The SoapBoxers

Continuing the series of articles on creativity in writing, let us concentrate on concentration. When developing any kind of story, it can be exceptionally beneficial to establish a mood. The easiest way to accomplish this without actually putting yourself in the situation you want to write about is through aural stimulus. What we hear can influence what we see. The most common scene of a horror movie is slowly ascending a dark stair case towards a closed door. Without the tension and suspense of the background music, it is just a poorly lit staircase, with it, everyone is on the end of their seats waiting for the shock moment.

The same technique can be used to help you develop your story. If you are at a romantic portion of your story, put on some romantic music. If it is a scene of discovery or combat, classic Wagner can be very inspirational.

Never limit yourself to a single stimulus. You can use scented candles, walk outside, cook something for smells. Dim or add lights, work at night or at high noon, to set the lighting.

Once you have your environment set, how do you maintain your concentration to produce the images and messages that you want? The biggest problem is external interruptions. Make sure that the other inhabitants of your writing area know that you want/need isolation for your creativity. Most people will honor your request for at least a little way. Little ones, if you have them around, find it hard to accept that Mom or Dad just needs to be alone. You will have to limit your time to manageable periods to meet the demands of every day life. Sometimes you can use a vacation day and separate yourself from family commitments for a few hours.

Even if you can achieve isolation, distractions abound. Writer’s block, doldrums, even a stray fly can be a problem. If it hits, take a break. Get away. Even reschedule your writing time. Sometimes you cannot win, but that does not mean that you will be frustrated every time. Once you hit a writing surge, you will be amazed at how many words you can capture. Ideas will spawn new ideas, messages will morph into new messages. Eventually, your creation will emerge. It will be different than your original intent. You may even be changed. Even if you abort your project and move to something else, you will have accomplished something incredible; you will have written something that no one else had written. You will have crated something.

Keep writing.

Writing is a terrible thing to neglect. Without practice, writing becomes just a tool of communication rather than a gateway to expression. If you allow the everyday pressure of life interfere with your literary efforts and only write in response to ideas or events that push your basic beliefs too far, you become a whiner with a pen (or keyboard).

Many of my most recent posts have been about politics and natural disasters. My motivation came from the immediacy of the events. They were easy topics, and ones in which I had a great deal of interest. I have reviewed these posts and feel that I too fell into the whiner format, especially when addressing political issues. I will not apologize for the opinions stated, as I still maintain them. I will, however try to be more of a writer and advocate for writing than a commentator.

Realize that I am not criticizing the use of current events or controversial topics to inspire your writing effort. Rather, I am questioning the effort put into creating a worthwhile transcript based on eloquence and style. The structure of the piece at times establishes the major feeling of the article. The word choice prepares the reader to accept or deny the premise based to the perceived intelligence of the author.

When reading the classics, remember that the masters were not so much more educated, as exercising a wider vocabulary. The modern has provided ease in every area of life. We have food in abundance so that even the poorest people in the United States suffer from obesity. We have entertainment at our fingertips, in many cases for no cost. We are healthiest of any recorded generation, even with our self-destructive habits; from sexual promiscuity, to gluttony, to drug and alcohol abuse. We have even been provided with a reduced instruction set for communications; from tweeting, to instant message acronyms, to the use of a single word as noun, verb, adjective, advert and injunctive.

I am not complaining about the ease with which we live. It is an opportunity for every one of us to make incredible strides in all of our endeavors. Our error is taking these benefits of modern life to relax or even become dormant. In past postings, I have complained about global warming alarmist, who seem to think that they can save the world by redistributing wealth. I may disagree with them, but at least they are doing something. They are attempting to use the scientific advancements of the last few hundred years to explain and prepare for a concern that they feel deeply in their inner selves.

It is exactly these types of people I want to address when encouraging the practice of writing. Passion is a powerful driving force. With practice, that passion can be used to develop writing skills that do not simple express a view point, but take that expression away from bludgeoning to persuasion and continuous productive discourse.

I asked what inspires you (to write) as the title of this post. I was inspired to re-evaluate my writing from several sources over the last few weeks. I have been heavily loaded with my actual paying job, and this has restricted my time for creative composition. I found that my writing at work was also suffering; I was not conveying instructions, progress, problems or accomplishments clearly and concisely as is required when working with a large team of people with varying talents. I then saw a report on the difficulty in fighting obesity. The struggles that I have with my weight (as the topic of some of my posts) are not as extreme as those featured in the report, but I had empathy for those people and could see myself in their place. Finally, I watched the most recent version of Pride and Prejudice. I was struck by the vocabulary and ease with which all of the characters conversed. I reflected on all of these stimuli to evaluate what I felt was lacking, not just in communication in general, but in my writing specifically and why I felt the lack existed. The result of this introspection is presented to you here. As with anything you want to do well, you must practice. Therefore, I offer to you the same advice I have prepared for myself; keep writing.

Suggested viewing: Pride and Prejudice:



My wife and I watch a lot of Home and Garden Television. There is one show that my wife chooses to watch that simply grabs my attention, it is called House Hunters.  What strikes me the most about this show is the unreasonable expectations of the featured home buyers. Most (but not all thankfully) of the featured couples, fully expects to step into the type of home that their parents currently own or even better. They completely discount the years of savings, the slow steps from a small to medium to elegant home, that their parents had to endure. They are fully expecting to buy a home that is 3, 4 even 5 times their combined annual income, with the expectation of having a child without affecting their ability to afford the home in the long run.

I remember consulting with my father before attempting to purchase my first home, apparently I am old fashioned or my father has a good memory about what he could afford with a growing family. We chose a house that was almost exactly twice our combined income. The loan officer actually called me cheap to my face. When I transferred with my company, I was able to move up to a more expensive house, mostly because they covered my closing costs at both ends. Again, we went for twice our combined income. This time the real estate agent tried to pressure me into a larger debt. He explained that my salary was guaranteed to go up. I asked him to back up that guarantee with his own money. He refused, I got a new agent.

Ten years later, a full twenty years after getting out of school, we bought a house comparable to what my parents had when I moved out. I guess for the show, I do not have the right frame of mind. I do not think of a house as an investment. I look at as a place to live where the rent can actually be recouped eventually.

This problem of expectation is not limited to house buying, the show just provides a very clear example. I have worked with people who expect promotions and recognition as if some effort they have put forward is ample proof that they will continue to achieve at the same rate for ever. I have met people who truly expect the government to anticipate and fulfill their every need. I have watched as customers in stores have expressed their belief that since they spent $2.13 they should be treated somehow special. There are churches where the people expect to be entertained and cared for because they write a check each week. I have heard parents berate teachers because there child is special and should be treated better.

I believe that we all need a does of proportion. Actually think about what we deserved based on what we are doing. If we are buying the cheapest car, we should not expect it to run like the best vehicle out there. When we attend group, government or private, we should see what we can do, rather than walk in with expectations as to what should be done for us. President Kennedy said it very well, “Ask not what your country can do for you; rather ask what you can do for your country.” I think that this should be expanded to your community, you school, your church, even your family. Let us, at least for a little while, push aside our own petty desires and consider what actions will provide the greatest good.

God has once again shown who is in charge. Men build a nuclear power plant to withstand an 8.0 earthquake, and here comes a 9.0. And just for the fun of it, let’s have a 20 foot tsunami to overcome that 15 foot sea barrier.

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan over the weekend are a tragic disaster of monumental scale. The fact that only about 3000 people are dead or missing is just amazing. My prayers go out to all who are affected. I only know a few people who are in Japan right now, and they have all called in to let us know that they are all right. I am so glad to see the offering of aid and the gracious acceptance of that aid.

To me, the next thing to do is start rebuilding and help recover or prevent additional damage at the nuclear power plants. To the broadcast news, the next thing to do is stop nuclear energy and investigate why the Japanese government was not ready for this disaster. Really? Ready for a 9.0 earthquake and almost instant tsunami? Really? Instead of criticizing and taking up valuable resources to be “on the scene” they should be supporting and helping. There will be plenty of time to assign blame to any part of the event or recovery over the next months and years.

At the same time they are criticizing Japan, who in my opinion is responding courageously to this event, the broadcast news is bewailing the damage done on the west coast of the United States. Although the losses there are regrettable, they are less understandable. The west coast had more than 8 hours to prepare. I am no expert in how to get ready for a tsunami, but the people in Hawaii seemed to do alright by getting the ships and boats out to sea. Granted, there was not much that could have been done to save or protect the shore structures (docks and lifts, etc), but the boats seem a senseless loss. I have not heard, but I hope no one was injured or killed in any of the other areas affected by the tsunami.

Can we truly prepare for a natural event of this magnitude? In some small ways we can mitigate the consequences of the event, yes. I think that Japan has shown that. Compare the impact of this earthquake and tsunami to the one that hid Indonesia just a few years ago. Japan has used their wealth to provide as much of a buffer against nature for her people as is humanly possible today. Knowing how Japan responds to these events, we as a world will learn from this event and be able to do much more to protect our people and property in the face of future disasters.

There is a lot of news from the Middle East about people overthrowing dictatorships to have personal freedom. I applaud this effort and support them at least in emotion and praise. I have heard complaints from commentators that President Obama is not doing more to support these efforts. I disagree with that criticism. We (Americans) had to fight for and earn our freedoms. If the French had come in with superior weapons and force and beat up the British, we would have had a lot of problems. First, we would have had an obligation to support everything French for eternity. Secondly, we would have had a fifth column within the country ready to overthrow our government as a puppet of the French. Third, there would have been a certain segment of our society that would have hated everything French just because they interfered with our sovereignty.

The President should always support, verbally and emotionally, any efforts to advance freedom around the world. That is what this country stands for. Our willingness to help, including the sacrifice of our own blood and treasure, without hope of territorial gain, is what truly sets us apart from the rest of the governments that have ever existed in the world. But getting actively involved is another question. We have tried and failed several times to create new nations in our image. Iraq and Afghanistan are the two most recent examples. Both will eventually emerge as some sort of hybrid of what we think is a free and democratic nation and what the Afghans and Iraqis choose to implement.

Should we be bombing Colonel Gadaffi and his forces? Sure he is a bad man, but who will step in if we knock him down? The people toppling him will be better off without us so that they can choose their own leadership. We may not like what they come up with, but that is part of what freedom is all about, the freedom to make mistakes.

No I am not equating Iraq and Afghanistan to Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iran, Syria, and Morocco. In the current round of uprisings, it is the people fighting their tyrannical governments. When the people of Iraq and Afghanistan rose up in the 1980’s we did not interfere directly. When Iraq invaded two neighbors, we responded. When they broke every condition of the cease fire, we conquered them and attempted to establish a new, democratic government. When Afghanistan harbored a group that had publicly claimed responsibility for a deadly attack against us, we conquered them and attempted the same nation building.

In the cases of what is going on now, it is internal to each country and should be handled by each country without some bully forcing what decisions are made. Just as I supported President Bush in his decisions with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan, I support President Obama in his current actions with regard to the freedom uprisings. I find the verbal cannonade by professional talkers obscene. One group claims that these uprisings are a direct response to a speech President Obama gave in Egypt last year. The other group claims the credit should go to President Bush for establishing democracies in the region. Both accretions are ridiculous. The uprisings are the result a people fed up with governments that have failed the people they are responsible for. They have risen up against the bullies. There was a fabulous headline in the papers this weekend that I feel captures the whole story, “The Walls of Fear have Fallen.”

I did not have an article last week. Instead I was at a funeral. Such an event tends to make you look at life and try to evaluate what is actually important. Does it mater that the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl? Does it matter that the U.S. congress still hasn’t passed a budget for this year? All in all, probably not.

This funeral was for a friend’s (my best friend’s) mother. I drove from Iowa to Texas on Friday, attended the funeral on Saturday and drove back to Iowa on Sunday. The funeral itself was actually nice, capturing her personality and life. The drive allowed me many hours with my wife, talking about our own parents, our children, our lives. We spent most of our time in Texas with my friend who happens to be married to my wife’s friend. That chance to re-connect, share grief and remember our youth.

I realize that I have possibly a disproportionate amount of good in my life. Good family, good job, good friends, and a chance to express myself in writing. I try to appreciate all of these gifts. I have never complained about my compensation at work, mostly because it would make no difference, but also because my various bosses have treated me (on balance) fairly. I try to praise and correct my children in proper order. I make every effort to let my wife know how much I appreciate her. I try to respect my parent’s decisions and support them in any way that I can. I try to be dependable to my friends and all of my obligations. I am also indebted to all of you who actually read my articles and hopefully will read my books once I make them available.

Am I successful with all of this? Well certainly not every day and not in every circumstance. The important thing is to try, and actually think about it. It is a shame that it takes a funeral to reinforce the need to appreciate what we all have. A life perspective is something we should have every day.

This article is not about the Super Bowl, well at least not about the game.  As a Steelers fan it is just too painful to comment on the game right now.  I want to talk about the things that make the Super Bowl not a game, but an event.  Let’s start with the 24 hours of pre-game.  I know that Fox did not have 24 hours of pre-game by themselves, there was a hand off/overlap with ESPN.  We got to learn about every previous Super Bowl, all of the players, some of their wives.  There was the exceptional tribute to Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys, even though they were not in the Super Bowl (I wonder how the other host teams feel about that).  We were pummeled with how great Pittsburgh and Green Bay have been in the past; lots of black and white film for Green Bay, not so much for Pittsburgh as they were rather atrocious before 1969.  All of these segments were separated by musical entertainment, primarily from Keith Urban.

The real pre-game was actually very nice.  There were tributes to our armed forces, including a reading of the Declaration of Independence featuring players, service men and women, retired general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Commissioner of Football.  Then came the singing of God Bless America and the National Anthem.  I feel Sorry for Christina Aguilera.  She missed one line of the Anthem and the morning media have been all over her about that.  Her apology seems sincere and she seems embarrassed about it.  All in all, I think the pregame was classy.

Fast forward to the half time entertainment.  A lot of people think that the half time entertainment is important.  I guess if you spent $4500 you would want a first class ride for the entire 4 hours.  Ever since the Janet Jackson event, I have spent half time cleaning up the food and hunkering down for the second half.  I caught some of the act.  The special effects and music were what you would expect from the Black Eyed Peas.  If you like them, you like the show.  If not, well I am glad I was not with my father for this half time.  I do not think I could have explained it to him.

So what else is there to talk about other than the game?  The commercials, of course.  My personal favorite was the kid dressed as Darth Vader starting the car with the Jedi Powers of the Force.  Although watching Roseanne Barr get wacked with a log was pretty good, too.  There were other interesting ads, and I believe there will be a special on TV to go through them all, or you can look at them on-line at www.superbowl-commercials.org. I enjoyed the entire experience, especially since it was over by 9:45.  I hope the NFL continues to have the early start to the Super Bowl for those of us who have to work on Monday.

This is a list of the things I like and do not like about the NFL Pro-Bowl.

I do not like that it is the week before the Super Bowl. We already have reduced participation due to some of the higher paid players concern about injury, now we have the Super Bowl participants opting out.

I like that the game is in Hawaii again. I thought that it was actually rather cruel last year when the players went to the Super Bowl City. The celebration of their skills that earned them spots on the Pro-Bowl roster was overwhelmed by Super Bowl questions, including “how do you feel about not being in the Super Bowl?” This is supposed to be a reward for being the best players in the league. Having the game in Hawaii lets these players celebrate with their families and friends.

I do not like that the only impact of the game is deciding which team is the “home” team in the Super Bowl next year. I would like it to determine where the Super Bowl is played. Rather than “awarding” the Super Bowl to a city, almost always in a warm climate or dome, let the Pro-Bowl determine what stadium the Super Bowl is played in. The conference champion of the winning side of the Pro-Bowl should host the Super Bowl. Then we could have some real games, maybe in Chicago or New England. Yeah I have heard all the arguments against cold weather venues, are we playing football here or tennis?

I do like that the coaches actually get almost every player some face time and the announcers have all the statistical sheets to brag about these guys. Some of them come from pretty bad teams and do not get the recognition that they should.

I do not like that the players don’t even try on some plays. I know that this is an exhibition game and no one wants to get hurt, so yes hold up on some of the hits once you have someone stopped. The thing I object to is that for field goals and extra points, everyone just stands up and waits for the kicker to kick the ball.

I do like the kick off plays. These are the only plays that everyone seems to be having fun. No one is hitting too hard and everyone is running around showing how much fun they are having.

My preference, if the commissioner reads this post, is to return to the old format. Play the game in Hawaii the week after the Super Bowl. The only thing I would suggest as an adder would be to have the all star cheer leaders there as well. And for Fox Sports, more focus on the beautiful people in the stands.

Sometimes you get the opportunity to help a young writer.  If you have a child, those opportunities can arise just because of curiosity, other times to respond to class assignments.  The most tempting error that you can commit is “giving” the young writer the story.  You have to restrain yourself to just suggestions.  I have an example that actually occurred this weekend.

My son is a freshman in high school.  His assignment is a short story that includes a protagonist, antagonist, conflict, climax and message.  The first step was to establish an environment.  Since we were driving around in the mid-west, with single digit temperatures and snow, I suggested a cold location, possibly a creek bed frozen over.  My son changed that to the main character’s back yard playing foot ball with his buddies.

Next came the conflict.  We talked about finding a puppy in distress.  The hero should obviously show compassion and try to help the puppy, but his parent have a strict no pets policy (similar to our family policy).  This established several conflicts that he will follow, doing the right thing while defying his parents, leading to a climax of direct conflict with his mother.  Then my son added his own twist, the friend will encourage him to continue hiding the dog.

With just a few ideas back and forth, he had the basic story in place.  He already had several stories that he had worked on in the past, but he chose to create something completely new.  His goal was to address all of the elements suggested by his teacher.  The assignment itself provided the stimulus to even start, bouncing ideas with me drove him to more creativity, and I hope a complete story. 

I am excited at my son’s commitment to writing well.  I truly believe that all creativity helps young minds develop and keep poor habits from developing instead.  We have spent many idle hours (driving during vacations, evenings before bedtime when the internet was down) developing ideas.  My son has thought about game themes, stories, even possible movies and actually worked on many of the ideas.  The more he worked, the more he wanted to try and think about.    This is the type of positive feedback that will help him grow into a fine young man.  With that in mind, I encourage every young person to write down their ideas and develop them.  Keep writing!

The conference championship games are now set; the New York Jets will be visiting the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers will be visiting the Chicago Bears. Both are #2-#6 seed match ups. Some of the games this weekend were messy. Each provided the coaches, even the winning coaches, plenty to teach this week.

In the Pittsburgh – Baltimore game, we learned you play to the whistle, as a Baltimore lineman picked up the ball and ran in for a touchdown on a fumble that no one else noticed, they were just standing around with the ball sitting on the ground. In the New England – New York game we learned that when you are going to run a fake punt, pay attention to where the ball is. In the Atlanta – Green Bay game we learned not to hurry at the end of the half with short dangerous passes. And finally, we learned in the Chicago – Seattle game, we learned that you have to run your pattern and actually catch the ball to win games. I am sure that you can see many more teaching opportunities (like do not commit stupid penalties at critical points in the game).

All four of the teams in the champion ship games have been to and won at least one Super Bowl, so no new story line there. None of these teams have matched up against each other in the Super Bowl before, so some interest there. The Steelers already have six Super Bowl Championships, the Jets are undefeated in the Super Bowl (but only have one appearance). Only one #6 seed has ever made it to the Super Bowl, Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XL, which they won. The #2 seed has made it to the Super Bowl 22 times, winning 11 and losing 11. Two #2s have met only once in the Super Bowl. Two of the teams come from large markets, the other two have storied Super Bowl history behind them.

The New York Jets beat Pittsburgh during the regular season in their only meeting. Chicago and Green Bay split their two games. The Jets beat Green Bay but lost to Chicago. Pittsburgh did not play either NFC team this year. I am sure that the pundits will have plenty of stories and angles to comment on.

The good new is that one of the New York teams made it to the Conference Championship. Why is this good news? About 95% of the talking heads predicted a possible NY-NY show down in Dallas for Super Bowl XLV. In week 2 of the season, most of those same experts called the both NY teams’ seasons over, so much for predicting 4 months and 16 games out. I guess that I get some juvenile pleasure out of seeing the experts proven wrong.

I was glad that Seattle won in the first round of the playoffs against the New Orleans Saints. I am not bashing the Saints, but there were so many people on talk shows saying that Seattle should not be in the playoffs because they did not have a winning record. I disagree. The rules as they stand today are that you have to win your division to get to the playoffs. If you don’t do that, there is the gift of 2 wild card spots for teams that played well, just not well enough to win their divisions. It was not that long ago that there were only three divisions and one wild card for each conference, now twelve teams out of the 32 get into the playoffs. My objection is the demand to change the rules in the middle (or near the end) of the season.

I still have a horse in this race, so I am pretty excited. I will be having a Super Bowl party regardless of the participants. The Super Bowl is usually a good game and there are those commercials. My friends and I usually skip the half time show, ever since Janet Jackson was exposed in front of my young children. American style football has produced great entertainment for years, with the Super Bowl being there grand finale each year. I do no expect to be disappointed this year.