Writing - from 6/8/07

A twenty-something C.S. Lewis wrote, in a letter to one of his fellow students, that in order to develop decent writing skills it is necessary to write constantly; whether you're writing letters or stories, it doesn't matter. Just write. Unfortunately, Alan still has my copy of C.S. Lewis' letters; otherwise I'd give the exact quote. I'll have to forgive him, since he is receiving his Masters degree tomorrow and I'm not going to be able to attend.

It's really a no-brainer though. Everyone knows that if you want to excel at something you must practice. For some reason it seems more natural to forget that fact when it comes to writing. I've always associated practice with things like painting, or playing the piano. Those things are difficult. They require fine muscle control and coordination. All that writing should require is long-windedness and the ability to sit down and type for hours on end. Right? I suppose it's just one of those strange and completely incorrect assumptions I'd made a long time ago. Aren't great writers just born great? I'm sure we've all had that moment as children when it finally occurs to us to wonder what hamburgers are made out of, or where the eggs in the refrigerator come from. If you were homeschooled you may have just always known these things, but most people don't think beyond the grocery store. One morning you're sitting at the breakfast table staring at the back of a cereal box with your spoon halfway to your mouth when you experience apotheosis: milk comes from cows; eggs come from chickens; Soylent Green is people, and writers must practice! So in the spirit of practice, here is some longwinded drivel.

I'd like to start by announcing that the Spring Quarter is finally over. I'm both relieved and a little sad. Today is the first day of summer break, and after work I had absolutely no idea what to do with it. I decided I might as well ride my bike, so I headed off down 50th street and rode around Quartz Hill a bit. It's interesting how different a place can seem depending on the time of day and your mode of transportation. I've ridden my bike around "downtown" Quartz Hill several times, but it's usually in the evenings after most people have gone home. There are way too many people on the roads between 3 and 6.

My bike has been acting strange for the past few weeks, and today was worse than ever. After putting up with it for a mile or so I decided it was high time I did something about it. I ended up taking it to Gil's bike shop, and he told me that I had a bad cassette (the conglomeration of gears on the rear wheel) and that if I took it back to Sport Chalet they would most likely fix it for me for free since it was probably still under warranty. That was nice of him. I headed over to Sport Chalet, and luckily the guy who sold me the bike was there. He remembered me and told me that he'd take care of it. The only problem is that he expected that it would take at least a week if not two to get the parts! So now it's the first day of summer break and I'm bikeless! Oh well. I left my bike there and walked down to Barns and Noble to see what they had on the clearance shelf. There wasn't anything worth mentioning, but all the same I felt like loitering in the coffee area. There is nothing that makes one feel quite so sophisticated as sitting on a pinstriped cushion, reading classic literature in the midst of Starbucks sipping urbanites, and since I was feeling very unsophisticated today I thought it might cheer me up a bit.

I was in the mood for Kipling- classic, deep, but simplistic enough that my brain wouldn't have to do much work. Yep, reading Kipling is a lot like watching PBS. I couldn't find Kipling in the fiction section; in fact I've never been able to find Kipling in the fiction section at Barns and Noble. So I went to the service desk and asked if they had anything by Kipling. "Who?" "Kipling. Rudyard Kipling." "Oh. Is that spelled K-E-P?" "No, I'm pretty sure it's K-I-P." "Oh, ok, David Kepling. We have two of his books here." He turned the computer screen around so I could see. "No, Rudyard Kipling, not David." "Oh." Blank look. "You know, Kipling" I said, "he wrote 'The Jungle Book.'" "…Ok…" He typed 'The Jungle Book' into the title search bar. "Oh, wow, there are a lot of books listed in our database…it doesn't look like we carry any of them though." "Ok, well thank you anyway." How disconcerting. So much for my sophistication fix. I'm not sure which is more depressing; that a major book retailer like Barns and Noble doesn't carry anything by Kipling, or that their employees couldn't tell him from Michael Eisner. Oh well. I decided not to let it ruin my day.

Most people who know me well know that I don't drink coffee or tea. I've never acquired a taste for it. I even shy away from coffee flavored ice cream. There is however a drink that I find to be just as distinguished and trendy as any of the exorbitantly priced concoctions that the coffee consorts can come up with. No mocha java double shot espresso could ever compare with Black cherry IBC- especially not on a hot summer day. As it happens, they sell these wonderful things at the Starbucks in Barns and Noble. So I bought an IBC and a hardback copy of Aesop's Fables for $8.61. Not bad. At least it got my mind off of my poor bike.