The biggest challenge for me when returning to my regular life following a vacation that includes my family is food. I just spent a week ingesting 22,000 calories per day, including anything that swims and whatever comes out of an ice cream scoop. Basically, someone stepped on my foot, I opened my mouth, they shoveled food in. But today I ate streamlined meals that included a number of vegetables. What’s up with that?
I rallied despite these hardships. I impressed everyone at a job interview, including me; helped put our household back together; and spent another hour in the Write-a-thon, working my way through everything I scribbled last week. I remember this now. This is the easy part: Typing up my notes, editing as I go along, making changes in previous chapters that occurred to me on the plane. It’s as if someone else did all that work and all I have to do now is supervise. But I’ll finish with the last page of hand-written work in a day or two. Then it’s back to the blank page on the screen and just my imagination, which, hopefully, will run away with me.
Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice. (Octavia Butler)
Random Pick of the Day
The Who, The Who Sings My Generation (1965)
They certainly sang “My Generation” as well as “A Legal Matter,” but those might not be the best songs on their raucous debut – “The Good’s Gone” and “The Ox” are still rock at its finest (and messiest).
Random Pan of the Day
The Who, Live At Leeds (1970)
I love this album! If Led Zeppelin had tried this they would’ve gotten a concussion. But what I love is the original six-song release. Here’s what I’m panning: The 14-song version of 1995 (“The Big One”), the 33-song version of 2001 (“The Deluxe”), and the four-CD, 55-song version of 2010 (“The 40th Anniversary Collectors’ Edition That Makes The Big One Look Like a Weenie”), which includes 32 songs from a concert in Hull. No offense to anyone living in Hull, but as I understand it, that’s not Leeds.
The expanded editions give you about three days’ worth of new music, but also what feels like years of stage banter that’s almost indecipherable and adds nothing to the experience even when you can decipher it. Pete is out of breath from all that windmilling? Roger thinks something is funny? Was that Keith who just hacked up a hairball? Would you please just fucking play?
The producers picked out the best songs 40 years ago: “Young Man Blues,” “Substitute,” “Summertime Blues,” “Shakin’ All Over” (my favorite), “My Generation,” and “Magic Bus.” I don’t know about you, but they are all that I need.
This is the Cape Cod bookstore where I discovered Lord of the Rings in 1970. I was 15 and all I was trying to do was go for a walk to escape the chaos in our vacation cabin. You never know when or where books are going to strike.
Run-DMSteve 