money concerns, and no real concerns beyond finding a bed to sleep in at the end of the night, I was ready to write for myself.
10
For the next few weeks I walked around town with Bahama and sometimes Snuka, although Snuka was so big he tended to scare fellow pedestrians. I snuck off for meals with my uncle that my aunt would never have approved of, smoked a lot, and wrote.
After more than a year of not writing I didn’t really know where to start. I have a writer friend who always told me, “When in doubt, just write…” I usually just try to remember that part of the quote, but inevitably he always ends with “…something that’s not complete crap should eventually come out.”
I wrote about my wife, I wrote about my sister, I wrote about the GA Pig Shack, I wrote about my dog, and I wrote about myself. After writing for about a week, while sitting on the deck, I noticed something funny about my writing, something that I must have trained myself to do. I write in 1,000 word chunks because that’s how many words I used to write on my presidential biographies. It didn’t matter what I was writing about, I would get to 1,000 words or so, and just run out of things to say. Also because 1,000 words generally signified the end of a workday for me, I usually found it hard to continue writing after I met my quota, especially those first few weeks.
Day after day, not just at my uncle’s, but for the entire duration of the trip, I had to reprogram my brain, and write just for the act of writing. This should be simple, but when all you have to do is write, it can be pretty intimidating. It wasn’t that the environment I was in wasn’t an excellent one for writing. I had a giant beach house, with decks protruding from all sides, so I had multiple places to re-hone my craft. My uncle and aunt were always close by if I wanted to talk, but never intrusive, and looking back on it, I don’t think they ever asked what I was writing about. They were just genuinely happy I was writing again. Aunt Gail was always quick to have a meal for us, but just like my uncle would tell me in secret, her meals were usually too grainy, green, and cardboard-ish for my taste. I usually had an appetite because of the other green I was partaking in, which I could also thank my uncle and aunt for, so it all worked out.
That month I also spent a lot of time at the beach. When I was young, Howard had taught me how to boogie board when my parents used to visit him in whatever beach town he was living in that particular summer. I tried boogie boarding again, but after a few looks from the local kids who actually knew what they were doing, I reverted back to just walking on the shoreline mostly, which was fine.
Sometimes I would bring the dogs down to the beach. Bahama loved the water, usually scaring me because I always thought she was going too deep, but she always came back onto the beach wearing a grin to cancel out my fears. Now Snuka, as Gail had mentioned, was another story. Snuka loved the sand, but absolutely hated getting too close to the ocean. There was an imaginary force field that only Snuka could see maybe 15 feet from the ocean. When he crossed it, it would send him into doggy panic attacks. A few times Bahama and I would go a few feet into the ocean to play around. Snuka, wanting no part of it, would bark at us the entire time, showing his displeasure. It was even worse when Howard and Gail would join us. It was almost as if Snuka refused to believe his masters could defy him by going into the ocean. Snuka wouldn’t bark when they went in. Instead, he would turn his back completely to the ocean, and dig a hole. This was no small hole, being able to fit a large dog, and Snuka would lay in it until Gail
10
For the next few weeks I walked around town with Bahama and sometimes Snuka, although Snuka was so big he tended to scare fellow pedestrians. I snuck off for meals with my uncle that my aunt would never have approved of, smoked a lot, and wrote.
After more than a year of not writing I didn’t really know where to start. I have a writer friend who always told me, “When in doubt, just write…” I usually just try to remember that part of the quote, but inevitably he always ends with “…something that’s not complete crap should eventually come out.”
I wrote about my wife, I wrote about my sister, I wrote about the GA Pig Shack, I wrote about my dog, and I wrote about myself. After writing for about a week, while sitting on the deck, I noticed something funny about my writing, something that I must have trained myself to do. I write in 1,000 word chunks because that’s how many words I used to write on my presidential biographies. It didn’t matter what I was writing about, I would get to 1,000 words or so, and just run out of things to say. Also because 1,000 words generally signified the end of a workday for me, I usually found it hard to continue writing after I met my quota, especially those first few weeks.
Day after day, not just at my uncle’s, but for the entire duration of the trip, I had to reprogram my brain, and write just for the act of writing. This should be simple, but when all you have to do is write, it can be pretty intimidating. It wasn’t that the environment I was in wasn’t an excellent one for writing. I had a giant beach house, with decks protruding from all sides, so I had multiple places to re-hone my craft. My uncle and aunt were always close by if I wanted to talk, but never intrusive, and looking back on it, I don’t think they ever asked what I was writing about. They were just genuinely happy I was writing again. Aunt Gail was always quick to have a meal for us, but just like my uncle would tell me in secret, her meals were usually too grainy, green, and cardboard-ish for my taste. I usually had an appetite because of the other green I was partaking in, which I could also thank my uncle and aunt for, so it all worked out.
That month I also spent a lot of time at the beach. When I was young, Howard had taught me how to boogie board when my parents used to visit him in whatever beach town he was living in that particular summer. I tried boogie boarding again, but after a few looks from the local kids who actually knew what they were doing, I reverted back to just walking on the shoreline mostly, which was fine.
Sometimes I would bring the dogs down to the beach. Bahama loved the water, usually scaring me because I always thought she was going too deep, but she always came back onto the beach wearing a grin to cancel out my fears. Now Snuka, as Gail had mentioned, was another story. Snuka loved the sand, but absolutely hated getting too close to the ocean. There was an imaginary force field that only Snuka could see maybe 15 feet from the ocean. When he crossed it, it would send him into doggy panic attacks. A few times Bahama and I would go a few feet into the ocean to play around. Snuka, wanting no part of it, would bark at us the entire time, showing his displeasure. It was even worse when Howard and Gail would join us. It was almost as if Snuka refused to believe his masters could defy him by going into the ocean. Snuka wouldn’t bark when they went in. Instead, he would turn his back completely to the ocean, and dig a hole. This was no small hole, being able to fit a large dog, and Snuka would lay in it until Gail
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