Tag Archives: writing

The Baboon Congress, Words

Letting Go

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Today’s post comes from Chris in Owatonna.

I have spent most of the day putting in a comma and the rest of the day taking it out.  –Oscar Wilde

I’ve had it! Enough is enough! I can’t change one more word!

While working on the final draft of my suspense novel, Castle Danger, those thoughts built up over the past few weeks until I reached a breaking point. It’s time to let go and send it to the proofreader, and ultimately the printer.

There comes a time during every creative process that the creator must pronounce his work “finished.” A painter finishes a painting; a sculptor chips off the last piece of marble and sands it down; a composer inks in the final note on the score. Then the artist lets go, releasing his creation to the world for its consumption and subsequent pleasure, displeasure, or indifference.

So I’m now at the letting go stage. I realized I can change a word here, switch sentences there, intensify an expression in a third place, but to keep doing so indefinitely is a sign of fear, doubt, and uncertainty. Is the story good enough? Will anyone buy the book? If so, will they like it? And by extension, will I feel validated for spending several years of my life on creating something from nothing.

I’m glad I waited until this point, though. To have deemed Castle Danger to be finished any earlier would have left me with nagging doubts about whether I gave it my best shot. Now I am confident I gave it my best shot and can face whatever comes in the way of “success,” positive/negative reviews, and feeling good about myself. I feel good about myself right now, and the novel’s success or failure won’t change that.

If it bombs, I’ll be disappointed, but hey folks, I wrote a damn novel! Not the most earth-shattering achievement, but at least, I didn’t sit around for the rest of my life and talk about writing a novel. Seriously, I’m proud of having gotten to the point of completing a  monumental project (for me). It’s something I never imagined myself doing this late in life.

For a Neo-Renaissance practitioner like me, new experiences are always good, but seeing a project through to completion is just as important as trying the new activity.

When have you finally let go of a project or creation and what brought you to that decision?

The Baboon Congress

instant inspiration

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Today’s post comes from tim

i remember hearing about , i think i even read the book by amy tan about the travelers to myanmar   (burma… siam) where the story came to her in one sitting and she simply sat down at the desk and out it came from her brain to her fingers to the page to our published finished product. well it was a pretty good book and i think the bridges of madison county came about the same way if i remember  the way that story goes… it seems a bit hokey but the truth is the magic is in us and the release is the thing we all search for.

i was watching monday night football last night and one of he running backs who was having a great night had been asked why he is doing so well this year and he said he just quit thinking about running and let his legs run. i think that is the way it is with life and with all great things on the planet. you dont need to over anaylize them , you just let them go and kind of follow along like water down  the driveway to the curb to the hill to the drain pipe on the corner. if it is engineered correctly and life often times is… we can wake up,  let the flow carry us as it should and hopefully the destination is a more ideal setting than the drainpipe on the corner but the destination has likely been charted to be no surprise by the steps we take.

my sons two favorite movies are good will hunting and shawshank redemption. he can watch these over and over again. in one the hero is a smart guy who does his job and the end result is that the bad guys turn out to be the heads of the prison and he escapes from their suppression and they get caught and in the other the hero is a guy who is super smart and has the challenge of figuring out his way in the worlld. his role , who he loves and how he faces it with the help of another person who struggled in a similar fashion.

it is interesting where the stories and lessons of life take us. where our fingertips  take us  if we  let them. it is automatic as can be. this is not the best damn blog entry ever written but it took my fingers little time to get it down and out the chute.

what would you write if the word you just typed couldn’t be taken back and the next one was coming up whether you liked it or not? how would the stories unfold if your fingers took over for your  brain? automatic writing 101 anyone?

start with the first  word that enters your mind and follow it with he next and see where it takes you. fun stuff this mindless drivel

produce. maybe you will be better.

ready set go!!!

The Baboon Congress

Tootie Goes To School

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Today’s guest post is by Jacque.

Since 2008, the year my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease and gave up housekeeping, I have edited and illustrated a story book for my mother as a Christmas gift from me each Holiday Season. (Some of you in BBC have seen these).

The stories that comprise each book are memoirs that she wrote in 1984 as part of an Iowa Writer’s Workshop Project that travelled through out Iowa. The purpose of the project was to have citizens of Iowa write about their own stories. The second purpose was to give teachers CEU credits.

My sister, brother, and I knew about these stories because Mom told us about attending the class. When we were children, she told us these stories.

As we transitioned Mom out of her house, the task of cleaning out her house and disposing of many family antiques fell to me. The stories, antiques of a different type, were tucked away in an old file. I confiscated them and began storybook project. There are now six books and I have started on the one for this year: “Potty Talk.” It is about all the functions of a modern day bathroom and laundry, spread throughout the farmstead.

The year 2014 was one of big family events.   Both Mom and Lou’s dad started to deteriorate in health. We experienced nine months of parents’ needing assistance, many trips back and forth to Iowa where they each lived, hosting mom here and the family drama that arrives with all that.

Lou’s dad died in October at age 94. Mom moved to a Memory Care facility in January 2015.

Tootie

During all that the 2014 book barely got written and I never did post the link to this story on this. So I thought I would use this as a blog topic.  The name of a the book was Tootie Goes to School regarding Mom’s first day of school, which was not much fun for her.

A website called www.Bookemon.com is where I publish and copyright each book so no one can take the stories from her. You can browse the site and find them there.

I also posted the link to one or two of these on the blog in the past.

Here is the link.
Enjoy.

Do you remember your first day of school?   Tell us more!

The Baboon Congress

Frictional Fictional Fretting

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Today’s guest post comes from Clyde

For thirty years or more a novel has irritated me; I would say angered, but that makes me seem petty.

The first book is Jon Hassler’s Staggerford.

Staggerford

That was supposed to be my book to write: the tale of a man teaching English in a small northern Minnesota town at the high school he attended. Even worse he wrote it so well. Curse him. I could have not described a faculty meeting and a faculty party as well as he did. Darn him. He fictionalized Park Rapids, while I would have done so to Two Harbors. I would have thought of as clever a town name as Staggerford—if given the time. Hmmph to Hassler. It so disgusts me that I have been forced to read it several times now.

Ove

Now, in my grumpy old age along has come another equally irritating novel. Last week while waiting for my wife to select another half dozen interchangeable romances, I spotted on our library’s tiny New Fiction section the book A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.

I am about three-fourths of the way through writing my second book, a book which takes my main character from my first novel into old age with a cat. Go ahead guess. Yep, you’re correct: A Man Called Ove is my plot, set in Sweden, no less. About a man dealing with solitude and forced retirement and a cat.

Well-written too. Funny, too. Human, too.

Backman’s cat is a wild cat like Opus’s friend Bill the cat, all ratty and hairballed. My cat is a superior cat, coming by way of a vet, named after a woman author.

Backman’s first chapter upset me the most. I have been in a running battle with the techies from our local cable provider, (was local, but sold off to a mega-corp) who cannot make my TV and Internet connection reliable. Our discussions are frustration on both ends.

In Backman’s first Chapter grumpy old Ove is frustrated by the sales clerks whom he frustrates because he cannot understand how the “Opad” is not a computer. Where is the keyboard, anyway? Backman not only stole my plot, he also made me look foolish to me.

This book I think I may just have to purchase in paper form. Not digital because 1’s and 0’s don’t burn well.

I would tell you the plot, but that would be telling MY PLOT. I strongly urge you not to read it. Wait for my book to come out.

Eventually.

What novel or fictional character is too similar to your life or you?

History, The Baboon Congress

A Congress (or Something) of Baboons

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I’m thinking the title of today’s post will draw many readers who are scanning the internet for the rare chance to indulge in some choice primate-based vitriol about our elected representatives.

If that’s what brought you here, welcome and apologies, for I’m going to disappoint you a bit – we don’t spend a lot of time venting about Congress at Trail Baboon. But we do tell stories and make lighthearted observations – often in the comments section of each post where a core group of visitors congregates. These are the aforementioned Baboons of the eponymous Trail.

It just turns out that a gathering of baboons anywhere in the world is called a “Congress”. Or not. There is some disagreement about this. It might be better to say “troop” or “tribe” or “flange”. Apparently an e-mail has recently made the rounds to promote a Congressional collection, but English is a living language so ultimately a group of baboons will be named whatever we decide to call them.

The Baboons in this Consortium, Collection or Clump sometimes write guest posts and I (as blog administrator) have resolved to credit those entries more clearly and completely, thus the new item in the top task bar called “The Baboon Congress”.

Take a look – you’ll see the names of some of the writers who have penned guests posts since this blog began almost four years ago. Each name should be accompanied by a click-able link that says “All posts by …” This will give you a sense of the prolific amount guest-blogging done at this site.

I’m grateful to the gentle readers who populate this place and am in the process of adding pages, bios, and the collected writings of every person who has contributed along the way, so check back with us regularly, feel free to join in the discussion, and before long you may discover that you are a baboon too!

What do you call it when you and your friends get together?

The Baboon Congress

My Brief Career as a Gardening Correspondent

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Today’s guest post comes from Jim.

I have only had one job where I was paid as a writer. Somehow, about 20 years ago, I got a call from a magazine that covers gardening asking me if I would like to be their regional gardening correspondent for zone 4. It could be that they remembered contacting me a couple of times regarding the collection of spinach seed that I was offering through the Seed Saver’s Exchange. I had done some unpaid articles that were published a few places and was pleased to have the opportunity.

veggies

I was familiar with the job because I was a regular reader of the magazine and had even used tips given by previous zone 4 correspondents. I went right to work providing the same kind of advice that I had received. Actually, if you look at what is published for gardening tips, it seem everyone is stealing from everyone else because they are all saying about the same thing.

There was very little editing of what I wrote and I got almost no feed back. Occasionally I got carried away and put in some of my own rather rambling thoughts on gardening. Things started to change. At first I was published in the magazine. Latter the regional correspondents were left out of the printed magazine and only published online. The editors were in the process of spiffing up their publication and they were moving away from the old approach where the advice from people like me was a regular feature. I think some of those rambling articles I wrote gave them a clue that I wasn’t a very polished writer. They still have regional correspondents in their online publication. I’m not one of them.

It was the magazine’s old folksy approach that appealed to me, but it isn’t surprising that they wanted to go to a more polished style to fit in with all the other glossy magazines on the market. I did run into a couple of people who read what I wrote and liked it, and I talked to one of the old editors who was let go when they changed their style and he thought the old way was better, too.

But he didn’t even recall that I had been a correspondent during the time that he was the editor.

When have you expected someone to remember you, but they didn’t?