Another cure for writer's block

Deadlines. So says Laura Miller in her recent article posted at Salon. We knew it all along, right? If  you have to, you will. So, I have given myself 10 minutes to write this post. Damn. I just wasted about three of those minutes fiddling around finding albums to copy to my player and several more re-reading Miller's article. I am down to one minute. ONE MINUTE. Deadlines and decoy projects.

That's what every blocked writer really needs: something more significant they should be doing instead, an earth-shaking, life-changing project you're stealing time from to work on this little novel. Or the great novel you ought to be drafting while you knock off your memoir just for fun. Granted, inventing such a decoy project and convincing yourself that you may actually get around to it someday requires a bold and sustained act of imagination. But that's what writers do, isn't it -- make stuff up?

My "decoy project": is blogging. How fucked is that?

Plastic Bag, narrated by Werner Herzog

My new favorite tale about the adventures of a discarded plastic bag struggling with its immortality as it ventures through a post-apocalyptic America.

Super Mega Moon in Minden

It isn't much but it's the best of the cell phone photos I got last night as the super mega moon was rising over Minden, Nevada. It's not a good photo. It's blurry and taken through the windshield. The streetlights are bigger than the lovely moon and it was lovely. In case you've never heard of Minden Nevada, now you have. This is the one of two blocks that make up what is basically downtown.

 

I want this to be all there is of Minden Nevada but it's not but the way the downtown is is still kind of the way it was, which I like. By the time I got home and to a good camera and tripod, minutes later, the moon had nearly vanished behind black clouds so this is it.

Oh, and Happy Spring Equinox. I would have preferred cherry blossoms to snow but snow it is. 

Kitesurfing Waikiki

Kitesurfing scene by the Honolulu Hilton, March 3.

Ricardo, you are probably a purist about all this but what the hell? These are for you.

Cloudy day in Waikiki

More from Hawaii

Earth ship

I wonder what effect pulling all this oil out of earth has on things. Seems to me oil must act as a ballast for the planet and that planetary stability depends on it. We must have already siphoned out gazillions of pounds of ballast from the innards of the planet. Aren't we leaving empty chasms where the oil once was thus changing the way planet is balanced? And won't those chasms collapse and the balance inevitably shift?  What are the chances earth will be spun out of orbit altogether? At least, it seems to me, that these gigantic earthquakes will become more common.

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Update: I posted the above at Huffpo this morning and was pretty much drubbed, as expected. What I appreciate is the couple of people who responded in a straight forward scientific manner.  As usual, the boobs used it as an opportunity for ridicule. One commenter even accused  me (WOO!) of believing "everything in Al Gore's movie". WTF! I'm tired of clowns.

Hawaii outtakes, part 1

It was great to be warm for a few days. We arrived the day before the conference and, as it wasn't raining, did our favorite thing...took a walk.

Naturally I fed the fish...

and photographed the bride

then a passing stranger offered to photograph us.

Next...kite surfing.