Scar Jewelry

January 6, 2013

Travel Dreamstate

I just returned from a family reunion, which was terrific – I was an adult before I met this segment of family and I so enjoy them. But that is another story (partly told in my novel Scar Jewelry).

Cannot decide whether this post exhibits advanced or naive blogging technique. Chapter 72. Starting a Post with a Digression.

Anyway. As I was not yet saying.

I reached the reunion via a 2 hour plane flight. Same time zone. That  is unfortunate because jet lag makes the displacement of travel more tangible and credible. This kind of travel creates such a sense of unreality. Drag a bag through an airport, sit in a cramped seat surrounded by engine drone and the coughs of strangers, drag a bag through another airport. Suddenly home and family and critters and friends are gone. New sights new tastes new sensations. Reverse the airport – cramped seat – airport regimen and then I am back on familiar ground, enjoying reunions with family and critters. I lay down in my own bed and the whole trip seems like a particularly realistic and lucid dream.

November 21, 2012

My Unrequited Career as a Musician

I have had so many jobs, and quite a few careers. Writing is my calling, so that has persisted through change after change of day job. But if I could have just one job – and if I got my choice – I would be a musician. I guess I would need to be a musician who writes songs, as I’ll always need to write.  Yes, that’s a plan I could live with.

The only problem with my being a musician is that I’m no good at it. No talent. No vision. Incredibly average voice. Skill that rarely breaks past the rudimentary barrier. My best hope of being a musician was back in the early days of punk,when desire trumped ability. I don’t know why I wasn’t in a band back then, say a goof of a band like Heather once had in my novel Scar Jewelry. I suppose I lacked the right kind of cojones.

All four of my novels (three completed, one in progress) have musicians in them and two of them have music as a focus. I only just noticed this as a pattern. Sometimes the author is the last to know.