It has been a while since I last posted anything. I’ve been up and down in quarantine, but still COVID-free (or so she likes to think). Outside, autumn has settled and we are all good as we need to be, here, now in Houston. I am writing this post against the backdrop of a semi-lit computer and with a lot of upgrades to my woman cave, which I probably will not want to leave even after this thing is over.
To my right, Obsidian is open to the help vault, which is useful as markdown does not come to me as naturally as I would have liked. Further to my right, across the massive monitor I decided to buy about three months ago, the Intense Studying playlist is on from Spotify It all feels good, inspirational. Tomorrow is a holiday that, back where I come from, we used to celebrate as conquered non-Indian souls. How come the Spaniards first conquered the Indians and then oppressed the Latinos? Something is definitely missing. On a side note, when I was a kid the holiday was commemorated as Race Day or Día de la Raza, which in Spanish sounds way better than anything I could say in English to reproduce its brutality.
I’m not fully on board with the latest woke movements like #Metoo and the like. I think they went too far too soon for my taste, even though I can totally see how the original idea made perfect sense. So, while its tone, purpose and ultimate success is all debatable — and I agree that it is — I don’t want to digress into multiple degrees of separation from my original thought. I brought the idea of tomorrow’s holiday to the table as a blessing that I cannot quite thank enough.
I am beginning to feel truly in need of a vacation, even if the whole pandemic business makes it risky and erratic. After all, I live in one of those states in the US that sooner or later will be taken over by rising water or forceful hurricane winds. So, for me, it’s all about living to be another year old — or young.
While I described almost to the letter what lies to the right and rightest of my screen (to the left there is WordPress, you fool), I have yet to tell you what lies on my desk. Well, it is a little jewel of a book I found years ago and photocopied — making a better use of my resources than today and owning less stuff. It’s called Self-editing for Fiction Writers, and it was written by Renni Browne and Dave King.
The book is great in that, in a concise and very American way, it gives you tips on how you can edit your own work so it is more polished and readable. It’s looking at fiction primarily, but who knows what I will be writing in the end, when the time comes for me to decide? Maybe I should even consider this blog as a form of writing…because it is, even when I neglected it for months and haven’t written in English more than for work.
That’s my quest these days, writing in a polished and clear way so I don’t become an embarrassment to myself when I try to read my own production years from now, in a dark corner, far away from the madding crowd.