From time to time I’m asked what I write about. Usually there is an anticipatory raised eyebrow in case the answer might be a little ribald or salacious, or even high-brow. But when I say I write across a fairly broad spectrum of topics, the eyebrow lowers a little, almost reflecting disappointment. And I think that’s because many assume a writer specializes in one area or another. And that’s true for a lot of writers I know. Just not me.

If I specialize in anything its corporate scriptwriting, which basically means I write scripts for companies, ad agencies or entities that are producing a film or video project of some kind. But even there the subject matter is still extremely varied. And when it comes to magazine articles of which I write a fair amount, the subject matter is littered all over the place.

And that’s part of the fun of writing.

So just for kicks, here’s a smattering of topics and the venues they were written for just to give you a taste. . .

• A magazine profile of director Robert Clouse, best known for directing Bruce Lee in his last, most famous film, Enter The Dragon 

• A script for a documentary on the emerging technologies that Hewlett-Packard helped augment in India and South Africa. 

• A magazine essay on a blind horse who had once been a world champion roping horse but was now relegated to a pasture whose dinner bell sound was a human voice (mine). 

• A short story for a magazine about a widower who discovers a dead plesiosaur in Puget Sound…only to find empathy with its grieving mate. 

• A radio script for Carharrt clothes tailored for actor Sam Elliott that eventually never saw the light of day. . .dangit. 

• A ten page brochure for a medical liability company in Texas, written from the point-of-view of doctors at different stages in their careers. 

• A magazine article on a hundred year-old school in an isolated, windswept corner of North Dakota that was purchased by a former student who turned it into a unique bed & breakfast. 

• Created Taglines for engineering companies, small businesses and even a sea salt caramel maker who I happen to think has the greatest recipe in the world. 

• A magazine article telling the story of having lunch with writer Horton Foote one wintry day in New York City. 

• A humorous script for a well-known financial firm’s annual meeting video, featuring their CEO doing his best to fit into British society. 

• Scripts for a series of podcasts sponsored by USAA to help young people better understand finances and handling money. 

So is it better to specialize in one area of writing or to be a generalist?

The answer is yes.

Both have advantages. Both have their downsides.

But both have this in common; they both need to be written.

And therein lies the opportunity. The privilege to be paid to produce words that create worlds for people to enter.

And as always, the chance to make the words better the next time.

There’s always that.

Music is the great, universal language.

Notes that touch our hearts and make our spirits soar are the international language that every culture responds to.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always held this secret dream of raising the glorious baton in front of an orchestra and moving it in the rhythm of a piece of music and watching it come to life. How absolutely amazing would that be?

And what does this have to do with writing?

Well, a lot, actually. See, I have always written to music. Mostly orchestral film scores, but always to music of some ilk. Even when I was young and trying to write plays and screenplays even before I knew the format or craft, I found a rhythm to the language through music. The tempos, colors and moods of different pieces helped me unearth pieces of my mind and heart and more importantly, the story that was trying to get out. There was a lot of fumbling in those early writing efforts but there was also tremendous excitement about getting words down that were forming into something that I was creating but also becoming something all its own, wholly apart from me. I don’t mean that odd or mystical but there is a mystery in writing that I think many writers would tell you is not of their own hand.

Right now (write now?) I’m putting down these words to James Horner’s score to The Pelican Brief. I’d never heard it until seeing the film recently, but was particularly taken with the music score during the last scene between Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington as they say goodbye after a hellish adventure together. The music, as it often does, stayed with me after the film was over and I sought it out on YouTube. It’s a beautiful, evocative soundtrack that echoes both melancholy and triumph. And listening to it helped unlock these words.

Another example is that I was thinking about a piece I wanted to write about my dad and our Saturdays together, which were always special because he worked so hard during the week. As I started putting down some images, The Sandpipers song, ‘Come Saturday Morning’, popped into my head. I hadn’t heard it in years and remembered it as the theme song to that quirky Liz Minnelli film, The Sterile Cuckoo. But I found it on YouTube and played it, and it instantly took me back to the late sixties in the fall when Dad and I would go into the backyard and I’d run long routes as he’d throw me the football. The music popped my senses open and I could smell the grass, feel the October sky around me….and I could see Dad again.

I finished the essay that day and sent it off to Alaska Airlines Magazine. They bought it, a rarity first time out and it will be in the November issue. Music helped the writing find a home once again.

Lastly, here is a link that is all about how soundtrack music has influenced and helped me, in very difficult times: http://magazine.nd.edu/news/17829-close-encounters/

So, music has always been a gentle companion in my writing and I’m grateful for its companionship.

And I’m still waiting to slice the air with the baton in front of a large orchestra….

So what exactly does a typical day look like when you’re writing for a living? I’ve been asked this several times. And it’s a little hard to answer, actually. I’m not sure there is a ‘typical’ day. Especially, if you’re not specializing in one kind of writing and providing words for a variety of projects. But on any given day, the words must be put down, whether they flow or not. Now my writing schedule is in the evenings or on weekends and looks different. But when I was writing full time, what follows was a real day of writing for this particular writer. . .

7:30 – 8:00AM: Climb into chair, check e-mail to see if there are any emergencies. Answer a couple quickly, then call-up a document of copy for a health care brochure. Got most of it done yesterday. Read back over what I wrote. Shorten one paragraph, clarify a specified procedure and punch up a closing line. Pretty satisfied. Let it rest until late in the afternoon to give it fresh eyes and then make any more corrections and then send off to client.

8:00 – 10:00: Begin a video script for a Northwest resort that is rebranding their image. Somewhere in the 5-7 minute range. Come up with a montage of images for the opening and then begin to write narration that hopefully doesn’t feel too narrationly. More natural, inviting. Finish a draft of the first third of the script and push back from the desk. Take a quick walk outside to stir the gray matter.

10:30 – 11:30: Rewrite an essay for an airline magazine. The editor liked the piece but wondered if I couldn’t punch up an incident that is central to the article. In other words, make it more humorous. And of course, I’m more than happy to do that. It’s really only rewriting part of a paragraph; rewording/structuring three sentences, really. It takes me an hour. Remember, dying is easy; comedy is hard.

11:30 – 1:30: Answer e-mails. Get a little thrill when an editor for a large magazine takes interest in my query (brief summary/proposal for an article) and says she’d be interested in seeing the piece. I shoot it off to her with a little prayer. I’m then brought back down to Earth with the disappointing news that a fiction piece was rejected. The personal note from the editor is only a little solace. Then send out a query for another proposed magazine article. I get a response from a regional corporate producer who has looked at my script samples and said he’ll keep me in mind, which means, don’t call us we’ll call you. It’s now time for a bite, peruse the news on the web, read a writing blog or two.

1:30 – 3:30: Sent out script samples to ten production companies and ad agencies in the region in hopes they are looking for freelance writers. I’ve learned that I have to actively market at the same time I get the writing done. Can’t put it on the back burner or the work flow is too choppy…or stops all together.

3:30 – 5:00: Go back over health care brochure. Make one change. Satisfied and send it off to the client for review. Start some web copy for the home page of a new client. Kind of hit a wall. Writing feels dry and forced. Push away from the desk and call it a day.

And that indeed is a typical day. A fairly productive day. Not everything went well but still got some work done and the promise of tomorrow brings another chance to make the words better.

It’s a hard, exciting, frustrating, enlightening and wondrous way to spend a day.

Every year between Christmas and New Years I take an inventory of writing projects I’ve accomplished the past year as well as looking at what I want to tackle in the coming year.

Before I started working the current job I have (one that I love and am thankful for) I wrote full-time for about three years. It was a dream fulfilled as well as a pen’s eye view of the roller coaster ride that is freelance writing. But my writing regime has changed since I’m not writing full-time anymore. Though, ironically, I think I’m still getting quite a bit done because I have to put stricter parameters on my schedule due to my full-time work.

In 2012 I wrote over a fairly wide spectrum of projects and genres. Here’s what it looks like I completed:

• Published a young adult novel called Lost & Found
• Published a short story collection called My Eye On Home
• Was commissioned to write and nearly half-way completed on a biography.
• Placed four articles in national publications
• Revised True North, a full-length play and had it selected for a public reading at a regional theatre.
• Completed Last Run, a new one-act play and began submitting it to contests.
• Taught a Playwriting class to kids 12 and up.
• Wrote a new article and two new short stories.
• Wrote a bunch of corporate writing; web copy, television commercials, brochure copy and some brand writing.
• Adapted three short stories for the stage for a collection of Christmas plays.

Looking back that seems like a fair amount, given my job, work out on the farm, wrangling an ever-growing menagerie and trying to spend as much time as I can with a cherished wife. And yet, I feel like I wasted so much time. There were projects I wanted to complete that I didn’t even get started.

So looking ahead, here’s what I hope to cross the finish line by the end of the year:

• A full length play concerning JRR Tolkien & CS Lewis (started)
• Complete a novel that was started a couple of years ago (about 50 pages in)
• Write a screenplay (western) that’s been percolating for some time.
• Complete another play that is in outline form
• Complete afore-mentioned Biography
• Continue submitting short stories and articles
• Be more specified about the corporate writing I take on
• Blog more

Looking at that list is a little daunting. But I’ve actually scheduled out a minimum number of words I want to get down each week. I also have deadlines for first drafts for each project. So it’s not only possible to accomplish these tasks but even likely. Of course, life comes in now and again to remind us our plans are sometimes good for a snicker. Still, had I not written down my writing goals, I wouldn’t have completed the projects from the previous year.

And that’s why I’m writing this down now; to remind me what I’ve committed to as well as give myself a gentle kick in the butt.

I’ll let you know come December how well I did. . .

It’s an interesting thing writing about faith. Sometimes exhilarating, sometimes tenuous. Always vulnerable.

From a Christian perspective, making faith a critical element of a piece, be it non-fiction, fiction, screenplay or otherwise, usually brings a response. More often than not, a negative one. There’s a lot of reasons for this but I think the main ones are that if it’s didactic, people feel preached at. They generally don’t like that. If it comes across pat, they dismiss it as being unrealistic, which is often true. And even when it comes across sincere and genuine, people are often dubious.

I’m speaking of the general populace here. I’m not talking about writing a faith-infused piece to folks who already believe; the choir, as it were. I’m talking about crafting a story where faith plays an important role, where it’s central to the make-up of a character, where it actually makes a difference in someone’s life and infuses their decisions, response to events, colors their worldview.

You know, like in real life.

Some of our greatest works of literature wrestled with the issue of faith. The Brothers Karamazov (faith and doubt) by Dostoyevsky, Les Miserables (the power of forgiveness) by Mr. Hugo and I would argue A Christmas Carol by Dickens deals with the heart of a man being effectively changed, which is at the core of the Christian faith.

So faith is a deposit that is rich to mine and always will be. And yet, it’s one of those areas that make most of us uncomfortable. It’s personal and universal. True faith creates a transparency that is both compelling and uncomfortable, making us want to draw closer and hide all at the same time.

Why is that?

Probably because faith, or the ability to yearn for something beyond ourselves, is at the very center of who we are as human beings. And I happen to be one of those who think we all believe in something, whether it’s something outside of who we are or simply in ourselves.

And that makes for an awful lot of grist to write about. . .and it’s one of the hardest things to write about well.

What pieces have you read that have been thought-provoking along the lines of faith that have stayed with you?

Good writing will do that. It may even be the agent that brings about change.

Short stories.

Have always loved reading them. They feel more like munching on chips and salsa than taking part in a full course dinner that is the reading of a novel.

But, man, are short stories difficult to write well. I so admire writers that can transport you in a single sitting that a short tale offers you.

I have a short story collection coming out in a couple of weeks called My Eye On Home. Since this is a blog on writing I thought I’d give you a preview of the collection via the Afterwards of the book which talks a little about the writing of each story. Even though you haven’t read the stories (and I hope you will) it’s sometimes fun to take a peek behind the curtains, or to try to answer that unanswerable question, where do you get your ideas…

These stories span almost twenty years. The first one was written in 1991 (Widowers) and the last one in 2010 (Kindred Spirits). Widowers, Freefall and My Eye On Home have been published. For those interested in writerly stats and such, Widowers received eighteen rejections before being purchased. My Eye On Home inspired a reader of the magazine it was published in to ask permission to adapt it for the stage, which was wonderfully gratifying. And Freefall morphed from a non-fiction piece into a short story.

Short stories are fun to write. They’re also a beast to do well. I was spoon fed on the stories of Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, some Faulkner, Twain and Hawthorne. Stories require an exactness, a capturing, if you will, of a moment exploded in time. Novels give you leeway to travel down some rabbit trails (as long as their interesting trails). Short stories do not. Yet they still have to have a beginning, middle and end. They still have to etch real people into your hearts and minds and they still must do what all writing is supposed to do; transport you out of the here and now into the what if.

Freefall. If truth be told was inspired by two things. One was ‘Breathing Method,’ a novella in Stephen King’s collection Different Seasons. In his tale, a group of older men tell almost supernatural tales in an old English drawing room. It’s a story within a story. I loved how he played with an almost British literature sensibility and I loved the camaraderie of the men and the club itself as much as the tale told. But I wanted my setting to be more contemporary as well as the chance to get inside the heads of WWII vets, which was the second inspiration. I’d just connected with a member of my father’s WWII B-17 crew and we instantly hit it off, developing a wonderful friendship over the last three years of his life. In part this story is dedicated to him.

Man of the City. Walking through a rare snowy day in the Pacific Northwest near Christmas, I got to thinking what it might be like to encounter Charles Dickens near the end of his life. What would he be like? What would he say? What concerns or observations would he have? I finished my walk as the snow cast a serene setting and wrote the bulk of the story that evening.

Kindred Spirits. This is an ode to my dog. Actually to two dogs I’ve owned. One growing up and one I currently have. Dogs have played an important role in my life and it seems like the hardest times I’ve had to endure have been with a furry faithful companion at my side. The story is also an homage to the Bradbury story, The Emissary.

My Eye On Home. I had just seen Ken Burn’s The Civil War for the second time through and was taken with David McCullough’s descriptions of the young soldiers memories of home. I decided I wanted to explore that world and found myself falling in the love with the main character. Even though I knew he was doomed, I was taken with his courage, sensitivity and faith. It really is true that sometimes stories write themselves. I wish I had known Will. I would like to have met him.

Widowers. This story’s first seeds were planted on a day trip to Crater Lake in my home state of Oregon. For those of you that don’t know, Crater Lake is a majestic and breathtaking body of water formed when a volcano pushed upward in a massive eruption thousands of years ago. The resulting lake is perhaps the deepest in the United States at nearly 2000 feet. I was there one day and saw a small boat making a trek out to the Wizard Island, a tiny atoll in the middle of the lake. I got to thinking, what would happen if during this pleasant sunny day, with just a handful of tourist and rangers, a great Plesiosaur rose out from the depths just feet from that tiny boat. What kind of impact would that have?

As often happens, I didn’t get to the keyboard right away. The story percolated for a while. Years actually and it changed and developed into its current form. I always really liked the story but couldn’t seem to get anyone to bite on it. Finally, after seven years and eighteen rejections, an editor from American Airlines Magazine (who were still publishing fiction in the late nineties, God bless ’em) called me and said they’d love to purchase the story. Not only that but it was more money than I’d ever seen for a story and they put an outstanding illustration with it as well.

Sometimes stories need time to find where they’re supposed to live.

The tributes are coming hard and fast, spilling over in adoration and love.

Just as it should be.

But it doesn’t seem to quell the fact that I thought he’d live forever. After all, Mr. Electrico dubbed it so.

Ray Bradbury was a ‘Papa’ to me. Not a literary Hemingway papa as Ernest was often called, though for different reasons. No, I called Mr. Bradbury Papa in the same way Steven Spielberg called him that. After Ray told Steven that ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ was the greatest film of the genre, Steven remarked that he wouldn’t have made the film if it weren’t for ‘It Came From Outer Space’ a film based on Bradbury’s story. Then, as the story goes, Steven said, “Are you still my Papa?” And Ray smiled, nodding, “Yes, I’m still your Papa.” Meaning, that we all sat at his storytelling knee, weaned on his imagination and metaphors, enraptured with his lyricism as we fell headlong into his stories.

A friend came to me once and said he was going to a convention where Bradbury was the guest of honor and that he might have the chance to speak to him personally, and did I want him to say anything for me? My mind scrambled and I pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote, ‘Thank you for being my Papa. And thank you for giving me back my home town in the form of Green Town.’ And gave it to my friend, saying, “…if you get a chance, give this to him.” My friend returned a week later and said he had something for me. Apparently he did have the chance to talk with Bradbury briefly and told him about my love of his work and gave him my sheet of paper. Dan, my friend, handed the paper back to me, smiling. On it, was written, Dear John, No—thank you!! Ray Bradbury.

It’s framed over my desk as I write this.

Ray’s writing took us to Mars, alongside a fire chief torn about his duty to burn books, to a African Veldt that came alive in our living room, and washed us in the golden glow of endless summers in a small Midwestern town that we all immediately recognized.

My own writing sparks from the small town in Oregon where I grew up. But it wasn’t until I read Bradbury and discovered the sheer joy he took in his writing, that I felt I was allowed to write about the wonder of my childhood, the town I grew-up in and the bright flame that burned in my own imagination. He gave me that. And I will forever be grateful.

He’s gone now, but not really. His intensity of joy and wonder will always make his books pop off the shelves. He invites us in and regardless if the tale is horror, science fiction, fantasy or mystery, he never concludes before leaving a waft of hopefulness and an air of wonder.

I’m so grateful to have discovered him in my lifetime. And he will live forever, as I’m turning to him now to take another stroll through Green Town, letting him show me the sights I already know but yearn to see again.

Thank you, Papa, for giving us your words.

For giving us you.

I just finished reading WILD by Cheryl Strayed. I was thoroughly engrossed. It’s about a young woman,  having just lost her mother to cancer and divorced from her husband – all before the age of thirty, sets out to sort herself out while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) from California to Washington state. It’s a story of tenacity, heartbreak, resolution and self-discovery. She tells her story with brutal honesty but also a lucidity that opens the trail up for us to discover both the physical and emotional landscapes. By the end, when she reaches the Columbia River and puts her hand on the Bridge of the Gods that spans Oregon and Washington, you shed some tears of relief with her and think back on the expanse of her journey and just how far she’s come. 

As I closed the book it got me thinking about journeys. We all have them. And whether they’re told over a beer or written down in book form, they still make an impact. 

Some that come to mind of those I know or have known….

A teacher who faced prejudice all his life, only to impact students for a lifetime by opening up the worlds of literature and theater for them. He would later transform at-risk youth with the beauty of art and helping others… 

A girl who for years endured the sexual abuse of her father only to find escape in art and who somehow, someway, kept her heart soft and tender towards others by having an incredible generosity of spirit… 

A man who’s battled alcoholism most of his life yet ministers to people all over the world, including tenderly sharing with prostitutes on Bourbon Street and living with and serving a family in the garbage dumps of Juarez, Mexico… 

A woman who endured ridicule and loneliness growing up, finding escape in the theater, only to become a highly respected concert performer and who gives willing of her time, treasure and talent…. 

Our lives may seem small and nothing ‘big’ ever seems to happen to us. But raising an autistic child and seeing him bear fruit as an adult or surviving a devastating divorce that leaves one crippled only to have entire vistas surprisingly open up before us, including our hearts, our journeys are worth relating. It’s not a matter of big or small, it’s one of relateability. And all of us have lives and experiences that universally resonate. 

And sharing those lives, in whatever form, may prove to be the catalyst for inspiration or hope for someone else.

 So what’s your story..?

As with the blossoms exploding in Spring or the leaves turning neon before their last journey to earth in the Fall, the seasons usher in unique offerings for different times.

So it is with grief, the onset of pain while saying goodbye to someone or something dearly loved. It is a process that is baffling and tailored to each individual going through it. It can be harrowing and cathartic; unrelenting and abrupt; avoided but necessary.

This has been such a season for us. The season (about 18 months) has seen a beloved parent pass, as well as friends, relatives of friends and dear pets who are as much family members as if they walked upright on two legs.

Grief also seems to beget grief. By that I mean that a new passage of grief has fragments and echoes of earlier grief journeys so that the mourning process is often a confusing mosaic of heartbreak for the current loss as well as reliving walks down the corridors of earlier losses.

This is not meant to be a melancholy or angst ridden-entry. On the contrary, I’m one who believes that grief is very necessary for the human condition. And I’m one who avoided it for a long time and had to re-learn that grief must be passed through. It cannot be circumvented or avoided for very long. It always catches up and demands to be dealt with. 

As I often do when experiencing difficult or even joyous times, I turn to the written word. Writing has helped me immensely when going through hard times in my life. It makes tangible that which is often confusing or amorphous.

So, to comfort my own heart as well as to hopefully bring a kernel of peace to those whom I hold dear and who  are walking their own grief journeys, I offer these words along with my prayer for a metaphorical arm-around-the-shoulder as their lives re-adjust to the vacuums they are now dealing with…

“There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.” ~Winnie the Pooh

“Grief is itself a medicine.”  ~William Cowper

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.”  ~William Shakespeare

“Grief is a statement – a statement that you loved someone.” ~Barbara Baumgartner

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; 
   he drew me out of deep waters. 
 He rescued me from my powerful enemy, 
   from my foes, who were too strong for me. 
 They confronted me in the day of my disaster, 
   but the LORD was my support. 
 He brought me out into a spacious place; 
   he rescued me because he delighted in me. ~Psalm 18:16-19

 I cried out to the LORD in my suffering, and he heard me. He set me free from all my fears. ~Psalm 34:6

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.”  ~Robert Ingersoll

“Hope is grief’s best music.” ~ Unknown

Seeing as it is Easter week, I thought it would be appropriate to put up a short story that befits the season.

The Dinner Guest is a story I wrote many years ago. It retells the biblical story of Matthew the tax collector and of a particular dinner he held for Jesus (Matthew 9:10). Pretty remarkable since tax collectors in the day were considered a little lower than scum. But Matthew had been called by Jesus to follow Him and so he did.

I always wondered what it would have been like to be at Matthew’s (or Levi as he is also called) home where many of society’s ill-forgotten gathered. What would it have been like to be an outsider and to see Jesus for the first time? What would it have been like to actually steal a moment with him and pour out your heart?

And so, one early evening as the sun was setting outside my window, my pen took me back a couple thousand years and placed me in Matthew’s house with many wayward souls and one very special guest. And I’ll always be thankful I made the trip.

Here’s The Dinner Guest.

Happy Easter.

Dinner Guest