New Home

Since my last entry, I have moved into my new home, crossed a significant project milestone, quarreled with my boss, played golf a few weekends, cleaned my old flat and transferred and unloaded all my stuff into their new surroundings. No time for reflections except adjust to the new circumstances. In the meantime, my project manager left the project, after a last week of argument and tears, replaced by someone new to the company. During this period of change, I had to complete a lot of high stress activities: finish my writing course, continue the Coursera online subjects I chose, finish a design document, conduct meetings with contractors, undertake testing in 2 different software application, lead a project and hold meetings both in and outside the company (with contractors who were fixing up my old place).

To make things more difficult, I had to wake up early than usual, about 6:30 am since my new home was about 15 minutes father than my former home (7 miles vs. 12 miles), with a total travelling time of 30 minutes. In the past, these whirlwind events, coupled with the high stress of production problems which was finally solved in the first week of October, would have required me to write out my stress in my usual journal entries. The blur of activities would also have been calmed down by my usual morning tai chi which I seldom do nowadays. Instead my sanity and salvation seemed to be resolved with my Saturday golf games. The walk in the greens in the early morning, the golf strokes and shots to the fairways, the challenges and course management of game have relaxed my mind and allowed me to forget my troubles at least for a few hours. The result is that I arrive on Monday refreshed.

Looking back on my golf record, I have been playing every weekend for almost 3- 4 months. The regularity and relaxation had allowed me to survive the change of home, challenges at work, pressure of transfer, money problems and the distraction of the presidential election – an event which I have been reading about since my youth. Living right in the smack of it allowed me to experience first-hand the amazing transfer of power in the most powerful nation in earth. Strangely, this has prevented from watching the debates as my partisanship makes me too emotional to enjoy the event. Instead I prefer to skip the debates and read the next morning analysis; enjoying the recap in the New York Times channel in Google television during the weekends.

Of course, living in a much larger home, with nice views of the surrounding landscape, with large trees and undulating hills that have allowed me to relax more. I seemed to have lost my predilection for after work cocktails, instead plunging right in the Coursera courses. Next November is a coming challenge: to participate in the Nanowrimo novel writing month and to produce a significant draft of a novel. I wonder how I can achieve this task with all the online courses I am taking. But I think this will be a good end to the year which I started by attending the Gotham writing classes. Life is a constant flux and I realize that one should always keep moving. I wrote some good short stories that brought me back to my youth and of my days in Singapore. The new home has given me roots although I do not feel any sense of permanency, thinking that this is more an investment than a lasting stake in the ground. Much change in the air especially with the coming presidential election.

Disconnected

Yesterday my internet and cable service was mistakenly dis-connected; I had already lost my phone service last week.  It all started when I called the cable company to plan in advance, trying to do a good deed and have everything ready before the big move, explaining explicitly I thought, that I would be moving on the 20th or 21st of September which is safely two weeks away. But being clever and prepared is not a good thing; the company went out and dis-connected the service almost immediately. Morons do exist in all corporations, lying in wait like Laurel and Hardy ready to play havoc on one’s best laid plans. So one comes home after work without cable and internet, which is a catastrophe for some folks, and just hope for the best, drinking bourbon on the rocks. So I spent time last night and most of this morning working with the company to get back my services but to no avail. The best that can be done to re-connect my services is next week on 13 September. Just in time for my wife to be back home. At least I got my bill down by about $ 20 dollars.

I missed the president’s acceptance speech last night at the Democrat convention in nearby Charlotte, North Carolina. At least I was able to see some clips of Bill Clinton’s speech the other night, which was really a performance; one will not see the likes of him or even of Obama for a long time. The game is on in the  coming weeks all the way to election time, a political event that I have been reading about since I was a young man, watching movies and reading books back in Asia, comparing the event with local politics back home. Now I have a chance to experience it first-hand. I recall my first reading of American politics in Theodore White’s ‘The Making of a President’ series especially his book on the Kennedy election. This introduction led me to other books like David Halberstam’s ‘The Best and the Brightest’, also about the Kennedy years. The fact is John F. Kennedy is probably the first candidate to run for a presidential election in an intelligent and calculating way - against all odds, against an intelligent incumbent politician like Richard Nixon who was no slouch himself, and win. His victory became a template for ascending politicians like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

I guess it says something that recent Republican candidates are wealthy people, scions or married to partners from successful or wealthy families (both Bushes, McCain and Romney) excepting Nixon and Reagan while the Democrats excepting Kennedy and John Kerry, have risen from the ranks though Carter was a peanut farmer. But the argument does not really hold though recent memory seems to confirm this observation especially Obama and Clinton who have risen from nothing, using their own brilliance to strive ahead. So the support from extremely wealthy people for Republicans shows a clear bias in this election that some game is afoot. When my cable service was cut, my initial thought was a deliberate act to prevent people from watching Obama’s speech. I guess stress and paranoia and conspiracy theories come together. Happily I was not pissed off on losing my connection and being out of the grid. Instead I prepared dinner of minced meat cooked with garlic, onions, tomatoes and potatoes, watched the video movie Doctor Faustus, dozed off and read the chic literature on Brooklyn mothers. What a waste!


Early this morning I woke up early, took down my MP3 player and radio, connect it to a speaker and listened to NPR boradcast. At least I was not completely cut off. I made my way to work, slightly late, called the cable company and prepared for my meeting, which turned out well. Later I borrowed a MIFI unit and prepared for a weekend without cable television but with a plan to connect to the internet and complete my assignments on the online courses. It may not be that bad after all being disconnected.

On wanting to work

I sit here not sure about what to do, my mind scattered, shooting in different directions. Yesterday was a difficult day because of some emails I had to respond to, some seemed to be threatening, while others hopeful but needed a measured response. In the end I got it done, leaving the office near 7pm and going to the gym. Yesterday I missed certain appointments that I wanted to attend: a compulsory meeting and a racquet ball overview at the gym and felt bad about it. Nevertheless, I felt better after doing 30 minutes in the cross-trainer and a few minutes in the sauna. The exercise had invigorated me; earlier I did not want to go to the gym and exercise but was glad I did. I got home at past 8 pm; ate dinner of chili crab, rice and pork chop, a glass of wine and grapes.

This week is significant for me because it’s closing week, finalizing the transaction to complete a significant investment. I calculated the cash flow with a spreadsheet and planned a way to liquidate some investments in Singapore if cash is needed to keep me up. The fear is that one’s finances is being stretched, spending more than what one brings in. Luckily I have Excel and I think the spreadsheet tool is possibly one of the best things invented in modern life, with the financial planning that one needs to do to keep up. Going back to my story: I needed to call insurance agents, evaluate premiums, call the movers, and call the phone and cable company and so on so everything will be in place when the move is done in the coming weeks. My wife is not around so I had to do this preparation while doing a lot of housework.

Compounding the stress is the work on my 2 projects at the office, now kicking into gear as the year ends, plus the fact that I am attending 4 classes online: a creative writing class, gamefication, handling large data and model thinking. Stupidly I have increased my reading and watching movies, too. In Orhan Pamuk’s recent lectures, he wrote about his rush to read books, to find out about the secret center of the novel, like some hidden confidence provided by the author that will explain the meaning of life. I had that urge and I still have it now in my middle age but wasted in triviality; a constant urge to read the latest bestseller or some trivial Hollywood biography or Vanity Fair article or watch some obscure movie by a German auteur director. As Pamuk pointed out:  to be part of elite, to be able to have bragging rights that one is in the know – a cognoscente.


This is the rat race: a constant journey to be someone at least in one’s own eyes. What does one want really in life? For some it may not be more money, more houses and cars but maybe just being a cultural maven. This brings me back to work, where one is not motivated on the task at hand because one has no ambition to earn more. Instead the literary savant continues to read and find meaning from external things like books and movies and experiences. But recently, the writing exercises has made me realize that I am a long way from my goal – more work is needed but I see the way clear in my mind. It was interesting to see the documentary ‘New York’ last night. The episode featured F. Scott Fitzgerald – a writer I had not paid much attention, instead focusing on his friend Hemingway. Reading his short stories and life, perhaps he is much closer to my own than anyone else. I just missed the road that he had taken and instead indulged myself, following Hemingway’s clarion call.

The Secret Center

Orhan Pamuk offers interesting insights on the art of writing in his Harvard lectures. Using Schiller’s essay on naïve and sentimental poetry as a starting point, Pamuk ventures forth on his own experiences as a writer and reader. He chart’s the development of his craft that I admit offers the best framework of understanding the act of writing than most books I have read. His concept of the ‘secret center’ is something I have not read about from any other writer though he does quote some writers who have similar conceptions on a novels ‘center’. It’s an intriguing concept as the ‘center’ evolves organically and not planned or structured the way a writer started out to construct when he began writing his book. In fact, the novel’s ‘center’ may not be what the author had intended but results from the reaction of the reader as he reads the book. Hence, it‘s an unintended consequence of reading that formulates out of each readers make-up: his culture, upbringing, education, experiences and so on. But the ‘center’ is also evoked from the writer’s work as he writes his passages, his narrative and the objects and sensations he places on the page – all based on his own make-up, too.

Being a writer from a developing country, although the recipient of an ancient culture, specifically an Islamist upbringing with echoes of Byzantium and Ottoman legacy, Pamuk has the same sensibilities as writers from the third world. Specifically a culture where only a small elite writes for their own class, at least during the start of his career, where an enlightened mass of citizens don’t exists unlike in the developed world with universal education and a mass reading public. It’s an intriguing viewpoint that I appreciate: the question is raised: who do I write for? The Western reader where the mass market exist or the small elite of one’s country: the decision would impact the way the novel is written. This will sway the novel’s ‘secret center’ and Pamuk covers all the territory that would impact the developing writer. It is a unique and informed insight and he cites samples from Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Stendhal and other great writers who were not really consciously aware of the ‘center’ as a literary model. The theory of the ‘center’ is what distinguishes genre and literary novels and he proves to be a well-read writer citing popular authors like John le Carre as one who moves away from genre towards being a literary novelist.

His book is highly original (despite starting off with Schiller’s premise using Goethe as his model); I have not had such incisive insights from other writers who write about writing such as Ayn Rand, Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway. I attribute this uniqueness to Pamuk’s intriguing background where he comes off as a sophisticated or cosmopolitan writer from the Middle East, someone who has Western sensibilities with no hint of Islamist tendencies. Perhaps this is a reflection of Turkey itself; a modern secular state that abolished the caliphate – a truly revolutionary act (perhaps akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution) that boldly strives forward into the modern age by cutting its ties to the past. Indeed, abolishing the Islamic caliphate is like the Western states abolishing the papacy; thereby, getting rid of the Pope’s role. Hence, Turkey can be seen as heralding the future to the Middle Eastern, a call to modern ideas that has proven radical that only a few Islamic countries have followed. Perhaps being a native of Istanbul (or the former Constantinople) with one foot in Europe and one foot in Asia provide Pamuk with a synthesis that few Western writers (or critics) can understand but whom Asians can identify with.

Naïve and Sentimental Writer

Orhan Pamuk’s book introduces interesting concepts on the craft of writing. It is possibly the loftiest essay on writing that I have ever read. It is fruitful that I am reading his book now, during the writing course I am attending online. Pamuk has reflectively and analytically drawn a distinctive view on writing that is unique and thoroughly modern. Referring to Schiller’s primary essay as a source of his views, Pamuk distinguishes between naive and sentimental (or reflective) writers and readers. He also makes interesting distinctions between Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, between visual and verbal writers, between spatial arts like painting or sculpture and time based art like novels.  It is probably one of the most academic and insightful works on writing from a great writer; whereas one would usually expect this type of analysis from a professor or academician or literary theorist and not from a Nobel prize awarded in Literature. Therefore, he knows of what he speaks, applying his insights into his art to great acclaim

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According to his essays, he is a writer who is deliberate; a reflective writer who does a lot of plotting and planning before beginning the actual act of writing the book itself. Therefore he is the antithesis of the ‘naïve’ writer who rushes out and begins writing, driven by an enthusiasm that he thinks will carry him all the way to the completion of the work. There are writers who can achieve this ‘burst’ of effort effectively, perhaps writers like Stendhal, Dumas, Goethe or the recent example of the late Jack Kerouac with his automatic writing. I thought I was of this ilk, only realizing lately, after attending writing courses that this avenue often ends in a ‘writer’s’ block. He is the first writer I have read who has effectively explained the link between painting and writing; he is like a nexus or sweet spot located between the realm of literary and visual art, able to assimilate the lessons of each realm and explain their virtues which is why it provides a thoroughly modern perspective.

Pamuk also describes the way the mind reacts when reading or listening to a story, the way words would formulate on the brain, forming visual images as the words enter the brain page by page, the art of the novel proceeding in time as the reader works his way to the end of the book. Perhaps he is the first writer who has unlocked the secret of writing and explains the secrets in a simple and easy to understand manner. Overall it’s like delving into the mind of a great artist; plus the interesting fact that he is a Muslim Turk, a beneficiary of the ancient Arabian technology of the Middle East, of Persian and Ottoman influences, of the confluence of East and West, of Byzantium and the other ancient empires along the Silk Road; that he represents a rebirth of Ottoman renaissance, heralding the rise of modern Turkey in a European union bankrupted by Western excess. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, but he does have a whiff of modernity, high education and brilliance in his analysis.

I woke up early this morning, preparing for an early meeting, where we passed a milestone and approved to move to the next stage. It was a culmination of a tough week, with friends over last night where I cooked ‘cioppino’ – a tomato based stew of shrimps, clams and fish, an Italian dish popular along the docks in the Adriatic coast,  where the remaining leftovers of the day’s catch tossed into a soup by tired fishermen.  My wife has gone home to attend her mother’s funeral, staying away for a month; my youngest son is away in college and my eldest at home working on his college entrance. I am in my sixth week at the writing course reading lectures and working on my writing assignments, tasked to thoroughly revise my submitted story, perhaps following Pamuk’s advice on writing, while I prepare to move to my new house, looking forward to critiquing short stories and playing golf in the weekend.

Becoming a Writer

In Ray Bradbury’s book on writing, he mentioned the work ‘Becoming a Writer’ in the very last page, praising the lessons as helping him in his journey. The premise of this work is that one needs a ‘personality change’ to become a writer and those lessons on adapting one’s personality is the key, not just technical knowledge of craft. This premise conforms to my own view that being a writer is a holistic journey that involves not only the learning of techniques or accumulation of writing experiences but also the whole development of a person.  This means traveling, reading, experiencing life and possibly things like learning meditation and cultivating public speaking skills in clubs like Toastmaster. The goal is to perfect one’s voice which will reflect on the writer’s point of view in the stories he is writing. Hence, being a writer does not mean a solitary journey of introspective writing but a holistic endeavor that covers the full development of the person.

I have not read the book yet, not having the time to squeeze into my busy schedule. But the premise was intriguing enough for me to purchase the book in Amazon, where it is billed as a ‘classic bestseller’. My weeks are filled with writing and reading assignments, participating in the writing classes and critiquing the work of my classmates. It is an online version of the Toastmaster experience, where a group of people help each other via constructive feedback. The group activity is especially useful as one learns the background and work of others in the class, helping one assess his current ability by comparing it with the rest of the other students or would be authors, who are mostly adults, retirees, and a few young people and office employees looking for another career or pursuing a child hood dream. An interesting mix that is similar to Toastmasters where one develops his public speaking skills within a club environment.

This is my second class in the online course which is not cheap but more thorough than the previous workshops I have attended last year. The main benefits are the reading assignments, sharing and critiquing of work plus the feedback from experienced teachers who are also established authors. One is exposed to humility as one reads the work of others and receives useful criticism that one should take as a constructive feedback. For example, a short story I wrote in my first fiction class was praised after extensive editing, but my teacher in my second class, advised me to start all over again. The students from my second class are more exact and seemed at a more experienced level than my first class. I feel like stepping into a higher stage with more exacting people. After this class, I will take a break and reflect on my experience. I plan to read the book ‘Becoming a Writer’ after this course.

Currently, I am reading Orhan Pamuk’s ‘The Naïve and Sentimental Writer’, which is based on a series of lectures in Harvard. The book introduced a concept derived from a celebrated essay by the German writer Schiller. Writers and readers are categorized as either naive or sentimental and Pamuk’s describes the difference between the two. I fall into the naive category and the learning of craft has led me towards the sentimental or reflective category. These months feel like a revolution to me, after thinking that one has already learned all he can that one finds that he must throw away all his knowledge and start afresh. A young French man I worked with back in Asia preferred to work with young people, remarking about the old saying that an old dog cannot learn new tricks. Therein lies the challenge, that one’s past training and experiences would help one move to an entirely different field of battle, ready to work with new weapons and skills.

Zen and the Art of Writing

In my last writing workshop, Ray Bradbury’s book on writing was often cited. So I borrowed the book from the library, slightly aware of Bradbury’s work especially in science fiction having seen François Truffaut’s film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 and having heard but not read ‘The Martian Chronicles,’ a work talked about with awe by other noted writers. I also recently watched John Huston’s film ‘Moby Dick’ starring Gregory Peck and was surprised to see Ray Bradbury in the credits, being the writer in Huston’s film who adapted Herman Melville’s book for the screen.  Obviously, Ray Bradbury is a man of many talents, straddling the multiple genres of science fiction and fantasy, adapting a literary classic for the cinema and, as I later found out, both poetry and free-lance nonfiction writing. It also seems that his stories have inspired cult films that involve colonies in outer space or aliens burrowed deep in Antarctica.

  
His book is an exuberant paean to writing, of the variety that is homemade and learned by instinct, having avoided college education or formal writing courses, instead dashing out to write a story and learning the craft through sheer hard work, sending out stories to magazine publishers, getting rejected, and persevering until being published by pulp magazines and eventually achieving success. It’s not only the writing gusto that is impressive; it’s the exercise of his imagination and creativity, to delve into worlds beyond normal human experience, in outer space and other fantastic realms but never losing sight of a core truth; delivering a basic drama and not focusing on the special effects. One wonders how someone could exist like that, to evolve as a writer with innate confidence, bypassing any self-doubt or neurotic impulses, allowing his imagination to run free to explore new realities and having the discipline to write about it, forever trimming and editing until the work is ready.

He is an unsentimental writer, perhaps like another science fiction writer William Gibson, who never wastes a word or sentence unless it has some commercial value, making sure their labor is aimed towards a publisher unlike someone like me who constantly procrastinates and writes in self-indulgent journals. Interestingly, Bradbury uses word association to get ideas and help him write, something like mind-mapping, or cluster writing to help him finish his work. It’s the first time I have seen a successful author admit using this technique – a subject that was elaborately described in a famous book about word clustering. Bradbury also cited an author who has helped him – Dorothea Brande, author of the book ‘Becoming a Writer’ an old book published in the 1940’s. Last night, I bought the book from Amazon after reading a synopsis. Her thesis is that to become a writer one must address the psychology or personality of the person, not focusing on aspects like learning the writing craft as usually done.

It looks like an interesting book to read; the premise is something that I instinctively feel is my major stumbling block, not the learning of craft which seems easy to surmount after attending the right classes and doing the right exercises. Rather it is the underlying motivation and confidence that drives the individual that must be improved, turned towards being a writer. If her work was enough to motivate Ray Bradbury then it’s good enough for me. Hopefully this will turn out to be a work like Steven Pressman’s ‘The War of Art’ a book that focuses on motivation and being a professional in outlook in order to be a writer. In the end, writing should be like achieving ‘Zen’, a meditative state where writing becomes a joy and not a chore, something that’s achieved when work becomes love and one just writes for the pleasure of the activity. Hence, it is a psychological state that a writer must achieve as he proceeds to work in the writing craft.