start writing.
Write you.
Everything you see and feel and do.
That’s how you find character and story truth.
1/16/19
Writing on phone, in nook, new breakroom. Lunch. Though, I work. What I want. Tonight, meeting 2 of semester. English 100. Even after the first meeting I’m taken far into the semester, far past where I feel I am in week one. Already remembering more students’ names so immediately than last semester. I write tonight before it happens. Before there’s a possibility of occurrence. More progress into thought, thoughts, reasoning of where I am, what I’m doing, why my thinking and reasoning does what it does.
A Philosophy class. Stanford or wherever. On thought itself. Reason and reasoning…. examination and study of the Now. There’s a storm of reaction and reflection where now seated. Forgot again about promise to eradicate ‘I’ from writing.
Not eating has me sword-like in deconstruction and reasoning, my current logical layout. Nearby currently, hearing and seeing, wondering why the character is where the character is. What brought the story there, here, to the character.
Wondering if moving is necessary. Someone just poked their head in here, an area really meant for more than a singular character. Really, 4. Or more. Just the one writing here presently.
Hunger not speaking or paining as forecasted. Should spit out gum, have coffee. Suppress appetite as much as possible. No, cut back on caff’. Tonight’s lecture, on the night itself. The magic of meta and what’s already present and for observers and writers crafted. The philosophy of Now very much precipitates from curiosity. Not to be stuck in cognitive circles, but to reach several destinations while perpetuating ceaseless travel.
12:23. Words, for tonight. For when traveling and I’m nearly suffocated by observations, what’s around me. Doesn’t matter what I’m using as tablet. Long as there are words and me and my scene and that I’m reacting to what I see, thoughtfully.
1/14/19
Laptop suddenly working. Don’t get it. Doesn’t matter. It’s getting replaced. First day of new semester. Class starts in 4 min, 1 hour. I’ll be in classroom earlier than that, obviously, if there’s not one of those mindless instructors that is in no way aware of the possibility that another teacher may need the room. Introducing narrative, tonight. The singular idea that will dominate the semester. Narrative…. telling stories. Telling your own story. Knowing your story. Just wrote that last sentence into journal. The Germany journal. What will the students this semester be like. I keep wondering but with so much need to know. It will take a while term to know.
No lunching out, today. Must say I’m pleased with my discipline and poise, for once. Need at least 2k for new laptop. Just updated the OS, here in office. See if this does anything. Doesn’t matter like I said. Quiet in the adjunct cell… good to be back on campus, in Professor Mikey mode. Sharing ideas, knowing students and the student experience better. Put quarters in pocket to go get coffee. Could use a coffee now. Beats always drink coffee, no matter time of day or how it may impact sleep. Who cares. Off to get a cup. Don’t worry, small.
6:15. Back in office. With decaf. Decaf. I ordered decaf. Mainly from being charged and directed in energy enough from today itself, training new hire and now in my element of elements sharing ideas in the classroom.
Everything out on this desk, in this shared office like every other semester on the first day. 17 minutes for computer, in whatever it’s doing. Who knows if it’ll work— WHY DO YOU KEEP THINKING THAT? You’re shedding it anyway, that devil thing you call a writing tool and think a necessity.
Another note in journal, for class— Your decisions in how you read and write, and immediately write from your experiences, or write your story, make loud your thoughts in the present.
1/14/19
Training a new Rep in a matter of breaths. Productive day, to say the least, and more than productive but one of significant and exacted character development for me. Tonight lecturing, know my direction. Fixation on the story, telling one and writing one, reacting to one. I must commit to logging everything, this semester. In and most notably and imperatively outside the classroom.
Starting with a question, tonight. What’s narration….? Won’t have them take out notebooks or journals. Not immediately. Want them to relax. Settle in. Write in as few places as possible, note to this writer’s self. Two journals to right, Sonic and Germany. No laptop at moment except for this one, and the computer at home, the one in SRJC office.
Sipping coffee. Had it made extra strong. The day has soared by me. Adding Germany journal to stack of materials to take into training room. Or, meeting room. Same room in which I meet the Reps, everyday. In mode, posture and mood and M character of characters—the writer, essayist, and I guess speaker. Educator. Idea purveyor. This coffee is most profitably and pervasively working.
9:09
Still haven’t had any coffee. Not one drop. Part of me wishes for a latte, but that wish and that side of me will go away as soon as the first sip is had, I’m sure.
9:32. Team gets here shortly. Coffee at right. Today, of observation. Collecting thought and thoughts in what I see, where I am. I’m more than calm or composed, but in pages, far into the pages I write and the ones I I haven’t written that for the moment stay thoughts.
Don’t know what to do, what to write…. My son this morning telling me he’s so excited to spend time with one of his friends, that grownups have to “do jobs and kids have play jobs”, he cites and takes time to be deliberate with his thoughts. Emma on the floor of his room this morning reading a book, going page by page, slowly, examining each image and how the characters interact with the other. She reads to herself then to her brother, then to me, then picks out another book.
9:36 and I feel the coffee already. Jazz in my head and soon I the car I take from the lot to transport me to SF. This twelfth day, new year, I think this could be when discipline takes on a topic, or I make it a topic, write a book on it. Discipline to the point of no Starbucks, no eating lunch in SF, writing in car, running tonight at gym more than the meek 4.45 miles I somehow put out under that incendiary bulb. Why didn’t I see that there, where the treadmill was. Didn’t I notice that it was strangely more highlighted and on-stage than the other belts?
Today, new. New book, new Mike Madigan in character and story, such thesis to me and what I do wherever I am.
1/12/19
Line at Starbucks, came straight to office. Yet to get coffee. Laptop working fine, now, this one and personal. Cash saved from what I would have spent at bux. Saving for new laptop, needed, and car. Today, I will be extra obsessive about writing everything and putting to blog and deconstructing, further considering later. Everything today, syllogistic in reality. The money, what I want, how to get. New habit… writing my own books on waking early, running, budgeting, Equilibrium (not just happiness). Today, 12th day of the new year and I feel shifts in my universe. In office now with heater on and me wearing sweater as the temp outside reminds me to pack and dress warm, that it’s pen weather, the climate for composition.
No lunch in field, other than the words, the work. Eating string cheese right now, pretending it’s my omelet. Or not so much fabricating but thoroughly believing. What I see is in no way venal. It’s primordial, from when I came to the story, my story, where I am now and what’s to be done to get to where I need be. What I see. Omelet done, now sipping sparkling water, 8:08, day just starting, the chapter just getting out to runway ready to take off sweater, put $6 in part of wallet, like a back slide-in pocket where I usually stuff money for saving, for something. Hear phones in other department ringing. Work, I tell self. Work. Aims for day—Lunch by self, no money spent in field, on ANYTHING (even coffee or a latte), transfer money to savings, make credit card dent again (Ahead of that, mind you, the payment schedule.), write random and crazy ideas. True dreams and visions… the more unusual, bizarre and ‘a stretch’ the better. Nothing is achieved without enthusiasm but as well certainly no greatness can be lived without being a bit mad. Or, completely mad. Made of creative lunacy and embracing whim as this company’s leader has shown.
8:14, thinking of time and each minute being its own teacher and class, moving from course to course, skating in surfing in dreams. Need coffee, need a pen, journal, already 8:15 and I’m catching the day, writing the book on time and how to rule it, not so much control it but navigate most advantageously your own. What’s happiness to me, how to live in joyful jaunt, starts in thought. Acknowledging your decisions, the power of them all and how when you make one the story’s moved one way or the other. Like with the visit to Starbucks, walking to the front door I told self that if I saw even a small line I would turn around and walk back to car, get coffee at office. I saw a medieval dragon’s tail of a line, and did just what I said I would. That that I’m to be commended, but I see the results of the antithetical action if I’d done so.
8:22. Still no coffee but did some things for work, for my role here. The office this morning seems more soundless than usual. I’ll get up and walk to building’s other side, use restroom then get coffee, then come back and do a couple more things, then take a writing break, plan day some more, writing down the wildly seeming-stretch dreams of mine… house in Monterey, apartment in New York, writing flat in Paris, running in the Alps, marathon in Spain… What’s the composition of the bridge from here to there. What I’m learning today.
8:28. Another snack, still with sparkling water. I CANNOT eat out in the field, San Francisco…. I paint a visual in my head, a scene, me in car writing while looking out at ocean and I mean really writing in the Germany journal and not on phone or company tablet. Ask the waves for something, see what they say, listen for their close and concise counsel. So many have so many ideas on goals and how to “reach” goals and live some standard of living… right now I’m thinking geography, thought, how if thoughts are assembled with certain rhythms and framing that whatever you see for self can be attained. Bites from snack, listening to conversations around office and some frog somewhere out in parking lot. The little guy calls quite loudly, like he’s with a thesis for me, some new idea, something to write down. My philosophy prince, perhaps. My Machiavelli.
May drive straight to city, not stop at gas station with sales team as we usually do but get to SF as quick as I can, write some thoughts in car, walk around the upper 40 Avenues, listen to some starting songs from the Pacific. This morning, I’m eased, simplified, set on my Road to reasoning with self how to get that self more self. Senses of, all that I can find and then later put to page. A new behest, this day’s thousand, or more.
Tired of snacking, the sound in my own ears from my own chewing so I tell self that was the last bite for a bit. Last night I wrote about wine for the first time in weeks, maybe more than a month. Wrote about it seriously and with intimate perambulation. How the Syrah sang, her notes, I was in a Beat that I haven’t felt in a while. Like I was back home or has found some instrument I’d lost but now had again and could play just as fluently and loudly and accurately as I could before. When I turned away from that line this morning I thought of that last glass, last night at the kitchen island counter, and if I would have stayed in that line the same story and rhythm would have persisted and what I want is the New, Newness in each drive to this part of Santa Rosa. The Syrah reminded me this morning, and last night around 10, that I have time, but not so much time I can be careless. Not anymore.
1/9/18
Progress. Story. Self-leadership. Noting everything. And I mean really doing it.
Have meeting with speakers, later. Gathering thoughts, thinking about what I can say no matter what topic I’m assigned to address.
With this team I manage, or supervise, I manage and supervise my own actions in a deluge of ways. Seeing everything before it transpires and when it does analyzing and deconstructing each attribute of the action.
Today writing everything down. Fasting. If the laptop doesn’t work it doesn’t matter. Starting over with what tech I use for writing. Cruising through what I have to today do, with no obstruction or interference. Needing coffee in hopes the hunger goes away. Progress. More than progress, but visible travel. Today, I travel. Don’t need to travel to travel. Ideas, from thought to thought and notion to notion.
Ignoring hunger. Bathroom then coffee—
11:08. With coffee. Will sip in a bit. Too hot now. I’m certain a burn will result, if I sip now. All these papers on desk. Makes me look busy. But I’m in cruise control right now, flying but more a glide through tasks, through sentences and the bridge to get me There.
Took a couple notes and now I re-focus. Or try. Getting close to something, I can feel. Going to stay in office a bit longer, tonight. So…. What do I do for lunch. Stop thinking about food. Think about words, I tell myself. Finishing a book finally and travel, teaching more. More proximity to other writers and writing books in other cities, in only three or two weeks’ time.
3:12. Done with everything. Looking around desk, finding project for self. If I see something, it becomes a project. Or I move it. Office survival.
4:03. Wrapping up this day, preparing for next one. On tonight’s run, study form, study thoughts while running—why I run, why I continue to run, think about how much more time I have running as I do. Notice the office starting to calm down a bit. Notes for meeting first thing in morrow. It’s not a matter of staying busy, but seeing what I else I can see in the projects I can self-assign, self-mollify.
Have to walk iPad all the way across the floor to safe in computer room. What do I do between clock-out and Kerouac’s basketball practice…. Get books for next semester, maybe. Go somewhere and write more, fiddle with laptop. That goddamn laptop…
4:49. Practice, my son’s, isn’t for another 2 hours. Should I go run now? Sure the gym will be crowded as a cow heard packed in a small barn. Am I making up excuses? Have to lead self one way or another. If I don’t run, then I write. Inclined to run. Last semester on Wednesdays I’d be in class, then go get dinner then see Jackie shoot his hoops. Run, Mike. Run. Find a tread, and speed. Work in and from and for more flight.
Write it all.
Down.
Now.
IT
Self-published.
Free.
In
flight.