Cheap hotels and Hibernation

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." -- Jimi Hendrix

I've had the amazing good fortune to take advantage of some much needed time to myself.  At the end of June, I began a road trip from my home in Houston to a summer cabin I own in Catskill Park (upstate New York) near the historic town of Bethel where Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Janis Joplin made history in August of 1969.  It also happened on my fifth birthday.  I should have been one of those naked children featured in the documentary swimming naked in the lake.

To be able to see the country this way, much like Steinbeck did in the early 1960s was a wonderful experience filled with many unexpected surprises.  The landscape left me awestruck.  America is truly an amazing country.  I hibernated in the cabin for all of July and through mid-August working on a script and keeping up with this blog and my journal.  My only companions were my dogs.  And, to tell the truth, I could have used a break from them too.

Something truly amazing happens when you hibernate this way.  First of all, I gained weight.  Duh... food became a source of delight and indulgence, but I gained something else much more valuable as well.  I gained some much needed insight.  The silence gave my characters a chance to speak to me.   No television, no internet, no cell phone.  I got a chance to both focus on and strengthen my imagination.  Much like a muscle, the imagination needs to develop and the best way to do that is to use it every day.

I also got the chance to see how nature follows a specific flow and every living being responds to this flow.  The birds know just when and what to sing, the bees know just when and where to collect pollen, the fruits and vegetables know just where to turn their leaves to get full advantage of the sun.  Maybe writers have a rhythm as well.  Mornings and late evenings seem to be my most productive times.

I also seem to have a fondness for airports, hotels and waiting rooms.  I've come to understand that when ideas jump into my head (often times in these situations) its an opportunity to capture them the old fashioned way - on paper, yes a note pad.

I usually wait until I've read a book before I have anything to say about it but in this case, I think I need to make an exception.  Author, Jonathan Lehem was a classmate of mine at the Fiorella LaGuardia High School of Music and Art (Class of 1982).  I can't say that I remember him although we do  have friends in common.  It recently came to my attention that Jonathan's book, "Motherless Brooklyn," won the National Book Critics Circle Award.  He's gone on to write more critically acclaimed novels as well (Chronic City and Gun with Occasional Music .  I'm looking forward to reading Motherless Brooklyn.  It's jumped to the top of my reading list.


This week's suggested website: MIT OpenCourseWare - (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm#WritingandHumanisticStudies) The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers a number of free writing courses through its OpenCourseWare program. Course topics include fiction writing, short story writing, expository writing, essay writing, technical writing and poetry.


This week's writing prompt: Give yourself five uninterrupted minutes of quiet time.   Imagine that one of your characters has just won the presidential election.  It's inauguration day.  Write a compelling, motivational speech to the American people outlining the administration's vision of the four years ahead.