Surgery and a Protest Song

We were up early today as my stepson was scheduled to have some elective surgery. That meant for me I went to bed at 3 AM and woke up at 7:30 AM.

We went for dinner at one of our favourite restaurants last night, Bahn Thai, the same dish we always get. Our favourite thing to have there is the Thai salad with a dish called four flamed fish.

We ordered it so many times that they know our order off by heart. There’s something about the Thai salad dressing that they make in-house that can make any vegetable taste delicious.

Yesterday I started building some soundproofing into my writing area so that I feel less exposed when talking. There something about the chance of other people hearing me that keeps me from dictating full-time.

Enclosure consists of a frame made from one by twos with heavy quilted moving-blankets attached to the frame to dampen the sound. I’ve also ordered some foam squares to help disburse the sound directly in front of me. They look like the same wedge-shaped squares you would see in a recording studio. So far it can dampen the sound but not soundproof the room. Soundproofing would require a great deal of structural forethought and expense. But I do notice a difference already and how it feels to work in the environment.

It wasn’t it wasn’t strange for me to hear conversations three floors up to the vents at all hours. The hope is that the dampening will stop my voice from travelling the opposite direction.

I’ll continue to practice dictating my thoughts and stories to build up my skill level. I was watching YouTube or yesterday who was able to write 6000 words per hour by dictating. He has gone on to write multiple books in the six days using that method.

Sometimes all it takes is trying something you think is impossible to see what you can really do. This author was writing books 90,000 to 120,000 words long. That meant he was averaging about 20,000 words per day. Granted he was putting in very long days, but he still made time for his family and things like picking up the kids from school.

I think if there’s one thing that made him successful at dictation it was that he just kept at it. A lot of times when people start dictating, they feel self-conscious, have trouble thinking out loud and don’t like the sound of their own voices. These are all true for me, but I continue to battle through so that one day it will feel normal and I can produce a great deal of work.

As an example, this blog is approximately 500 words long at this point. It took me all of five minutes to dictate this without really trying very hard and taking my time. It is not unusual for a writer to take upwards of half an hour to an hour to get the same results. Granted the blog is not as refined as a story. At least not this blog, not right now. But perhaps in the future I will have beautiful pros in my blog as well.

I continue to watch the Mindset course on WMG publishing’s site. I recently acquired their lifetime subscription for all courses. This means I’m able to watch any of their videos at my own pace, as well as take the courses where you hand in assignments and get feedback from Dean Wesley Smith. So far, the courses mostly been about getting your head straight and busting myths that exist about writing.

One of the quotes that stuck out to me was from a conversation my teacher had with Harlan Ellison. He basically said that whatever problems you have in your personal life are the same problems you have in your writing. I found that interesting and wondered one if I had problems in my personal life and two, were they showing up in my stories.

I’ve talked about the ways I trick myself into writing and taking on projects that I know are beyond my skills. I give myself or boards and I put myself in a mindset where I’ll try something and not think about what the results will be until afterwards. If I take a course from WGM I’m of the mindset that I’ll do what they say, I’ll take their advice and I’ll give it a try with an open mind. I reserve any questioning for afterwards when the courses finished.

One of the projects I’d hope to start in 2025 was a YouTube channel where I recorded my stories and gave them away for free. There were a couple reasons for doing this. One was to train myself to be able to speak and read clearly. This is something that offers I admire her very able to do and do quite often. Whenever you hear Stephen King read out loud it’s always a pleasure to hear. Neil Gaiman also has a great voice, both in his writing and his speaking. Salman Rushdie is another one who you could listen to all day long.

I believe that if you can speak well and tell a good story verbally you can write a good story. This loops back into the dictation exercises I have been involved with lately. Right now, there’s a disconnect between thinking thoughts and speaking my thoughts. You get used to typing your thoughts. And it feels completely normal to speak with friends your thoughts. But when you start to write down thoughts that are not conversational it feels completely different and disconnect. Some of that starting to go away and I’m feeling better today about it than I did yesterday, and I wonder how much of that is due to the soundproofing I installed. And maybe I found one of the things in my life that will show up in my writing.

The fear of people seeing my mind working in real-time, my thoughts on full display. I know for the most part I’m a very private person and I like to keep most things close to my chest. So, maybe part of this journey for me will be learning to let go of those feelings.

One of the other things the mindset class was talking about today was something they call life rolls. These are the times in your life when something happens beyond your control and knocks you off your writing habits. It can stop you from achieving your goals you let it. We had a little bit of that today. The – cluster in our car shut off completely on the way home from the hospital. Once the car was parked it would no longer shift into drive although it would start. Luckily, I was able to use the shift lock to get the car back and strive and we took it straight to the dealership. Even building my little sound booth was a distraction from what I should’ve been doing a which was writing. I’m hoping though that now that it’s semi complete that I will start to reap the benefits.

In the class they talk about their own personal life rolls. From having people steal and embezzle money from them, to needing to get a titanium shoulder implant, and even losing their sight temporarily in both eyes.

They claim much of their success, in publishing, writing, and editing comes from the fact that they always just kept going. They always found a way to adapt to what the new world order demanded. That included transitioning from traditional publishing to Indie publishing. And even now they’ve gone from having employees, to doing everything just by themselves.

It’s stories like this that they’ve had throughout their lifetime that make me believe I’ve picked the right people to teach me the correct practices and to lead me down a safe path on my journey of becoming a professional writer.

As I was watching you to today, I saw that Bruce Springsteen released a new song inspired by the tragedies happening in Minnesota. The song is called “The streets of Minneapolis”. As I was listening to it, I was reminded of songs by Bob Dylan and other protest songs that were written of their time. U2’s Sunday bloody Sunday was written after the bombings that took place in Ireland. Its songs like these become anthems, become bigger than themselves. I think this Bruce Springsteen song will go on to mean all kinds of things to future generations. It was interesting to hear him calling out specific political leaders and directors of homeland security.

And you must wonder, if the powers that be, sitting in their ivory towers, know that when the Boss writes a protest song about you, and names you in the song, your days are nearing their end.