Tag: Wiley Wednesday

  • Wiley Wednesday: Revisions, Revisions, Revisions

    It has never been my way to set specific goals for myself. Exceptions include trying to arrive at work on time every morning and exercising daily. More recently, I set a goal to type seven thousand new words every week. They could include anything creative, even a blog post, as long as the endeavor was fresh. This went on quite swimmingly for a solid, rewarding month.

    Then, rewrites were needed. In no time at all, I found trimming did more to enhance my storytelling than most new additions. This echoes what Josip Novakovich describes in his “Fiction Writer’s Workshop” chapter on revising. While some authors must add to polish their story, I’m proving to be what Novakovich calls a “taker-outer”. I’m still amazed by how much a clumsy scene improved by being cut down from over 1,100 words to less than half that.

    With that thought in mind, I’m compelled to share something I recently learned about the legendary H. P. Lovecraft. While he created an astonishing and enduring mythos, and his iconic Cthulhu is more popular today than ever, his writings aren’t particularly known for their quality. In his defense, I offer one plausible explanation: all the while this relatively unknown man brought his night terrors to life on the pages of pulp fiction magazines, Lovecraft earned his payment by word count. Simply put, the more verbose contributions earned him larger paychecks!

    While I have yet to seek payment for anything I’ve written, I continue to learn at every turn. One thing I know is that advice from friends helps tremendously. And while it’s difficult sometimes to remove anything from a manuscript, I feel better knowing that for everything removed, my tale is that much better. Granted, some scraps are also saved in case I find a use for them later. Either way, writing even excised material still teaches something useful. Now let’s see what needs trimmed next…

  • Wiley Wednesday: Finding Inspiration

    Checking the Writer’s Retreat calendar this morning reminded me that I’m scheduled to post a Wiley on the blog. My mind blank, I tried to recall the sleepy thought occurring at an odd moment last weekend. Unfortunately, I failed to jot down a note and have no clue as to what it might have been.

    Am I going to beat my head against the wall for that failing? No. If the half-formed idea really merits sharing, the notion will surely return. In the meantime, I decided the best solution would be simply setting words down. If this rambling endeavor turned to scrap, a useful idea might still percolate. So, with the opinion that even this questionable exercise deserved a little effort, I thumbed open my thesaurus for words meaning “idea”.

    The reference book on my desk first defined the word. Curious, I read, “Idea: that which exists in the mind as the product of careful mental activity”. The editors supplied this same description for “concept”. And suddenly, therein lay my inspiration. The last word I would use to identify my formative thought process is “careful”. I think many folks would agree.

    Ideas and concepts form in countless ways, many more than one human can conceive. Meticulous or erratic, “careful” just doesn’t characterize it for me. Ingenuity might stem from failure or flow from the stuff of dreams. Either way, the English idiom popularly associated with ill-conceived ideas is “half-baked”. If you ask me, undercooking something hardly matches vigilant activity.

    Brainstorming is a popular expression evocative of unpredictability and confusion. Many more methods of group or individual invention fit this style of “tossing out ideas”, which is yet another turn of phrase defying “careful” proceedings.

    This deliberation leads me to believe the importance is where deliberation takes us, not its source or means. Experiment if you’re struggling for inspiration. There are some interesting suggestions within the archives of this very blog. Whatever you do, “careful” is a silly constriction for the mind, regardless of your goal.

    By the way, Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus defines inspiration as “high spirits”. I like that.

  • Wiley Wednesday: A Tool to Tame Entropy

    Someone reminded me recently, entropy is the natural state of things. It’s the state toward which things are inclined, so it is, in fact, inevitable. Thus, taking from the old standby, the Serenity Prayer, we know that we need the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

    Assuming we can apply that wisdom, and have figured out which things we can’t change, what about those things that entropy affects but that we CAN change? What do we do then?

    It’s a factor of modern life that things have sped up beyond all reasonableness. Sometimes I think this is due, in part, to the ubiquitousness of computers and the internet – in fact, it’s hard to remember that it’s not even half the population of the world who has regular access to broadband! So, I guess I should say that in the small corner of my world, which is so all-encompassing to me and seems to reach to the horizon in every direction, what tools can help further productivity when the task list stretches off the desk and the clock points to fifteen-minutes-to-zero?

    First, focus during entropy is critical. Our own ability to laser-think is underrated, but powerful. Like the force contained in two atoms that is released during fusion, when they are brought together, our laser thinking can bring us in alignment with our goals and actually bring those goals to actuality. Unlike fission, which provides energy by ripping things apart, laser thinking can bring order to the chaos that entropy creates.

    While all of that is easy to write, it’s sometimes nearly impossible to put into practice. I’ve ruminated in these pages during prior Wileys about productivity tools, so the calmer, more focused tools have been discussed. But what do we do when the… well, it hits the fan? We can’t stop and breathe, we can’t take thirty minutes to do pages, we can’t run around the block? We all have those moments when we must sink or swim and we really don’t feel like breathing underwater, thank you.

    What then?

    I use a tool I came across from Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. She suggested using what she called a “Spatter Pad” to ‘bucket’ all the tasks that you need, want, or think you should do. I use it at work as a sort of chronological running journal of stuff that comes at me. Some days, it’s one page and very neatly-written (i.e., legible to someone other than a specialist in dead languages and cuneiform). Other days, it would make a surgeon laugh and squint.

    But the point is not pretty, the point is productivity.

    The spatter pad is literally all the day’s thoughts, spattered on the page like a Jackson Pollack painting. Can you do that lunch order? Did you get the car for my trip tomorrow? I need the figures for the Jackson Pollack family estate. Where’s the performance for Tim’s book? Did I do the passport renewal forms? Do we have eggs? What do I get my grandmother for her birthday in – gasp – a week – AND she’s out of state, so I need to send it by tomorrow or pay through the nose for Fedex…

    All of that goes on the pad. That way, when the calmer times do come (and let’s face it, if you have time to surf the ‘net for news of the weird, you have time to sort out your spatters), you haven’t lost anything.
    And THEN, you can impress your friends and confound your enemies, because you’ll gain a reputation as someone who forgets nothing. “How do you get all that done?”

    Thank you, Spatter Pad. You make me look good.

    Now, do we have eggs at home? And when is Mom-Mom’s birthday? o.O…

  • Wiley Wednesday for the Technically Impaired

    Never having taken a computer course in my life, I am picking up oddball tips and tricks every day. Many are thanks to kindly folks I’ve come to know online.

    Others, like the one I found yesterday, have simply been dumb luck. Regardless of the learning process, these lessons are invaluable as I gradually switch from scribbling in notebooks to taking raw ideas straight to the keyboard.

    I’ll warn you computer savvy folks that this procedure is probably nothing special. You might laugh and shake your head. I’ve decided that whether my simplicity gives you a chuckle or this message saves you bundles of frustration, it’s worth taking time to share.

    My new discovery occurred when I plugged in my thumb drive to retrieve the latest version of a story. Instead of just thoughtlessly overwriting the file, I used “Save as” and selected the file from that morning. What a surprise to find additional options in the MS Word dialog box! I’m sure they’ve always been there and I never noticed. It happens with me.

    This time, I noticed. I chose “Merge changes into existing file” out of curiosity and was delighted to find all the changed text in blue. Things I had deleted were crossed out while added words showed up with underlining. Simple, yet magic to my wondering eyes.

    Right click on the blue text to either accept or decline the proscribed change! Why did it take me so long to find this? It’s easy!

    Now go write, and be sure to save your documents as you go!

  • Wiley Wednesday: Mind Mapping

    It’s my week to write a Wiley essay, and as I was planning it, it hit me: I can write a Wiley about how I write a Wiley!

    All kidding aside, there’s a very useful tool called a Mind Map that can help with anything from what topic to pick for an essay to where to go on vacation to what are the critical issues the Board of Directors needs to solve in the coming year. Let’s walk through one together!

    This is a Mind Map that I drew up this morning as an example of how to do one; it focuses on “Wiley Wednesday.” See picture, below:

    The first thing to notice is that the focus is at the center of the drawing, which starts out as a blank page. In this case, it’s “Wiley Wednesday.” When I’m writing these for actual use, I do not switch colors because it causes too much distraction from the process; I used different colors here to illustrate different trains of thought.

    The key thing, and in my opinion the most important thing, to remember about Mind Mapping is that it’s Brainstorming (I capitalize that since I’m using it in this context as a topic). Brainstorming is about idea generation, it is not about idea selection. As such, ALL ideas go into the hopper, not matter how applicable. You never know. You might throw the idea “Zombie Movie Monster Mash” into the hopper and it sparks four new, solid ideas right on its heels.

    Once you have your focus, just relax a moment and breathe.

    No, I’m not kidding. Try it before you argue with me!

    Seriously, this is a right-brain task, not a left-brain sequential one. The right-brain doesn’t think in the same way as our cognitive brain, and we need to work accordingly. By this time, you may have an idea or a glimmer of an idea. Great! Draw a line and write it down.

    The lines radiating from the focus are the main topics. The lines radiating from the topics are related to that topic. When you’re working on a topic, like “Writing” or “Productivity,” and you get an idea that fits neither one of those two subjects, draw another main line from the focus and start a new sub tree.

    You might find, like I do, that a normal letter-size piece of paper isn’t large enough. I like to use large placemats from restaurants, ledger size paper (11 inches by 17 inches), and I even have a roll of butcher paper at home that is fun to use (that’s about 36 inches wide and, well, a roll of paper. How much is there? Well, I’ve had this roll of paper since I was five, if that’s any indication, and I’ve still not used it all…)

    Once you have as many ideas as you and, if you’re playing with friends, your group can come up with in a reasonable amount of time (don’t go for more than a half hour at one sitting), you’ve got your idea hopper. And I’ll wager you have a LOT more ideas than you’ve got time, which is always a better problem to have than an expanse of blank paper and no ideas at all.

    Now go forth and Map your Mind!

  • “War is the father of all things”

    One thing my creative writer has said numerous times is this quote by Swiss health economist and author Gerhard Kocher: “War is the father of all things.”

    Also, one of his own quotes (I believe) derived from it. I’m afraid I can’t remember the correct wording, but it is something along the lines of: “writing is war.”


    Writing is war, I can truly believe that from my own experiences with it over the past 8 years. It also happens to be a war with multiple fronts that an author must fight simultaneously.

    The first (and most obvious) front, is the one with the page. Writing isn’t simple, it’s not just sitting down and typing… well, it is, but it is so much more than that, too. Or, rather, it is far more difficult.

    Words don’t always come right out onto the page as willy nilly as a breath escapes our lungs. Finding a word, the right word, takes time, and effort. As Robert Frost said: “I never knew what was meant by choice of words. It was one word or none.”

    We need to search through our own minds, our dictionaries, to find the right word for the right situation. The one word that fills the the hole completely without anything extra left behind. The perfect fit. It’s not easy, it takes time, effort, and lots of (re)writing.

    The second front is the one with time. As a full time university student in his third year (with a job, now, by the way), I don’t think I really need to tell you that my time is taken by many different obligations, duties, and personal pass times. So, days like today (where I was on campus for 12 hours) how do I find time to write? Well, I haven’t, really… I’m, personally, losing this front, badly.

    But, that’s part of the point. With all the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we still need to find the time to write. It’s not easy, but then again, anything worth doing isn’t easy.

    The final, and most important, front is the home front. In war, sometimes you have to fight various aspects on the home front. In wars between countries, this includes rationing gasoline for use by the troops, or fighting for support of a war that the populace doesn’t want to be in.

    In writing, the biggest, and worst, manifestation of the home front is the inner critic.

    This is the little voice inside your head that speaks nonsense about how bad your writing is, and throws other insults into your face while your down that doesn’t have anything to do with your writing.

    The harsh, wild critic is hard to break. He creeps behind every word, lives beneath every sentence, and has friends he invites over for drinks in your story.

    This war is just like every other. To win, you need strong troops and high morale. You need to look at the big picture, see the small picture, plan ahead and live one day at a time. Sometimes, you win battles, other times you lose them. You must remember that when victory is in sight, defeat can come far easier. Success in one front can mean disaster in another. It’s not easy, and it’s definitely not pretty.

    “I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine.
    It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard
    the shrieks and groans of the wounded
    who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.
    War is hell.”
    From “On Killing” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

  • Thoughts on Creating a Page Turner

    As I explore forums catering to professional and aspiring authors, my eyes are opening to the strong opinions people form on things such as character point of view. I never in my life have stopped to consider POV when picking out a book to read. Give me an interesting plot for escapism, some intriguing characters to care about, and I’m there.

    Likewise as I write it’s mainly what the characters have to say that decides the format of my fiction. But hoping to get my work published means I should pay a little attention to what book buyers want. Right?

    A pleasant part of that has been simply reading more contemporary fiction. Another way has been to sample from the countless experiences shared by considerate authors blazing the trail.

    Not all has been delightful. For example, I have read that particular styles of writing are actually expected for certain genres. Allegedly, an aficionado scans the first paragraph counting on a certain formula.

    I won’t even begin to list what genre follows which blueprint because, frankly, I find the notion disheartening. If that is the case and my offering doesn’t fit will my effort be passed over without a second glance?

    It’s a sad thought. So tonight at my desk I’ll advance the plot and not worry about fitting into a mold.

    Yet the discovery calls to mind a writing class recommended some months ago by a friend of a friend. Initially enthused, I sat and listened at some length to this stranger’s discourse. It seemed that this lady wrote steamy romance stories that were on the cusp of being published. If I did what she’d done, maybe that could be me!

    Quickly I learned that she writes erotica not out of passion but because she thinks she can turn a fast buck. The seminar she touted like a sales pitch sounded as if the “professor” focused less on the craft than how to market material to publishers. And her almost religious fervor made me wonder if she’d get a commission by recruiting others to her cult. As you can imagine, I gave the course a skip.

    I am happy to report finding more encouragement than disappointment. Granted, I have yet to officially introduce my works to the world of publishing. My focus remains on telling the story and doing rewrite after rewrite until the end product satisfies me. I’ll worry about the rest later.

    So you tell me, gentle reader, what keeps you turning the page?

  • The Power of Plurality: The Many In Support of the One

    People frequently ask me, “How do you do all that?” when they find out the irons I have in the fire. While it is true that when I was younger, I would frequently bite off more than I could chew. But it is also true that I’ve learned a lot since then and, while some might disagree with me, no longer am as subject to that foible as I once was. So, how do I do all that?

    There are two simple answers, that end up becoming complex in the telling. One is organizational and time management skills, which I was emphatically NOT born with (in case you feel, like I do, that busy people must be part magician). I went to lots of classes and read a lot of books, have tried a lot of things, and worked out what works for me. While I could write an entire essay on that subject (and, truthfully, probably a whole book or five), because I have many ideas and opinions on it, the subject I wish to discuss today concerns the second answer: I have help.

    We will now pause for those of you who wish to twit me on the fact that yes, I do need professional help.

    Moving on now. What I mean by help is, simply put, playmates. I don’t mean professional or paid help (which I do also, in select areas, utilize – but I am not wealthy, so cannot use as much outside paid assistance as I might, in my more grandiose moments, wish). I mean I find people with similar interests, and we schedule time together to do things.

    Yes, it really is that simple.

    So, what kinds of things do I work with others on?

    Pretty much anything, including housecleaning and bill paying. You know the Apple ad, “there’s an app for that?” Same thing here. If you have an interest, chances are high that there are others out there with the same interest. Now, I’m very fortunate to live in the third largest city in the United States, so that gives me about nine million potential buddies. But we also have this thing called the internet (or, for you LOL users out there, the interwebs). Don’t overlook the power of groups on the internet. I’m here to tell you that it can be a very comforting thing that another human being out there knows your trials and tribulations, even if they’re four thousand miles away.

    We have a candle making party every year, for example. It’s always the first weekend in February, and is either one or both days. This year, we’ll do two days. Paraffin candles the first, beeswax the second. We make pretty much all the candles we’ll use in the coming year during that weekend.

    What’s fascinating is this: we (the friend of mine who hosts these with me) always hope to do more than one candle weekend. But when you add in the time for prep (putting down cardboard on the floor to catch drips, wrapping the stove and counters with foil, melting the pots…) it’s a huge job. We’ve only done it one year out of the last ten. But we have done candle parties TEN years out of the past ten. Because we know people are coming, and now people know we do these and about when we do them so they ask for it, it adds power to the calendar, and ensures that we get at least one candle day a year. And now, at a remove of doing them for a decade, I actually have learned quite a lot about the process – without even taking a class!

    Now, don’t underestimate the power of classes, either – because they have the same function. The only reason I’m focusing on groups here, as in “groups of friends or acquaintances with similar interests” is that frequently, the latter do not charge whereas the former do. On the other hand, classes for which one pays might induce one to be more serious about going. It’s up to the individual.

    What else have we done in a group?

    Spiritual exploration, political discussion, parties (I’m a pot luck expert by now), hiking, walking, weight loss, sales training, lead generation for sales, house cleaning and organization, knitting and sewing (any of the handicrafts), paper arts, Pysanky (Ukranian decorated eggs), bread making, soup making, car maintenance (no kidding – changed my oil with a buddy back in the days before complex catalytic converters and computer tune-ups)…

    Even if you’re an introvert, don’t underestimate the power of people. We all have interests and skills, and others do too. It makes sense to leverage those skills. Maybe I’m great at organization and you’re great at web design. So, I’ll organize your office and files, and you design my website. Or, better yet, we teach each other our skills – synergy at its truest distillation.

    Now, what the heck does this have to do with writing?

    Well, think about it. This is a group blog.

    (The light bulb should be going off right about now.)

    ~grin~

    See? Even writing can be done in group – either an in-person one, or a “virtual” one. Schedule write-ins, prompt groups, contests, anything your little heart desires.

    There’s a group for that.

  • Evolution of the Story

    So, this Wiley Wednesday, I decided to share with you a story. This is how a work of fiction evolves far beyond what the author may originally intend, a feeling that I’m sure we all know very well. This is about a series of stories I’ve been working on for years that went from a short, one-shot story to a series of around a dozen stories.

    It all started in 2006, or so all the files on my computer are telling me, I’m afraid I don’t know specifically when it all started. Anyway, my best friend, Stephen, came across a figurine line released by McFarlane entitled Twisted Fairy Tales. In this toy line, there was a Red Riding Hood figure that depicted Red in her cloak and underwear (and boots, can’t forget boots, no respectable young lady would be caught without her boots!) holding a wolf with it’s stomach sliced open and it’s entrails gushing out, which include pieces of Red’s grandmother. Now, Stephen being Stephen, thought that this would make for an excellent movie. He didn’t have many details at the time, namely the idea of Red hunting werewolves. He wanted us to make this into a movie. Now, in 2006 (I’m not starting to think it was earlier, but I have no proof) we were two 17 year olds with basically no female friends to fulfill the two female roles… and basically no male friends to fulfill the male roles, either.

    Anyway, since the film idea wasn’t going to happen I took the story from him and wrote a very short story about the Organization (couldn’t come up with a decent name at the time) and their star agent Red Riding Hood, who had to save their leader, Grandmother, from the penultimate werewolf.

    Fun times.

    The story was all of five pages and I was happy with it. I probably had an issue or two, as I usually do, mainly dealing with common sense (why send ONE person on a mission so vital when they could’ve easily sent an army? And why was she wearing such a skimpy outfit when a slash from the werewolf would turn her into one? Why use sai when they aren’t suppose to have any edges at all? [I’ve tried to answer some of those problems in recent drafts… others I just left up to the reader’s suspension of disbelief]).

    So, as far as I was concerned, I was done with that. It was a good story, now back to the main thing I was working on at the time… then feelings started to change. I’m guessing I was bored, and came up with another story idea centered around this character, a prequel called: The Boy Who Cried Wolf… I’ll let you guess what this story was about.

    After that, I added a few things to the original story, due to some revelations made in Boy, and decided to continue her tale. I was curious to find out what would happen to Red after the “Grandmother Incident.” So, I wrote a sequel about that and decided: this is it. I have nothing else to say about Red, Grandmother, the Organization, and anything else to do with this.

    Then I thought: “What if the Organization hunted more than just werewolves?” Thus, I wrote Hansel and Gretel, the Sibling Witch Hunter Team. I really like these characters, especially when they’re together. Being brother and sister they of course love each other very much, however, being brother and sister they also hate each other with a passion. They bicker all the time (it’s how they show their love and respect for each other), about anything that they could possibly come up with to bicker about, and I think all this bickering and the end results are pretty funny.

    At this point, I was enthralled with the Organization (I couldn’t come up with a better name for it until much later) and the interesting characters that they employ for whatever reason, and decided to find more of them. However, my knowledge of fairy tales at the time were very limited and I didn’t know where to begin. All I knew is what I wanted: a series of tales that were interconnected. Stories where it didn’t matter if you hadn’t read Hansel and Gretel or the Red trilogy. A book where you could open to a random story and read it with 100% understanding. I had accomplished this with the Hansel and Gretel story, it didn’t matter if you didn’t know what the Organization was, or who Red was (though she made a very brief cameo), and THAT is what I wanted.

    My father, however, wanted more Hansel and Gretel (I think he likes them more than I do).

    I had no idea where else to go and thought that an interesting story would be for Red to meet the siblings… most likely in a versus style arena where Red would be hunted and someone wouldn’t make it out alive.

    However, that idea didn’t sit well with me… I liked those three characters too much to kill them, at least at this point.

    Instead, I came up with another idea, they team up! A team up could’ve been interesting in a prequel story, with werewolves teaming up with witches and they were all three called in to put a stop to it… sadly, I only came up with that concept just now and need to write it down because that does sound pretty awesome.

    Anyway, in the end the three of them ended up teaming up against the Organization, causing a schism and two factions to be formed.

    I officially found myself in a linear series, one that followed a basic plot and became more like chapters in a novel than individual stories.

    I’m not sure when, exactly, it happened, but I knew it was going that way after the two part team up between these characters. By the end of the next story, Rose Red and the Seven Dwarfs, I had a general idea of where I was going with the rest of the series, though things would continue to evolve a little bit over the span of times.

    One such change was the Mythology class I took my Senior year of high school. I had learned several things about Greek Mythology due to:
    A) A general interest
    B) Movies
    C) Latin Class

    However, this was my first true introduction to Norse Mythology… and I found several interesting aspects in it… things that I then took and used within my series. Add on a few aspects of Christian “Dogma” (for lack of a better word) and you get several more interesting stories and one that seems somewhat contrived, confusing and lacking some important information in a desperate attempt from me to appear “deep,” or “thought provoking.”

    I don’t care much for how it ended, though I think I can still salvage it, mostly intact, with a few minor adjustments and one or two explanations.

    Well, anyway, I finished the final story about two years ago, now (God, that seems like such a long time ago…)

    So, with the first drafts done, I started all over again… I never get far, but I made a few decisions (cut out Boy, for instance) and added several new ideas/characters to Red, and may be taking out another story, but will most likely evolve it into something that is completely different than what it was before.

    Anyway, that was a little long winded, and seems like it much more than it probably actually is (started around midnight, currently it is 2:30… but I got distracted).

    Anyway, that is my story about how our creations can change, drastically. How what we want originally is not what we get, and how things may end up for the better because of it. Of course, I’ll never really know what it’d be like if this series didn’t turn out the way it did, and I’m really curious about it, but I’m proud of what I’ve done so far, and am looking forward to finally getting into another draft of Hansel and Gretel and everything beyond, which only ever had one draft.

  • Wiley Wednesday for January 21, 2009

    I want to share a Zen koan with you, but I think first it needs a little introduction.

    A koan is a teaching fable. They don’t always make immediate sense to Western ears, (and may not to Japanese ones either, I don’t know), but that’s the point. They’re meant to make the student (and in this sense, we are all students) ponder them. Deceptively simple, like Haiku, they are powerful reminders of a way to live that is in tune with ourselves and the Tao.

    I was given this koan by the Universe in what can only be described as an episode where the Universe was showing off its sense of humor. (And those of you who think the Universe HAS no sense of humor have never really studied a platypus.) (Of course, some say the platypus is proof that God smokes pot, but I digress.) Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was an idiot. A cute idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. Like many cute idiots, I found a ‘man.’ This man was charming, smart, and just-so-slightly dangerous. You know, the kind of man that if I had a big brother, my big brother would have kicked his ass and buried the body before my next date. But I didn’t have a big brother, so I went out with this jerk. I mean, he even had a special made-up name, which at the time I thought was edgy and cool.

    Yes, I know. Didn’t I say I was an idiot? Pay attention!

    So I go out with this guy, and of course he treats me like an idiot. (Fitting, wouldn’t you say?) It took me mumbleSIXmumble months to figure out this jerk was no good, and I dumped him. However, he had my favorite radio at his house. So instead of buy a new radio, which on my income at the time really was not doable, I went over to his house to get it, with my new boyfriend in tow.

    I rang the well. “Ding dong!” (Remember that alliteration.) I was met at the front door by a fat guy and a skinny guy. (Don’t some jokes begin this way?) Both guys were completely.stark.raving.naked.

    You read right.

    Naked.

    My current boyfriend turned beet red, and did I mention he’s a martial arts teacher? The storm clouds were brewing, my friend, and the forecast did not look promising. All this for a radio?

    Ever onward, I went into the house and asked after my ex. He was in the bedroom, I was told, with his current girlfriend. She had a Playboy bunny name, and you could feel the heat from my current boyfriend’s fury. I asked to use the bathroom. As I walked by, the door to my ex’s bedroom as open, and they were engaged in, well, things that are better done with the door closed.

    Particularly with a fat naked guy and a skinny naked guy in the next room, call me crazy.

    So I retreated into the bathroom and sat there, trying to figure out whether I should just stand in the living room and shout for my radio, leave, or wait it out. And then I saw it.

    There, on the window sill, an innocuous little book, entitled, Zen Koans.

    Take it from me. When in this situation, beware of Trojans bearing gifts. Or something.

    I picked up the book and flipped to a page at random. And here, in all its glory and magnificence, is what the Universe said to me:

    “Chau-Chu fell down in the snow, and yelled, “Help me up! Help me up!” A Zen monk came and laid down beside him.

    “Chau-Chu got up and went away.”

    Enjoy!