I’m happiest jumping between writing assignments. Currently, I try to write new stories for After the Second Wave three to four times a week, a blog post one day, and something else two to three times a week. Sometimes it’s a prompt from Writing Down the Bones. Preferably, I’ll write for a contest.

In the past month, I’ve written for two contests. I sent a unique story to On The Premises for their short-story contest … I had the idea while re-reading Hills Like White Elephants. It’s mostly dialogue and set on a train from Edison, NJ to New York City. I don’t think it’s a winner, but I enjoyed writing the piece.

This week, I tried an online prompt from Chuck Wendig. His writing and style differ from mine, but I like the prompts. We only get a week… there (hopefully) is an expectation this isn’t a polished piece.

I wrote about a creepy-looking red door, the top part covered in white paint. Why would someone paint it white, and why stop? These questions led to Ralph Whitewashes His Nightmare. It was a fun exercise, although I couldn’t help but think how Neil Gaiman or someone else could turn a hastily written 1000 word prompt into a masterpiece.

Because of the short timeframe (even shorter since I didn’t decide to try until Monday, leaving me only four days to submit), I didn’t have time to let anyone read the piece. I’m apprehensive posting un-edited work here, although, to date, everything else in the Writing category is also un-edited. So apologies for tense changes and the long list of other sins in my raw writing. But I hope it is worth a quick read.

And it forces me to put more writing up on this site. For an author’s blog, it has very little fiction writing. Next week, I’ll post a story I wrote for another contest that could never find an online home. And this should kick off a series of actual posts with writing. Enjoy!

Ending stories is hard. When I started writing short stories, I had a character and a problem… but no clear ending. Not every story needs to end with a bow, but something satisfying or dramatic or shocking should occur. The first story I wrote had no ending… the main character left one place and arrived in another. My second story, “Unfair Advantage”, had a situation and a mood before an ending. Now, when I write, I don’t start (unless I’m just experimenting) until I know where the story will end. And this got me thinking about the best sad and happy endings.

The most remarkable sad ending is from a book I listened to on tape while commuting over twenty years ago. And I don’t recommend the book. It’s thoughtful and well-written… but the sad/tragic/horrifying conclusion caught me by surprise. Haunted me for days. Even now, as I think back to the ending, I can hear the narrator’s flat voice and remember getting upset. Anyway, the story is “The Weight of Water”. It became a movie, but I couldn’t watch. Even dredging up the memory here leaves my stomach grinding on itself.

Finding a great happy ending is a challenge. The authors I’ve read the most aren’t known for their upbeat books. Murakami, while amazing, is sad. Howey’s stories have hopeful endings (Beacon 23 has a legit happy ending). Hemingway can be cruel.

I come back to David Mitchell’s books. He doesn’t write linearly; they are separate stories, related (Ghostwritten, The Bone Clocks) or a tighter version (Cloud Atlas). They don’t have happy endings, for sure. But they resolve in very satisfying ways… the disconnected threads and characters conclude successfully. These endings are interesting and clever… but not happy.

I can’t think of a great happy ending and the most impactful sad ending…I never want to think about again? There are countless examples of happy endings on-screen, for sure, especially in movies. But, in the age of prestige television, many of the endings on series aren’t happy; most are ambiguous or cliffhangers. The only place I see happy endings are cheap, reality real-estate shows where the couple looking for a house finds the perfect one and lives happily ever after.

I’ve always been a reader. It’s in the genes; my mother is a tremendous reader, and I grew up around piles of books (from the EB Library, of course). Reading was always fun; only in high school and college did reading temporarily feel like a burden.

I had collections of books from elementary school I re-read repeatedly (a habit I got out of as an adult). The earliest series I remember was Encyclopedia Brown. I wanted to be a detective (based on my love of Sherlock Holmes stories) and followed the boy detective from Idaville. The concept was brilliant; each book had five chapters, and each chapter was a mystery. And they presented the solution on the last pages. Even though I fancied myself a detective in the making, I don’t remember solving any of the cases in real time. In my defense, most of the “evidence” that Leroy Brown (Encyclopedia’s real name) used was incredibly circumstantial… but I loved reading them, anyway. Also, it started a theme of reading stories set in small towns decades earlier… life in small-time Idaville seemed strange, sitting in Central New Jersey in the early eighties…

Another mystery series was the McGurk Mysteries. The McGurk Detective Agency were kids from a small town with specialities. Like a heist movie, where all the thieves have their speciality… but instead of a safe-cracker or a driver, McGurk’s agency had a tree expert, a smell expert and a kid who was “brainy”. While looking up information about the series online, a few pundits point out the series was pretty much one big trope. But, as a young reader, these devices seemed fresh. I liked the idea of an agency that met in the basement of McGurk’s parents’ house, and that a bunch of kids could solve mysteries adults couldn’t. And just enough action to keep things interesting.

The other series was The Great Brain. I read them a lot… and I must have owned a few, because I remember reading a few of the books multiple times. But, unlike E.B. and McGurk, I enjoyed them less with each reading. Everything was foreign, even though the series was set in Utah in the late 1800s. Set in small town Adenville, life seemed very different. Not just the lack of technology or flush toilets or radio and television, but the customs. Children were whipped by their parents and paddled by teachers, although JD’s (John Dennis was the narrator and younger brother to the Great Brain) family used the Silent Treatment as punishment. Families visited in the evenings in parlors. But it was the principles important to kids that never landed.

Each story involved TD, aka The Great Brain, basically manipulating and swindling. One of his primary tools/weapons was the concept of not going back on someone’s word. While this is a good principle and something to strive for, it had a commandment-level hold over the kids in the town. It was frustrating to read; I’d ask myself, why wouldn’t the swindled kid just call TD out, or tell an adult, or just not honor the agreement? Another similar device was when JD caught The Great Brain scamming. As the younger brother, he should have just told his parents what The Great Brain was up to… but TD inevitably launches into a soliloquy about breaking their parent’s heart if JD told them their son was swindling. JD agreed and wouldn’t tell the parents and have to deal with his brother’s swindle. This never seemed plausible to me as a young reader and less so now.

I read other series like Choose Your Own Adventures, but none of them resonated like the aforementioned series. I re-read these often enough they left an indelible mark.

Last week I wrote about libraries, prompted by a family visit to Ireland. One of the first places we visited, right off of the plane, was Trinity College and The Long Room library.

The Long Room is most known for housing the Book of Kells, a illuminated manuscript of the Gospels by Columban monks. It’s on the old-school list of things one must see in Ireland, along with The Cliffs of Moher, the Aran Islands and Newgrange. While the history and significance of the Book of Kells is impressive, the actual book (only open to one page and protected beneath inches of glass) pales compared to the Long Room hall.

It’s something out of a movie, at least to my American eyes. They built the Long Room in 1592. The high ceilings, long rows of books, busts of famous Irish philosophers and authors, the smell of old leather and pages is the genuine attraction.

As I dodged Euro tourists trying their best not to smoke for fifteen minutes, I wondered what it would be like to write here. Not in the current set-up for tourists… replace the prime floor space with long study tables and period lamps.

Would every story be a Harry Potter rip-off? Trinity is a university with Hogwarts vibes. Stories about floating candles or the busts coming alive and commenting on the news of the day. Old books opening to mysterious pages. Secrets, ignored for hundreds of years, falling out of the dustiest book.

Or do thoughts rise with the ceiling? Pondering man, the nature of life. Reflecting on the works of ancient and modern philosophers. Really heady stuff. Does the space elevate the work?

It’s hard to imagine writing a schlocky pulp novel or trashy romance story. At a minimum, the characters should be in the library and find the last clue or piece of the puzzle in the stacks. Which begs the question, ultimately… how much does place affect the work?

Hard to answer. I’ve written in a handful of places. Trying to write at the same desk I use for work doesn’t work . My normal spot in the sunroom is the default, quiet and regular enough that I don’t think about the space anymore. Other places, like hotel rooms and house rentals… are hard to judge. I know that the first place we traveled to after quarantine was a breath of fresh air…. writing outside in a quiet forest. But when I travel, I usually have a full agenda and time constraints in the morning and writing is a secondary activity. Not sure I can judge the effect it has on the words. I’d need to go somewhere and have a leisurely morning with hours to write to test this theory.

When I think of libraries, I focus on the one in my old hometown. East Brunswick Public Library was a large, very seventies space. My memories of the EB Library stop in the mid-nineties, so PC’s and the internet hadn’t changed everything yet.

We’d visit the library every two weeks as kids, per the loan schedule. We had free rein and it was common to walk out with five or six books… usually of different types. Sports biographies, adventure stories, etc. I was very into mysteries as an elementary school student, especially classics like The McGurk Series. I’d never start or finish all the books, but loved the call of the unread stack.

As I got older, the library became more of a place to do research and studying. Research comprised hitting the card catalog or roaming the non-fiction shelves organized by topic. If it was a school research project, going to the reference section and the micro-fiche archives… I can still feel the headache caused by zooming past months and years’ worth of newspaper and journals.

The EB library also had other memories. A famous security-guard who always wore a yellow hat. The distinctive smell of damp books. And movie… before we had a VCR, my family used to rent a VCR tape, put on big headphones and watch movies in the middle of the library (Rocky!). We also rented Atari and Commodore 64 video games… although those rentals cost money ($1?) and lasted only a week. I studied in the library, although not as much as some other students. It wasn’t until later in college I could study in busy places.

My other strong library memory was the Douglass/Cook library at Rutgers. I discovered early in my college career I couldn’t study in my dorm/apartment. I’d spend a few hours in the library daily, usually at a lower level. They had larger tables meant for 4 students to spread out, or these personal little cubbyhole rooms. I spent dozens of hours a month in the library.

As an adult, my relationship to libraries has changed. Obviously, the development of the web as a research tool and Amazon deliveries had the biggest impact. In the places I’ve lived as an adult, I’ve only visited the public libraries a handful of times. I decided, sometime around the rise of Amazon in the early 2000s, to buy any book I wanted.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, I really felt the need for a quiet space, away from the constant noise and distractions of home. Of course, libraries and bookshops were closed or had limited hours and hard restrictions on access. I finally got to my local library to edit and couldn’t believe the changes… not the emphasis on technology as the attitude toward noise and food. Libraries were always quiet and places where food and liquid were strictly verboten. I remember smuggling in cups of coffee to my college library study spots. Here, they sold water and other drinks along with candy bars from behind the desk! But the noise was the most shocking…. everyone spoke loudly. Librarians shouted across the room to one another. It made me feel ancient. There was one section cordoned off as the quiet study space… in my view of a library, the entire place should be a quiet study space. Get off my lawn!

I’d like to be more strategic using the local library. At minimum, I should be part of their kindle program, where I could borrow digital books. This might be a good way to hedge against books I’m not sure I’d enjoy. I have a strong bias toward physical books… something about digital books doesn’t sit as well with me. I struggle to remember what I read or take it as seriously. But if I could use it as a sample… a way to try new topics and authors with low risk.

I’d like to incorporate my local library as a weekly stop for editing and maybe some bonus writing. Regardless of how noisy and active it may be, isn’t home. Two or three hours there, consistently, could make a huge difference in attacking my backlog of editing. And soak up the good mojo.

Watching movies and reading is more interesting now that I’ve learned about the mechanics of storytelling. Certain devices, like The Call-to-Adventure jumps off the page or screen.

I watched The Lincoln Lawyer (liked the first three episodes… after that, the show seems formulaic and stereotypical). In the first episode Mickey Haller, who we learn is a down-on-his-luck lawyer in LA with past trauma, inherits a law practice complete with a high-profile case.. the Call to Adventure. This jumps off the screen, especially as someone who didn’t study or learn any of these elements until recently. Before, I had a vague notion of a story needing a “hook”, although I rarely noticed them.

Other choices are more apparent, like how a piece handles background and exposition. Too much exposition is considered sloppy and should be avoided (unless you’re Joyce and load each story with exposition… paragraphs of it starting each short story in Dubliners). This included voice-overs in movies and TV shows as well. I knew it was lazy writing but didn’t understand why. After struggling to build characters and worlds, I understand the need to relay information quickly to the reader. In The Lincoln Lawyer , the writers use different ways to tell us more about the main character. Some is “natural” conversation with his ex-wives and daughter about his past and his struggles. But they also use a hokey exposition device where Haller is explaining to his driver about how he practices law as they drive through the desert in a seemingly unrelated scene.

When I was in college, one of the most popular courses was Dendrology, the study of trees. I love the forest and made a conscious decision not to take this course, to leave the mystery and magic of the forest and not get bogged down in tree identification. I wonder if viewing and reading will hit differently now that I can identify the structures beneath them.

Last year, I built a new bookshelf for my office. When I redid my office a few years ago, we picked up these wonderful, plain, perfectly sized bookshelves my wife painted. I’d assumed I could buy more when needed. As my book collection grew and we got rid of shelves from downstairs, I required more space. Unfortunately, the retailer I bought them from doesn’t stock them anymore and I can’t find them online, anywhere. Amazing how hard to find unadorned, seven-foot shelves.

So I built my own. I previously built my desk and side tables using fantastic butcher block and black pipes. Rather than trying to match the other shelves, I matched this furniture.

Pretty simple to make. It’s two and a half feet high and the stacks on top are eye-level while at my desk. I pay attention to these books more than the books on my older, more traditional shelves. The bigger, bolder spines keep leaping back into my attention. And most of them don’t deserve the headspace. In fact, most of my favorite books are smaller paperbacks. This got me thinking about organization.

Aesthetically, organizing by size or color makes sense. I’ve seen this method used in a few bookshelves, in an online picture in a hyper-stylish room. I’m not wired that way. I’m not color blind, but colors and their combinations don’t jump out at me like they do for others. Arranging by size, however, would let me see smaller titles. For instance, I’m trying to find Dubliners by James Joyce… I believe my copy is a thin, white paperback. But I can’t find it amongst the larger books.

Organizing by size seems sterile. One of the nice things about a shelf of books is the lack of uniformity. There are two schools of thought. One is dusty, leather-bound volumes neatly arranged in a row. The other is the overcrowded NYC apartment with bookshelves crammed with different shaped and colored books. I don’t have any collections, we will default to the second choice.

A logical way to organize them is by author or topic. I have clusters of Hemingway’s, Mitchell’s, Gibson’s, Murakami’s, etc. … but they are exceptions. Most books and authors are one and done. And topics seem hazy and very open to interpretation… does a book of Poe short-stories go in a collection of literature, or short story collections, or horror (I don’t read horror, so probably not. But still)

We will default to grouping by type. Authors clustered together, books on writing, books on health and fitness, stoicism and meditation, etc, etc. Still , it should be fun. And help me find the books I want, and highlight better books. No need to look at cheap Tony Robbins books when I can think about Nabokov.

Addendum: should I continue to hold on to books I either didn’t like or didn’t read? There are three categories of books that I haven’t read on my shelves: books that were aspirational reads (like The Odyssey or The Origin of Species), books that I wasn’t ready to read but are probably quite good (Master and Margarita, Molloy), and books that are just bad (Million Dollar business, The Alchemist). The first two categories I might read or reference one day, but there is no excuse for holding on to the third category.