problem with us humans. The had somewhat convincing answers, which seemed rehearsed, sort of like a con game or a snake oil sales pitch. They didn't meditate and they didn't follow or even know any of the precepts which I had come to understand were at the heart of Buddhism. They kept coming back to, "Trust us. It works. Chant for something for at least 90 days, for at least 15 minutes a day, and you are guaranteed to get it." My thinking at the time went along the lines of if you were stupid enough to do this for 15 minutes a day for 90 days, then you would be stupid enough to accept the excuse served up to you when your dream didn't materialize.

   Then came the second half of the program. One of the veterans placed a tiny (about two inch by two inch) piece of white plastic in front of the group. It had carvings, which you could barely see, on it. I think the idea was it was supposed to look ancient and ivory. The veterans said this piece of plastic was very powerful. Some type of portal into the heart of all existence or something similar. We were all coached on the proper annunciation to ensure we sent out the right cosmic vibes. Then someone rang a bell and everyone started chanting. It went on for 15 minutes, at which time the bell rang again and the chanting stopped.

   When the chanting stopped I sat there feeling weird, not particularly comfortable. The veterans talked about the power they felt in the room. A few of the newcomers joined in to say they felt it as well. I didn't feel shit.

   Still, I let them sell me on the 15 minute 90 day plan. I decided to chant for a letter (and hopefully some money) from C.. Screw world peace. I chanted about five times over the next few weeks, and attended Sangha for a couple months. I never received a letter. I became an apostate.

                                      Something did Happen

I wrote something. I even finished it.

   The pressure was on and my fear of looking like an idiot took charge. This guy wouldn't go away. He kept stopping by to ask if I wanted to come to class and how my writing was coming along. He persisted and I ran out of excuses. I either had to show him some writing or admit to him that I talked about being a writer but didn't actually write. At least if I showed him something I wasn't a liar. I never said I was a good writer.

   I wrote a story about a man and Jesus having a conversation. Jesus was up on the cross, and the man stood in front of Him expressing some concerns he had. Jesus and the man went back and forth, the man expressing doubt and Jesus trying to convince him that faith was the best option. In the end, there wasn't much of a resolution. Jesus closed his eyes and the man, now being called the doubter, walked off unconvinced and still a skeptic.

   I showed the story off the next time the guy stopped by my bunk and asked if I was done with any of my writing. He liked the story and told the instructor of the creative writing class about it. The instructor called me to the officer's desk the next day and asked to see my story. I gave it to him, and when he brought it back to me he said it was excellent and told me he would like to see my other writing when I got it done. Other work? I had no other work, but now I had praise and motivation. I started writing more.

   I wrote a few crappy stories which focused on my dislike of religion, rape and violence and other forced symbolism. I was trying hard to get across a point which would have been much better to handle with a little subtlety and not so cliche. I didn't know this yet.

   The next thing I wrote that had any value to it was a story about a family who had been farmers and soldiers. It followed three generations and three wars. The family faithfully served country and God, and in the end neither rescued them from the banks and the foreclosures. I sent a copy to C.. I wonder if she still has it? I would like to rewrite it.

   It is pretty easy to see that my subject matter was being influenced by all the isms I had been reading about. My soul searching never gave me a Divine Revelation, but it made me more sensitive to matters I hadn't given much thought to before. My writing opened up to more than just how unfair my life was and how unjust my situation. I could write about how unfair life was to other people.

                                           Writing in General

What I consider writing, or, more exactly, the idea I have about the writing process has changed considerably from those first few stories. I am not a pro, don't know if I ever will be, but you have to learn something. It is impossible to put a sizable portion of your life aside, devoting it to any one thing, without learning something.

   This is what I thought back then: I thought that writing was a painfully slow process. I would sit there for hours and hours, writing and erasing, crossing out, crumpling up, and starting over. I thought you had to make it as perfect as possible, because once you finally got it all down, that was it. I had no concept of rough drafts or multiple rewrites and revisions. I thought you had to nail the perfect opening, and if you didn't then you never got started, never got past the opening paragraph. This all seemed to be getting worse. The more I tried to write, the less I could get onto the page. It started to really bother me, sitting for hours staring at a blank piece of writing paper, the lines begging me for words. I searched for solutions, even read a book about write's block.

   The answer to the problem, or at least what the problem was, was explained to me by the counselor who taught the creative writing class. He had taught college level creative writing for 17 years, and had been a journalist for a while after graduating college. He used to tell me he would sit down one day and write about all the amazing things that had taken place in America and and all the exciting things that had happened to man during his 70 years of existence. He had seen and done a great deal. He knew more than I did. I had no reason to not trust him. He had the credentials.

   I read several books on writing back then, both on technique and style. I worried about my grammar and vocabulary. I never worried about having anything to say, just how to say it. My lack of education scared me. My idea of a writer was someone who had an MFA and had been through the famous workshop at Iowa. I worried about commas, semicolons, colons, sentence structure, what a paragraph was and what went into it, and all the other rules of grammar. The thought of writing a passive sentence or ending a sentence with a preposition freaked me out. I felt like I didn't know enough six and seven syllable words to amount to anything. What if I didn't have enough conflict or a proper resolution? What if I couldn't state clearly my theme or plot, had no story arc, or had a flat character? The more I read, the more paranoid I became.

   My counselor noticed I wasn't showing him as much work as I had been and asked me why. I explained the situation as best I could. He told me the rules were there to be broken, or bent as far as you needed them to go. The trick that separated the average writer from the good writer was knowing when to bend the rules and when not to. This came with practice. You had to get enough knowledge of grammar and punctuation to know just what you had to and what you could get away with. He also told me I wasn't doing myself any favors by comparing my rough drafts to the polished masterpieces of the great writers, It's okay to look for inspiration, but when you let yourself get intimidated by the things you are reading you have to back off a bit for your own good.

   I took his advice, and decided I would just write and worry later. It didn't go exactly like that.

To be continued........................

Writing and Stuff

                                              In the Beginning

I started writing instead of just talking about writing. I was 35 years old.

   The first time I remember thinking I would like to be a writer was when I was 11 years old. I remember talking with my fifth grade teacher about it. I was 12 the first time I attempted to write a story. I don't remember too many of the details, but I know it had several references to caves and possibly took place in a cave. We had recently studied spelunking, so it was a fresh, exciting topic.I don't remember if I finished it, but I think I did, though was not satisfied with the ending. A pattern that continues to this day. The next story I wrote, and the first I remember finishing, was written when I was 20. Somehow it involved two sets of twins, two murders, and a cross that became a double cross, that became a double-double cross. Patterson eat your heart out! I don't remember what I was trying to say, or how I said it, but I am sure the piece was of great philosophical and literary significance, and it is a shame it has been lost and the world will never know its treasure.

   For the next 15 years I spent a great deal of time talking about being a writer without doing any actual writing. Sometimes I would buy but one of those handheld, spiral notebooks, make a couple of entries, and then misplace it.

   The summer of 2007. I am 35 and in prison. I have decided to write, because what else have I got to do? I had pens and pencils and lots of free time. I had a yellow legal pad. I even had a muse.

                                            C...

C. and I were living together when I was arrested. She is two years younger than I am, and from the old neighborhood. She dated one of my friends while we were growing up. When I was released from prison in February of 2007, I found out no one I knew actually talked to each other anymore, they just sent messages on MySpace. I also found out that everyone I had ever known was somehow connected and talking to each other. I ran across C., contacted her, talked several times a day, and a week and a half later I was traveling by Greyhound from Bloomington, IN to Buffalo, NY to live with her. Things move fast when you are in love!

   C. picked me up at the bus station. Later she would write about out reunion, writing that she had never been in a bus station before and that it smelled like tacos. I think it says something pretty substantial about her, the fact that she had never been in a greyhound station. It could be good or bad, depending on your perspective, but for me I am not sure if it is good for someone to go their whole life without ever having stepped foot in one. I think the Greyhound experience builds character. She was pretty close to the girl I remembered, except now she was 32 and not 20. Tall, skinny, intelligent, witty, and liked to have fun. The only thing that seemed to have changed was that her factory stock red hair was now dyed jet black, and was shorter. We stopped at the sub shop for sandwiches and the liquor store for wine, before heading to her apartment.

   The living together phase of our relationship lasted about a month. One afternoon, as we walked down the stairs on our way to my mother's for dinner, the Village of Hamburg Police walked up the stairs with a warrant for my arrest. Of course I tried to give them a fake name, and of course they already knew my real name. C.'s sister had phoned them to tell them who I was and where I could be found.

   I had missed a court date. It is hard to make your court date in Indiana when you are drunk in New York. Believe it or not, I was leaving on the bus the next morning to turn myself in. I had even contacted the court in Indiana and told them where I was. They weren't going to come after me, as long as I did what I told them I was going to do.

   I had been released from the Indiana State Farm on February 5th and was booked into the Erie County Holding Center on March 20th. Not my most successful run.

   But during those 40 days (worked for Jesus) something happened. I started writing. Drunken ramblings on MySpace, but it was writing. C. and I would sit around drinking and try to see who could write the craziest blog. They were the same as every other blog on MySpace-- unnecessary personal information, written in choppy, grammatically incorrect sentences. (Come to think of it, that describes all my writing. I believe the phrase "Over Sharing" was invented with me in mind.) Most of them contained an anecdote involving myself and the latest person I had reconnected with, since this was also my first experience with social media.

  C. and I talked about writing a movie together. We would pool our resources. With my darkness and her wit how could we go wrong? We went to the bookstore to purchase a book on screenwriting, but the parking lot was crowded, the weather bad, and we needed a drink, so we went to the bar instead.

   I was extradited back to Indiana after a week in the Holding Center. C. came to visit me before I left Buffalo. She brought me money, boxer shorts, t shirts, and socks. We talked about how this was going to be a good thing, how I would get this over with and we would get back to our life, but this wasn't my first rodeo and I figured this would be the last time I saw her. So far I am correct.

   I was in the county jail in Bloomington for six months, and talked to C. every night on the phone. We wrote letters almost everyday. I wrote a couple page draft for a story while in the county about C. taking a cigarette break and thinking about how she was going to stick by this guy and trust him. I sent it to her. I suppose I was trying to convince her, manipulate her under the guise of literature. I was so full of shit at that point of my life, even more than I am now.

                                             Prison Bound

I left the county jail, passed through the Reception and Diagnostics Center, and made it to prison. I decided that I had wasted too much time in the county jail playing poker and not writing. I decided I was going to write every night at 9:00, which is when the lights are turned down. There are security lights, so it is never actually dark, but it quieter and more conducive to creativity. Even though you are still surrounded by people the dimness creates the illusion of intimacy. It is as close to privacy as you get. This was when I would work.

   For a few nights I stuck to the plan. I sharpened my pencils. got my legal pad out from under my mattress, and forced out a paragraph or two of words which would later be crumpled up and thrown away. Most of it was me whining about the situation I was in and the life I had created for myself. I needed a lot of help, not just with writing, but that was all I was interested in focusing on.

   I went to the prison library ad found a book which claimed to have a foolproof creative method contained in its pages. A Surefire Way to Short Story Mastery! The book stated that people couldn't rely on plain old inspiration and creativity, that even the greatest writers of all time dried up sometimes and needed a little shove. Now I was going to get somewhere! I was smart enough to follow a recipe, have been a cook for most of my life, and this was pretty close to the same thing.

   The equation in the book was easy enough to grasp. You needed a couple hundred three by five cards, something I had no access to, but two boxes of letter sized envelopes would do the job. The book broke down life into categories, many of which I can't remember, but the basic idea is still there. You separated your cards (envelopes) into groups of ten. These packs would make up the individual examples under each of the category headings. The categories were things like: Ten People I Admire, Ten People I Don't Care For, Ten Places I Have Been, Ten Places I Want To Go, Ten Jobs, Ten Traits I Want To Have............... and the list kept going. When you were done with all your lists, all you had to do is shuffle the cards, deal one from each pack of ten, and string the details into a story. Who needs to be creative?

   I made it about a quarter or the way through the book and decided if this was what I was going to have to do to become a writer I didn't want to be a writer. Creativity was the reason I wanted to write. What the fuck does creativity mean when you take the creativity out of it? I wanted to struggle. I wanted to be the tortured artist, sitting in my one room apartment, pulling the words one by one from the painful part of my gut. (I had read a lot of Bukowski while in the county jail.) If I wanted to follow a plan it would be easier to be a plumber. Or a Christian. I threw  away all of my envelopes. I decided that I was a purist, a real writer, and that I was going to continue to write, but do it the old fashioned way.

   This is about the time C. stopped writing. She never set up a phone account so I could call her. My muse ascended. This has happened a few times, since most of my muses seem to be women, and one could argue that I pick the wrong muses, but I think like the ancient Greeks that the muse picks the writer, not the other way around. And who says a muse has to be permanent. They come and go. I stopped writing, except to send C. letters, which she never replied to.

To be continued...............................