Counting Words, Wasting Creative Energy

The University of North Texas recently launched a promising literary journal. (HT Michael Merchel at Texas Pages.) In the inaugural issue, the estimable Bob Shacochis muses on the agony of trying to finish a long, difficult novel while resisting the seductions of literary journalism.

Let me admit right off that I took great comfort in his suffering. I constantly fret about literary output. If Shacochis does the same, I must be in fine company. I enjoyed the entire essay, but found his descriptions of his daily work habits most fascinating.


"Sometimes I do fall asleep, which makes me feel miserable in every conceivable way. Neither sleep nor stimulants have any effect, however, on the speed at which I write these days, which is glacial. I begin each session by revising the 300 or 400 words I extruded–wrenchingly, haltingly–the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and I end each session with 300 or 400 new words, the dogs dancing around my chair in anticipation of their before-dinner walk. "


At first glance, that looks like a very modest output. When I'm working on a novel, actually writing as opposed to researching or plotting, I usually manage 500-1000 words per day - usually closer to 1000. But, unlike Shacochis, I'll write an entire draft without slowing to revise. So I'll spend most of a year turning out a very rough first draft, only to spend almost as much time on the second. After that, subsequent drafts go much faster, and of course there's the psychological benefit of seeing pages accumulate. I hesitate to spend time revising until I've reached the end of the story because I'm afraid a chapter or long passage will have to be scrapped or rewritten because of an unforeseen plot twist.

On the other hand, while writers like Shacochis, who revise as they go, will take much longer to reach the end of the story, they have a fairly polished draft when they type "THE END." I read somewhere that Kurt Vonnegut perfected every page before going to the next. When he finished a first draft, it was ready to go to his editor. You can't argue with success.

I'm very suspicious of anyone who claims to have perfected a method. About the best anyone can offer is, "This is what usually works for me."

Chris Knight - Enough Rope (On The Edge of Country)

Kentucky boy and WKU graduate. Nice song. He talks right too.

We were there in Bowling Green at the same time. I wonder if we ever passed each other on that steep hillside between the dorms and the math and science buildling.

A glimmer?

Interesting article by Sara Nelson in Publishers Weekly:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6570313.html

HT Michael Merschel at Texas Pages.

Here's a sample:

“'In every crisis lies an opportunity,' goes the old saying—and nowhere could that be more true than in publishing today. It's that kind of thinking that has led Bob Miller, say, out of traditional publishing and into creating his new venture, Harper Studio, which has reportedly already closed several deals. It's that kind of thinking that has led S&S—clearly just as worried as the next house about all the “challenges” to reading in the age of the Internet—into the digital age; just look at some of the house's new, nontraditional, take-charge new-media hires. "

and


"What I think this means: some of the quaint, arcane practices we cherish—returns, say—are going to have to go. Likewise, astronomical advances, the kind that don't make money even if the books land on the lists. And what about backlist? Is somebody ever going to figure out how to mine this most potentially profitable publishing vein?"


How many of you writers out there cherish returns?

I'll remain hopeful, but I'm certainly not optimistic.

A Sense of Entitlement

According to this AP Article:

"The nation's anger over $4 gasoline is producing a lot of energy-related theatrics at the White House and in Congress. Republicans are demanding new drilling off the nation's beaches. Democrats want to tax away oil companies' profits."

and

"President Bush on Wednesday said families across the country are looking to Washington to help them cope with economically ravaging high gasoline costs. And he warned lawmakers that if they don't do something before the July 4th holiday "they will need to explain" to voters."


So the nation is angry about high gas prices. If, in fact, production has peaked and is now in or near the beginning of inexorable decline, where should we direct our anger? Really, who's at fault?

Other Arrangements

If you haven't read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency, but you're interested in or worried about peak oil, check out his piece in Orion, "Making Other Arrangements." Here's the crux:

"And a harsh reality indeed awaits us as the full scope of the permanent energy crisis unfolds. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, world oil production peaked in December 2005 at just over 85 million barrels a day. Since then, it has trended absolutely flat at around 84 million. Yet world oil consumption rose consistently from 77 million barrels a day in 2001 to above 85 million so far this year. A clear picture emerges: demand now exceeds world supply. Or, put another way, oil production has not increased despite the ardent wish that it would by all involved, and despite the overwhelming incentive of prices having nearly quadrupled since 2001. "

This article ran in early 2007, so Kunstler's figures may be a bit out-of-date, and no doubt optimists and those with an interest in maintaining the belief that we can continue forever at our current pace have published refutations, either of the basic numbers, Kunstler's interpretation of those numbers, or both. I can't begin to keep up with the technical details, since everyone with a stake or a political or ideological ax to grind seems to have his own numbers and interpretations.

Most folks that I talk to here in the Dallas area are in Dick Cheney's camp: Petroleum prices are too high. Like it or not, ours is a fossil fuel economy. The obvious solution is to increase production. It's as simple as that. Drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, open offshore areas to drilling. That'll get gasoline prices down for a few years. In the meantime "they" will come up with solutions to our long-term energy problems.

But, as Rod Dreher points out:

"For the record, I agree with USA Today's editorial board that we ought to drill in ANWR, but that it barely make a difference in the nation's energy use.According to federal government estimates, if we started drilling today, oil would start coming out in 2018, and would peak in 2027 at -- are you ready for this? -- a whopping 780,000 barrels a day. According to the CIA Factbook, in 2004 the US was consuming 20 million barrels a day. If we had ANWR pumping at peak right now, it would meet less than five percent of our daily needs. And by 2018? Even more of a drop in the bucket, assuming we don't reduce consumption, which we almost certainly will have done by then. "

I don't support drilling the ANWR. I think the probability of environmental damage outweighs the potential benefit. More than 90 percent of Alaska's North Slope is open to drilling. Surely we can set aside and protect this great wilderness. Just because very few Americans want to go there, let alone live there, (It's just a goddamn wasteland! I seen it on TV!) doesn't mean it isn't worthy of protection. Nor does the fact that caribou have been seen hanging around the Alaskan pipeline (Hell, they like that pipeline!) mean that drilling and the associated development wouldn't damage the refuge's ecology.

As for off-shore drilling, I'm not educated enough to comment responsibly. I'll just say that I'm very skeptical given the cost and complexity. How close are we to effectively burning a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil? Are the existing reserves large enough to justify development costs? Here's Kunstler, in The Long Emergency:

"The ratio of energy expended in getting oil out of the ground to the energy produced by that oil in the U.S. oil industry has fallen from 28:1 in 1916 to 2:1 in 2004 and will continue falling."

I really ought to check these numbers since they scare the hell out of me. Surely, I'm over-simplifying or misinterpreting. Please, somebody tell me why these numbers aren't that worrisome, that 2:1 really is a comfortable margin. Please. Or convince me that Kunstler is wrong.

Oil industry technology is progressing! We can get the petroleum more efficiently!

Yes, but as we deplete fields, oil becomes more difficult and expensive to extract. Will technology keep pace? Or will it fall behind and the ratio of energy gained to energy expended continue to slip? And what about the effect of petroleum cost on the pace of technology?

But let's be optimistic in the short term. Let's say oil producers are able to ratchet up production and gas prices begin to fall significantly. Won't consumption, which has decreased slightly due to high prices, begin to rise? So we plow ahead, of course, as does China and India, instead of making the kinds of "other arrangements" recommended by Kunstler, Bill McKibben, and others, or for that matter, any changes. Change can be expensive, painful, and frightening, and our neighbors, co-workers, and kids might think we're odd. Worse yet, we could over-react. After all, things still seem to be working. Surely "they" will do something to keep things going.

Maybe they will. The old engineer in me still has plenty of respect for human ingenuity. I know better than to assume that the currently unimaginable is impossible. Yet I also believe in physical limits, so I'm far less sanguine than market ideologues who shrug and say, "Don't worry. Market conditions will stimulate the necessary innovation," as if economic theory, a strange brew of sociology, politics, and mathematics, is anchored by the kinds of laws that form the foundation of the hard sciences.

What should we do? We hear a lot about the need for local economies and walkable communities. But how should the average suburbanite get started?

A while back, Matt asked a similar question and received some interesting comments.

In his column in Sunday's Dallas Morning News, Rod Dreher makes a few suggestions that will cause some of his conservative colleagues to turn green and rip out of their suspenders and bow ties. A sample:


"•Dramatically changing zoning restrictions to permit small retailing in residential areas, making it possible for people to walk or bike to do their shopping. Refuse to approve new housing developments unless they are designed for pedestrian accessibility to retail areas.


•Through regulation and tax-code changes, encouraging the development of local farming, so population centers can better afford to feed themselves. Similarly, discouraging the use of arable land for development.


•Government investing in expanding broadband infrastructure to make high-speed Internet access more accessible and affordable. A recent study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found ranked the U.S. 15th out of 30 industrialized countries in terms of broadband performance. Offering tax incentives to companies that use the Internet to decentralize their workforce to homes and neighborhood clusters."


All well and good. But consider a composite suburban couple, the kind of folks who commute 10-20 miles every day, then come home and drive their kids all over creation. Both husband and wife work at professional jobs. In fact, they're probably corporate transplants, mortgaged to the hilt. They can't afford private school for the kids; if they move into the city, the kids will have to attend a very rough public school, the kind with gangs and metal detectors. Their home hasn't gained in value. There's a swimming pool where they might have grown vegetables. They've spent their adult years living like most everyone else at their economic level, their income growing along with their debt. But now they're seeing troubling signs, feeling that that ought to make some adjustments.

Any ideas?

Let's hope the optimists are right. Otherwise, I'm not seeing a smooth tranistion from the current fossil fuel economy to whatever lies ahead.

James McMurtry - 60 Acres

Why am I a James McMurtry fan? Because he actually takes an honest look at people and places and sees where we're headed. No sentimentality or affected angst.

Better Late than Never

A few weeks back I left this comment on Mark's post on his new tenant:

"Nice pic. For the past several years we've had a mourning dove nest on top of the shade structure over the dog houses. Drives the dogs crazy, but Maggie can't quite jump high enough to reach it, and I keep her dog house far enough to one side that she can't jump on it and then jump up and chomp at the nest. So far this year, no dove. I kind of miss it."

Well, yesterday, I stepped outside to find Maggs whining and pacing about beneath the shade structure. Our tenant has arrived.

Cate doesn't give a rip. If it isn't covered in fur, it isn't worthy of her attention. But a squirrel on the neighbor's roof sends her around the bend.

Actually, Mama Dove has picked a good spot. She has overhead protection from avian predators, and heaven help the possum, coon, or rat snake brave or stupid enough to enter the yard. I do worry about the fledglings flapping out into the yard.

Still, I welcome the company.

In case you're interested...

For the past few years I've written a hunting dog column for Texas Wildlife, the magazine of the Texas Wildlife Association. TWA doesn't maintain an electronic archive, so I've started uploading the published columns to my website. I have a few there now, and I plan to get the rest of them, along with selected feature articles, uploaded over the next several days. You can read them here.

Most of the columns are aimed at beginners, so experienced working dog folks probably won't learn much from them. Still, bird dog lovers might enjoy reading about hounds, and houndsmen might enjoy reading about retrievers, and so on.

Enjoy!

Too Fast, Too Fragile

Frank Deford's NPR commentary on Thoroughbreds and the American emphasis on speed and power in nearly all sports got me thinking about pointing dogs. Modern pointing dog field trials stress speed and style above all other qualities, including hunting ability. As a result, we're seeing too many dogs with more "run" than "hunt." My own beloved Maggs descends from a long line of great trial dogs. She's a blur in the field. And she's injured more often than not because her delicate body just can't take the pounding she gives it on the rough West Texas badlands. She also has marginal hips. At five years old, she no longer wants to jump in the bed of the truck. At two, she'd jump over the tailgate. Yet she still runs flat out in the field. On warm days, she consistently outruns her nose.

But she looks damned impressive doing it - when she's within sight.

I Love Mountains Day - Wendell Berry

Nothing flashy. Just plain-spoken wisdom, as always.

Grand Cayman

Confession: On Wednesday April 23, 2008, between 7:15 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., I consumed four large lobster tails, a house salad, several rolls, an assortment of steamed vegetables and at least two glasses of sauvignon blanc.

Excuse: I was merely getting my money's worth on all-you-can-eat lobster night at a Grand Cayman restaurant that caters to American appetites. Besides, we were on vacation, damn it.

A diving vacation, actually. A well-traveled diver once explained to me the difference between a diving vacation and a diving trip. On a diving vacation, you mix a few dives in with your gluttony, lying about, and overspending. On a diving trip, you get off the plane, throw your gear into the rental car, and drive directly to the boat. Over the next few days, you spend as much time in the water as you can without succumbing to nitrogen poisoning. In other words, you dive the way I went at hunting and fishing back in my teens, twenties, and early thirties. I don't go at anything that hard anymore, including work.

Normally, Grand Cayman Island would be way too upscale for a cheapskate like me, but my alert and resourceful left-brained wife put together a great deal, one of those tedious and confusing arrangements involving points, miles, credits, discounts, and upgrades.

Given a choice of vacation spots, I'll head to some mountain range or other or back to Kentucky. Jane will head for the ocean. I'm a decent swimmer, comfortable in water. Jane is powerful swimmer, a former life guard, who'd rather swim a mile than walk a mile. I'm convinced that her ears double as gills.

So we left glorious spring weather here in North Texas - crisp nights and mornings, highs in the low 70s, bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, tender greenery everywhere - to land on a Saturday afternoon in suffocating heat and humidity. Sweat ran down my sunglasses as I toted our gear from the little terminal to the rental car office. (Welcome to de island, mon!) I muttered something like, "I can have this shit in Houston in August." If Jane heard me, she held her tongue.

The intrepid divers head out to sea. We don't have an underwater camera, so we ended up with the standard ridiculous tourist photos ("...and here we are at Rum Point, standing next to the giant wooden lizard.")

* * *

When I was a kid, back in the early seventies, I did some diving with my father. Dad was a spear fisherman and volunteer diver for the local rescue squad. He and another squad member taught me the basics in the pool at tiny Campbellsville College, in my hometown. What I remember most from those lessons is the gentle amusement in Dad's brown eyes, behind his mask, as we passed his regulator back and forth in eight or ten feet of water during our "buddy-breathing" exercise. No doubt my eyes were big as silver dollars as I waited those few seconds for Dad to calmly take his two or three breaths before handing the regulator back to me.

After that, we did some shallow diving along the banks of Green River Reservoir, slow, easy diving, with decent visibility. We filled up a tackle box with lures that anglers lost to roots and stumps. The number of huge bass that hung around in six feet of water in the middle of a summer day astounded me.

Dad stored his personal diving gear in a small, faded army-surplus rucksack. I loved to go through it, and he didn't mind. He kept his mask and regulator in the main compartment, wrapped in rags. His compass and depth gauge went in side pockets. His knife, in its hard scabbard, was shoved to one side of the main compartment so that when the flap was closed the big orange handle protruded. The bundle smelled of old canvas, lake water, rubber, and a scent that I can only describe as "Dad." I relied on borrowed equipment, but I had my own rucksack, and I daydreamed about filling it with my own gear.

In his work with the rescue squad, Dad located and helped recover the remains of drowning victims. I asked him about it, and all he'd say was, "Usually you're right on top of the body before you recognize it. "

Then, on a cool, gray spring day, he descended into a deep, flooded quarry in search of a missing mother and her toddler and infant. He found the car in about thirty feet of water. The windows were down. He turned on his light and looked inside. After that, my unshakable father, a WWII combat veteran, lost interest in diving. I was too young to continue without him.

Years passed, and Dad seemed to get his second wind. Still vigorous in his early sixties, he bought a new bird dog pup - this first since his best old dog died a dozen years before - and regained his passion for old pursuits. He began to talk about diving again. By this time, a couple of years out of college, I could afford my own gear. We made some rough plans, noted improvements in equipment, looked at prices.

Then he died suddenly, and I let go all thoughts of diving.

* * *

A few years back, Jane announced that she wanted to go diving in the Caribbean. I told her she'd have to take lessons and get certified, and that I'd need to go through the training again. She let it drop, and I figured that was the end of it. But this past January, we saw "Bucket List," the movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, about two cancer patients determined to do all of the things on their list - their bucket list - before they kicked the bucket. So they jumped out of planes, drove race cars, reconnected with family, and so on. A very funny and touching movie. Jane decided we'd get an early start on our bucket list. Next thing I knew she'd signed us up for scuba lessons. We finished our academic and pool lessons here in the Dallas area. We'd finish our certification with four successful training dives in the waters off Grand Cayman Island.

It all came back very quickly, though I had to adjust to major equipment improvements. For one thing, the old style of buddy-breathing is out; today's diver is equipped with a back-up secondary regulator for emergencies. Modern masks are far lighter, more comfortable, and easier to clear than the older models, though they lack the satisfying heft. No more confusing dive tables. A dive computer that attaches to your BC or wrist crunches the numbers for you.

Sunday morning on the island, we rigged up our gear, and, along with five other students, followed our instructor, Dave, down the ladder, through the rocks, and into water too clear and blue to be real.

Trouble, right off. This being my first saltwater dive, I underestimated the effect of the additional buoyancy. Twelve pounds of weight, I discovered, would barely get me under water. I worked way too hard maintaining reasonable depth as we worked our way out to the remains of an old cargo ship sunk by the British Navy in the 1920s. Jane kept looking back, motioning for me to get with it and keep up. It seems that descending thirty feet has little effect on a relationship. Still, I managed to get to the designated open spot on the bottom where we demonstrated a few necessary skills.

A bit later, as we switched out tanks in preparation for our second dive, Dave, a very reserved, patient young Brit, who'd said not a word about my struggles during the first dive, walked by and placed a four-pound weight in my hand. The second dive went much better.

* * *

It seemed to me that despite its posh restaurants and hotels, gorgeous beaches, rising financial prominence, and well-deserved reputation as a top diving and snorkeling destination, Grand Cayman Island hosts a high concentration of unhappy tourists. Eye contact was rare and fleeting, unless I happened to say "hi" or "good morning," which usually elicited a a startled glance and quickened pace. Grim or bored visages nearly everywhere, even on the beach. A typical breakfast scene: Jane and I are sitting at a table, sipping coffee and orange juice, enjoying the morning view of the beach. In walks a striking young woman, thirty-something with patrician good looks, followed by three or four young children, an uncomfortable-looking nanny and well-dressed and tonsured husband. The kids' eyes never leave their video games. The father's eyes rarely leave his Blackberry. They order without looking at the waiter. Other than the nanny' s corrections of the children, no one says anything. We noticed this sort of thing right off and saw it every day. Only in the tackiest tourist traps near Georgetown or out at Stingray Island, where crews from tour boats feed the stingrays to keep them around and tame, did folks seem to be having a big time.

Then there was the disappointing lack of birds. Maybe we were there at the wrong time of year for birding, but I expected lots of songbirds, gulls, and the like. Instead, I saw mostly white-winged doves, a few swallows, and lots of grackles. I don't believe I saw a single gull or wading bird. Maybe that's as it should be; I haven't checked into it. But I'll pass along a story. One night we were sitting in Sunset Grill, a hamburger and taco joint that became our favorite restaurant, (incredible fish tacos!) when a plane flew over so low that Jane thought it was about crash on the beach. I said it reminded me of a crop duster. The manager overheard our conversation, and said, "That's the mosquito plane. It comes over about this time every night. You've probably noticed that we have absolutely no mosquitoes." Actually, I hadn't noticed, most likely because, sure enough, there were no mosquitoes. Jane said that she was glad we weren't dining outside just then.

The life of the party. Your faithful correspondent in Paradise. Tired, sunburned, grouchy, and ready for supper.

* * *

The next two dives really were spectacular. We spent time about 70 feet deep, demonstrating proficiency with a compass and convincing Dave that we could take off our masks for a few seconds, put them back on and clear them without freaking out. Mostly, though, we eased along above the coral, watching turtles, tarpon, and schools of fish I couldn't identify. One of my regrets is that I didn't do more reading on the ecology of the island and its waters. Earlier that morning, a group of divers saw a hammerhead, so we kept an eye out, but didn't see one. Jane didn't seem especially disappointed.

Jane loves diving; she's thoroughly hooked. I like it. Actually, I took more pleasure in her delight than in the actual diving. Although I was quite comfortable, save for mild ear squeeze that forced me to slow my descent and equalize more often, I couldn't help but feel like a foreign object. Maybe it was the Darth Vader hiss of breathing from a tank. Maybe I prefer the mystery of something coming from unseen depths to take my fly, lure, or bait. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky and prefer to spend my time where I feel I belong. Or perhaps the world's best diving can't match the wonder of being a kid six feet deep in a Kentucky lake, easing along with Dad, looking at schools of largemouth bass and bream, keeping an eye out for lures tangled in the brush.

More Excuses and an Upcoming Trip

My apologies for my lack of blogging and commenting, and thanks to Mike for the nudge to my already guilty conscience. I've been buried under work, but then everyone else works too, and they still manage to keep their blogs current.

Jane and I blast off on a short diving vacation tomorrow. I promise a full report with photos when I get back home. I'm taking along James Howard Kunstler's new novel, World Made by Hand. Expect a short review sometime in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, thanks for your patience, and please keep checking in.