Stones From a Zen Garden

Mastering My Beginnings

The instructions are right in front of me, like learning how to replace color in Photoshop. (Something I learned this afternoon, self-taught out of lynda.com.) I mean the writing instructions:

1. Write your book every day
2. Make a plan. Schedule, make sacrifices.
3. List 25 books you could write yourself; include something specific about each
4. List 100 books you need to read (that one could take up an afternoon).
5. Make a slow notebook (try in pencil; nothing's slower than that). Note the changes in your writing when you slow down with this notebook.
6. Make a group of writers who write your writing
7. Surround yourself with 20 little assignments
9. Read aloud, then assess the fit. Write in your truest voice.
10. Make a list of things that drain you, plus a list of things that feed you.
11. Seduce yourself out of whining with confident sayings.
12. Find things out -- like especially one heart-based curiosity you need to discover about the reason to write your book.
13. Do the book -- it teaches you the fearlessness you need.
14. Make a list of the 10 Reasons Why I Am Writing My Book.

The above is all borrowed by Chapter by Chapter, the guidebook by Heather Sellars. She gets into the cracks of my writing valise, rubs them down with a gentle voice of a balm that seems to say, "I know it's not easy, but begin. The rest is easy." I know it to be true, the most difficult part being the page blank, the screen write and empty, the cursor mocking in its blinking. I think of Hemingway, my early beacon in my 20s, back when newspapering was my passport to the land of writing. Every day, he said, I open a vein and write 500 words. But he also said something else, about truth.

"Master, I asked, "what about truth in fiction?" The Zen-like retreat in my mind is laced with honorifics like Master, but who doesn't want to be Luke, on Degobah, being Yoda the master's pupil? My post-Catholic religion, Empire was.

Truth, like Hemingway's? I jumped at the connection. The Master -- who's probably Ron in 2020, by then marking 40 years of being a writer, and looking back -- he watched me reading A Moveable Feast in the dawn light on a set of early mornings. Hemingway, another master, he fed me what I wanted to hear in his voice, not just words off some page.

He said, "To begin, just write one true sentence. Then follow it with another. Think a bit, and then write another, the truest sentence you can. In this way, you begin. The rest is easy."

"Easy to say," I reply, "but hard at first to try, my Master."

He squints at me. "Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try."

All a-Twitter here, with Facebook filling

Abby joined me in the social network revolution this morning. It was her choice, but once Oprah did a Twitter show (Ashton Kutcher brags about getting to 1 million followers faster than CNN) she decided to join up. I'm @ronseybold, she's @abbylentz

Oh, it probably helps that she's got her first iPhone today, too. Happy Birthday, sweetheart.

It's hard to say if we'll have both of us on Facebook. Feeding these maws, whether they're blogs or the social nets, takes time. But it's becoming so popular that it could pass for genuine social intercourse. It depends on how authentic you want your profile to look. Twitter is gaining on Facebook for members. Me, I've got my Twitter tweets updating to the Facebook page. The automation is bound to get better as these outlets get more popular.

There's a Facebook virus out there, of course. You can't create any biological organism without a risk of infection. Rub dirt in it. Privacy is so 20th Century.

Death's exit moves a fella to do

I just got news that a friend died, early at 63. Wirt Atmar was vital to the very end, a big part of a community of HP 3000 computer users. This fellow held aloft such a bright light for decades there. And like any death too soon, it makes me consider what I've done this week, and try to do more, believe more, love and enjoy more.

What's too soon? Definitely any week where you're still pushing out belief, research, teaching or passion. My friend had all of these on offer this week. And now I regret never having visited Wirt in his hometown of Las Cruces. A great reason to put more friends on my travel list. So perhaps death can move a fellow to do more travel, more sharing, and keep fit to enjoy many more years.

All I can add is a moment of silence in memory of a good guy's light winking out.

Try saying some words of hope

What color is your country's future?

Tide of Hope

Mom used to say, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." While it was meant to muzzle childish snipes and complaining, she was more correct than not. I wish for a world where the bile, venom and vitriol already rising around this week's election could be stanched for a period of grace. So insults like mulatto, fervent threats like "hope he gets shot before inauguration" and "as a country we're screwed" didn't get a shot at shattering the hope of us all working together.

I know, if hope is shattered that easily, then it still isn''t strong enough to endure. But I read those things yesterday from college-educated, otherwise sensible adult males about my age (50 or so). This crew already hates how things turned out Tuesday. Whether we can accept it easily or not, the voting was about our tomorrows and how we might make them better. Mulatto, cracker, these kind of words and spirits just keep us locked up in the past. Our election was about a path into the future. To be honest, there's a lot less of that future that we fellas of 50-plus will live through than the next generation, like my kids of ages 25 through their 30s. They've got to live in this world that's been broken much longer than I do. Do we all have to holler like Mr. Wilson? "You kids get off my lawn!"

Barack Obama carried young voters by a margin of 2:1. If it's not a crime to wish the President-elect gets shot, it's at least an anarchist slur. If our country made a habit of killing off politicians who faced opposition, we could have a government on par with Uganda or Somalia. Wishing death on somebody that you disagree with is a dark, sad, hopeless and desperate place to live in. We're better than that, or we can be. Yes, you can live in a place of hope.

"Our mullatto president" was offered up as cynicism. That phrase goes beyond just that. Being a fellow who works words, I'm always looking at my dictionary, although I think I understand what using that word intends, even while you  argue what the word "cynic" means. Mulatto means that racism isn't dead yet — nobody ever claimed it was yesterday — and there's going to be just a blink of a honeymoon for our new President. In the end, the biggest barriers we must climb are the ones that make us feel different on the basis of appearance: gender and race. Women didn't vote in a majority for Sarah Palin. Whites voted in a majority for Obama. Maybe we're taking some steps toward respect.

If you want cynicism of a professional style, rent Bullworth. In this arch satire on American politics, Warren Beatty plays an incumbent Senator whose re-election campaign has gone rogue: He's had an epiphany that everyone should be represented, not just the biggest contributors to a campaign. Jada Pinkett Smith plays a major role in the movie, and at one point Bullworth offers a solution to embracing race. Loving, he says, or more specifically, "We should all just keep f---ing each each other until we're all the same shade."

Can we put away the paper bag skin color tests and grow up? Stop taking that pound of flesh? Maybe mom would be prouder, whether she's white or not. Bless us all, even when we disagree. We need strong unity to get through the hard times at hand.

First, a word about that shirt

As it turns out, sporting my Obama t-shirt at the early voting booth was illegal. In Texas it's a misdemeanor to wear campaign clothing in the polling area. It took my friend and fellow workshop member Cindy Morgan to set me straight:

I worked as a Democratic election judge for several years and that jerk at your polling place was right.  We were specifically told to not allow into the polling place any signs, t-shirts, buttons, etc. that indicated voter preference.  As much as I love Obama, too, you committed a Class C Misdemeanor by wearing your Obama t-shirt to the polls.  Statute below.

ELECTION CODE   
TITLE 6. CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS   
CHAPTER 61. CONDUCT OF VOTING GENERALLY      

Sec. 61.010.  WEARING NAME TAG OR BADGE IN POLLING PLACE.  (a)  Except as provided by Subsection (b), a person may not wear a badge, insignia, emblem, or other similar communicative device relating to a candidate, measure, or political party appearing on the ballot, or to the conduct of the election, in the polling place or within 100 feet of any outside door through which a voter may enter the building in which the polling place is located.
   
(b)  An election judge, an election clerk, a state or federal election inspector, a certified peace officer, or a special peace officer appointed for the polling place by the presiding judge shall wear while on duty in the area described by Subsection (a) a tag or official badge that indicates the person's name and title or position.   

(c)  A person commits an offense if the person violates Subsection (a). An offense under this subsection is a Class C misdemeanor.

Patriotic Partisan Attire

See how easy that was? Admitting that you have been incorrect doesn't hurt. It is a way to practice awareness. Besides, I have a much more partisan shirt I wore all the time over the last 72 hours of the campaign. It exhorts you to vote. Pretty important, considering that getting to 60 million votes is important to winning the Presidency.  

Making fun of making fun

Finesse for real

I always thought, after years of performing it, and attempting to write it, and laughing at it, that humor was too personal to get empirical about. My friend Guy Smith recently posted on his blog that "Doonesbury is doomed." Guy went on to praise one of his favorite cartoonists as exhibiting more finesse. Well, doom is a big concept, and stretches out a long way into the future. Both of these cartoonists will have their audience until they tire of the work. Happened for Watterston, (Calvin and Hobbes) for Larson (Far Side), for Breathed (Opus). They quit, not got dumped by readers or marginalized.

Question: What is the common thread between Jackass, Married With Children, 30 Rock and The Critic? To somebody, each of them is funny. Comics strive to make us laugh, and think, too. They take a lot of different points of view.

Guy also had gripes with the Mainstream Media, or as some denigrate it, MSM. In an era where election coverage is dominated by the Internet, I agree that mainstream doesn't mean much anymore. So why rail against it? 30 Rock wins the Emmy for Best Comedy. Mad Men wins the Emmy for Best Drama. Few viewers watch either program. One airs on a broadcast network, the other on basic cable. Not even mainstream awards like Emmys make a difference. Any afternoon of Oprah probably outdrew both shows put together. Oprah's MSM, political, too. People poke fun at her, but she draws attention. And not a comic at all. Instead, she advises couples to start each day with a 10-second kiss. Effective for remembering love.

Media had a chance to be mainstream before the Internet. Now everybody pretty much believes what they want to believe, until personal experience teaches them something new. How broken is healthcare? Have your spouse's hip replaced. How worthless is Wall Street? See 100 grand of your retirement vanish in a week. I saw them both this month, from my family to a good friend from the 3000 world. These things are broken, from my experience. I don't need to read a comic anyplace to learn different.

Finesse is French for "smoothness." Doesn't mean subtlety, or something clever. Burrs under the saddle don't include just "elite." They run to "liberal" and "left" too. This name-calling has us looking pretty immature. The us vs. them sing-songs are what's got our country at a standstill, bleeding its potential from millions of little cuts at one another, falling out when we could be walking tall.

I wish Joe the Plumber luck. I started a business in flush times, the early 1990s, during the brief era of one-party rule. I've persevered through a more lengthy era of one-party rule, but the business trend has been downward since 2001. The fault? It lies not in the star cartoonists, but in ourselves. And so we can rally ourselves and laugh at ourselves. And work together with people who after all, are just like us in some way.

Electioneering? Or Free Speech?

Electioneering, or Free Speech?

It might be getting ugly out there in the balloting for President. A McCain supporter advised me today What Not to Wear. I showed up to vote in the least obvious Obama shirt that I own (the other says "Vote Nov. 4" in Democratic Blue, with Obama/Biden in yellow type), but the logo on my garment today was unmistakable. Especially to the fellow standing at the exit of the voting line at our local grocery, which doubles as an early Travis County voting location here in Texas. I made a point of talking with everyone who was working the election, judge, clerks, volunteers, all while wearing my shirt.

I thought of it like I was wearing a Spurs t-shirt to a basketball game in San Antonio. But when I pass my fellow citizen, he mutters something toward me that includes the word "shit." I step a few paces along my way, then realize he must have been addressing me. Sure enough, I turn around and see him glaring at me.

I walk back and ask him, "Excuse me, did you just say something to me?"

"You need to take that shit off," he says, eyeing my shirt. "It's illegal."

"So do you think we should take it up with the election judge?" At this suggestion he grows quiet, but the glower is still on his face. "Because we can do that if you want."

"It's illegal," he repeats to me, as certain as any Fox News huckster shouting down a TV guest. At this point his wife, who he's been waiting for, walks past the two of us and mutters to him, "C'mon."

He walks alongside his wife and I call out after him, "God bless you." Because whatever we disagree on, it seems he needs a blessing today. Election turnout has been heavy, which has rarely been a good sign for Republican supporters in years past. His reply to my "God bless you," muttered over his shoulder, freezes me a little.

"You don't know enough about God to say that!" And at that, I repeat my blessing to him, a little louder. But I'm rattled, as if I am a Spurs fan wearing a jersey to Boston Garden for a Celtics game.

Our little exit poll exchange has nothing to do with the outcome here in Texas, and both of us probably know that. I live in the Blue Island (Travis County) of a Very Red State. This is no battleground; we haven't seen either McCain or Obama since March here. No local TV ads, either, or even robo-calls. McCain wins Texas next month, barring a miracle. But both the McCain fellow and I get to have our say today.

And both of us get to wear our shirts, at least at this polling place. The Republicans are now working in battleground states to keep the shirts off the backs of voters, in violation of the First Amendment. But that's an Amendment that's been trampled for so long that even as a journalist, making my living for 25 years off that law, that I tire of defending it. We are already hearing about how McCain will lose this election because of the stock market crash, along with the claims of voter registration fraud via ACORN. There are even worse things being said about Obama — (Muslim, not native American, nonsense and slurs) by well-heeled media pros and rank amateurs, according to this month's Harper's magazine.

While my fellow citizen sidled away, his Harley-Davidson dress shirt ruffling off his 50-ish frame, I couldn't help but think there will be some sore losers out there on Nov. 4. It is not electioneering to wear a t-shirt to the voting booth unless a judge tells you to take it off. There's no state law that defines this, in Texas or anyplace else, yet.

But it could get ugly out there in the next two weeks. Early voting was up 50 percent on Opening Day yesterday in Travis County, a massive increase. Even the election judge at the grocery was boasting of the heavy turnout. That will mean a 75 percent turnout nationally, if the trend holds across the US.

Go vote, and wear whatever you want. But bring another shirt in the car, just in case the First Amendment is getting "shit" upon at your polling place. You might want to remember that everyone knows their own God well enough to offer a blessing, no matter what kind of shirt you display. As for me, I think the US Constitution is enough law to make everybody dump the foul speech — which will keep us all divided — away from the voting sites.

Never mind Gustav, Ike has the real spike

Two weekends ago, we braced here for Hurricane Gustav -- or to be more accurate, the influx of evacuees from that storm. Now the real deal is upon us here in Austin, as Hurricane Ike is about 12 hours away from landfall at one of our favorite spots, Galveston's Seawall Boulevard.

Abby and I have spent many loving nights at the San Luis Resort and Hotel. Just across the street from that retreat, debris is being tossed into the air and onto the the boulevard this afternoon. They expect 110 MPH winds at landfall. Up here in Austin, it's a beautiful day with 95 degree temperatures and light winds with scattered clouds. And no lines at the gas stations or Walmarts.

Like with Katrina three years ago, the local (Houston) newspaper storm blog is the best source of eyewitness details like giant balls of fire ants floating ashore, the mass exodus of mammoth cockroaches from the seawall beach, or BBQ parties on Postoffice Street in downtown Galveston with those riding out the storm and ignoring the mandatory evacuation orders. Those BOI -- born on the island -- say Ike looks tamer than Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

Hard to say now, but meteorology scientists are camped out in Brazoria County at shoreline to measure winds at the landfall site. "Landfall is not well understood," one scientist said. They've brought three trucks of equipment and labs to study the calamity.

While I write here, the sky grows thick with clouds and the wind has turned to blow out of the north. Storm winds from that direction. We expect lots of rain and high winds. Tie down the lawn chairs and turn off the sprinklers.

Gustav is spinning, but you can counter it

I've been thinking about my friend Donna all morning, since I passed through an Austin hotel lobby with Fox News blaring its guesses about Gustav's path and power and churning the waters of worry. The storm is two days away, but the spin is already thumping at America's right-wing TV nuthouse. "The federal aid is ready," sez the hucksters, with 7,000 National Guard troops "being convoyed in." It sounds like a lot, but that means a bunch of guys riding buses, not bumping along in the back of big trucks like an old WWII movie. Not much help for a swath of LA as big as the target area.

Donna has made a life for herself in Austin after having a beloved multi-generation house swept away during Katrina. Her folks go back many decades in New Orleans, and being a cultural anthropologist and a bang-up writer polishing a book on that storm, I feel as if I know the place she has lost better than anywhere except maybe my hometown of Toledo, right on the shores of Lake Erie. We never got anything but tornadoes up there; scary, but nothing like having the Gulf of Mexico wash ashore, or a lake bust through levees, to destroy so many homes and take so many lives.

Donna has tips on how to counter the Gustav spin. It seems as noble a task as anything electoral. Please consider helping. She says:

Hi Austin Friends:

Well, we’ve got something ugly in the Gulf named Gustav and, unfortunately, it seems to be heading to LA. Austin will likely be seeing evacuees from south Louisiana and possibly even the Texas gulf coast. I’ve gotten involved in volunteering and am sending out the following info for any of ya’ll who might like to help out. I will most likely be working in a Red Cross shelter, as I attended a RC shelter management course this morning.

Here goes:

1. To volunteer for the Red Cross and receive general information about volunteering in Austin, call 512-928-4271 or e-mail Mario Chapa ([email protected]) or Kim Landry ([email protected])

2. The following info was sent by Amy BeVille Elder, M.Div., Executive Director of the Texas Interagency Interfaith Disaster Response (TIDR). If you know of a church community that would like to get involved, they should contact Amy.

TIDR has a limited list of contacts for Houses of Worship; we need more.  These persons serve as a Point of Contact in times of emergency and disaster.  If Austin should open shelters, and should the shelter manager have a need which the neighborhood faith community might be able to meet, then we need a Disaster Contact Person (DCP) that we can call, day or night.  We would like all Houses of Worship to give us a phone number which we can use should a specific need arise.  The kinds of things we can imagine might be, a battery for a hearing aid, a cot so an older person doesn't have to sleep on the floor, diapers for a little one, etc.

Regards,
Amy
work: 512.458.8848 cell: 512.627.5771

I’m now on Amy’s mailing list, but if the-you-know-what-hits-the-fan in the next few days, I’ll be hard to reach. If so, you could contact the TX Interagency Interfaith Group yourself at the number above, for info on helping.

3. Finally, Donna Bonner, 512-796-3959 — if you give a call, I’ll answer any questions to which I know the answers, although I must warn I’m sort of busy right now taking calls from freaked out Louisians so I may not pick up right away. [email protected] is also a good way to reach me.

Tom O'Meara, a writer/rider friend of mine, is working on recruiting volunteers to help in the Gulf Coast diaspora/evacuation. He's at [email protected], and says

Our friends from the Gulf Coast are on the move again and will need our help early next week. The local response is well organized by Texas Interfaith Disaster Response and the Red Cross, but I know there will be opportunities for all of us to contribute to the effort.
 
I am also sure that many of you already participate in communities that are planning their own responses. Please let me know about those so I can make a good report tomorrow.
 
I am meeting with some of the community leaders tomorrow morning to find out how different community groups will be called on to respond. If you are interested in participating in this effort, please let me know.

If worry and dread tries to consume you, be still and just let today's moment be with you — not yesterday that is lost and gone, or tomorrow with its uncertain events. We are okay now, and so are our loved ones who aren't on Haiti or in Cuba. I try this power-of-now all the time, since I'm a future-look kind of fellow. (Thus, my futuristic fiction.)

Maybe they can see the real Vista

Windows users who I know are wary of Vista. Some use it because it was on the new laptops or desktops they bought. But there's another option, even if you have a new computer, and lots of people are taking it. They use XP, and "downgrade" off of Vista.

Infoworld has a short story about this (via the Yahoo portal), but you can read about the numbers in lots of places. One in three Vista machines become an XP computer right away.

They can always come back, Microsoft says. Like telling that family member at your sushi restaurant they can always order the sashimi and nigiri if they ever get tired of eating tempura. Here in my house and home office, we use Macs and sometimes, XP on our emulators. We eat the nigiri, sashimi and even ama ebe, with fried shrimp heads included in the last. Tempura? That's an appetizer. Vista? It's in the future, maybe; one IT CEO I know that that it will be replaced by "Windows 7."

But at least Vista is providing interesting stories to hear from friends and read in the trade papers.