17 August 2021

 Song mood: Manic Monday by the Bangles.

I know it’s Tuesday, but Tuesday to me, is an extension of Monday. I really wanted to see the Bangles, now, I’m not sure if that is going to happen. Given that the band is getting older and we’re still not sure about the pandemic.

We’re past half of August. So naturally my desire to write picks up.  Because now is the time to write a scary story. If I could just get that focus. All I need to do is write one simple project of 40,000 words give or take.

I found out the other day that my guitar teacher died. Like within the last couple of months. 

In my twenties, I used to play the guitar.  Once a week, I would take a cassette tape over to my teacher’s place. He would sit down, figure out how to the play the song. Write it down. Then he would tell me what I needed to work on.  Or sometimes I would bring the cassette and play along with the sheet music he wrote down for me.

He lived about a mile from where my apartment was. This was way back when I went to Presentation, a Catholic college, to study Nursing.

Back then, all I ever wanted to do was play guitar. I wanted to be the greatest guitarist in the world. But my father wanted me to get a practical degree. So I studied Nursing until I discovered that I can’t handle blood.

My teacher was a cool guy. He actually read the first novel rough draft I ever wrote, though I cringe when I go through a couple of pages. 

It was about a shape shifter who fought satanists. Back in the eighties there was this big satanists scare and me in the nineties was still in that scare. Of course, I drifted away from many ideals. Went from being a conservative to being liberal. Hence, the reason why I cringe at reading the stuff I wrote in my twenties. 

My guitar teacher was supportive of my writing. Of all the things that I did that was creative. He had a saying that an Artist stands naked before the world and takes the world’s criticism and yet continues to make art. I’m kind of paraphrasing this, but the sentiment is the same.  The artist must persevere in a world of criticism.

Yesterday I finished The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton. What helped me out was remembering all the 1974 Father Brown episodes that I watched. The 1974 series follows the stories closely. Which is why they feel a lot different from the 2013 Father Brown. The 2013 series, all of the episodes take place in the same town, where as in the short stories and the 1974 series, Father Brown is always traveling.

Today I started Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It’s good. The protagonist is very similar to all of her other protagonists. A Catholic girl whose family treats her poorly. I didn’t read up on what the story was about before listening. Though, within the first fifteen minutes I could tell it was going to be a thriller.

Currently on ebook, I’m reading Life on Seven Moons by Quentin Lucas. Which is three short stories and 30 writing tips. Lucas uses the short stories as examples for the writing tips. Should be interesting.

For writing, I’m just doing random free writes. As I get into another book on writing, I should do and make up exercises to do. I know I need to go back and read the stuff I wrote before on the current project. It will all fall into place, I just need to be persistant.