Inspiration

914 part 1 is done!

Paul Cervantes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It will be up at Amazon within a couple days. When it’s live I will put a link here.

914 is part of a collection of short stories I had hoped to finish by now. Alas. My new plan is to release each (or small mini-collections) while I continue to work on the collection. This will give me time to revise the stories individually before dealing issues related to the collection.

The collection will be available both in ebook and on paper, the individual stories are electronic exclusively.

A note my workflow evolution. I composed 914 in Apple Notes, as always. But, this time I imported the copy into Pages so I could eventually export it to EPUB. Who knows how long KDP will allow EPUB? No matter, I’m taking advantage for now.

A small lesson learned was that EPUB doesn’t support headers or footers, so no pagination. This makes sense when one considers the resulting copy has to be reflowable.

Pages is not especially intuitive. I can imagine a day when it will be even more like Word. But, it’s manageable and that’s all I ask for today.

914 part 1 is done!

My short story 914 and the cover ChatGPT has been working on.

Paul Cervantes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I’ve finished Part 1 of 914 and I’m pretty happy with it.

It seems our friends at Amazon’s KDP have given up on their MOBI file in favor of their new creation, KPF. For a writer, KPF is just the latest hurdle on the journey to getting what our work onto the KDP platform, but who am I to complain?

Then I thought of something. I composed 914 in my usual app, Apple Notes. Then, after reading about the demise of MOBI on March 18 I noticed that KDP will grudgingly accept an EPUB file. I recalled Apple’s Pages allowed for export to EPUB so I decided to export to Pages and then to EPUB. Part 1 of 914 is long for a short story (about 6,000 words) but simple in terms of layout. There are no sections or chapter headings and I don’t care much about widows and orphans for something that won’t appear on paper until my entire short story collection is done. So, I dumped the 914 copy into Pages, worked out pagination and a header, and now I’m down to editing. If the resulting file is really cool with the wise algos at KDP then I’m cool, too.

I had some ideas about the cover but I really don’t want to spend too much time on it. 914 is only one of a collection of short stories I decided to publish by itself. Why not? There’s no downside and it seems wise to keep up with how KDP’s machinery works as well as I can. Enter ChatGPT. Chat is all in and came up with two promising ideas in the snap of the finger. After I made a few corrections Chat said:

Great choice! I’ll modify the image to include a classic blue-and-yellow California plate with a slightly obscured number while keeping the overall aesthetic intact. I’ll get that done and share it with you shortly. I’ll start working on the modifications now. Once it’s ready, I’ll share the updated version with you.

And then, nothing. When I reached out this morning to check progress Chat said:

Good morning! I haven’t started editing the image yet, but I’ll get to work on it now. I’ll update you as soon as it’s ready!

At least he’s positive and enthusiastic. Who knew working with AI would feel exactly the same as working with a living, breathing artist?

My short story 914 and the cover ChatGPT has been working on.

Who knows? Maybe the windows rolled up.

Paul Cervantes, , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Honda Civic Wagon from the mid to late 1980s. It’s it was slick and aero to the original Civic Wagon was square and boxy.

It is said that the Chrysler PT Cruiser was based on the Civic’s functionality though obviously not on the Honda’s looks.

That the Civic was a better and more practical car, there’s no doubt. And I will say no more about the PT Cruiser. It is best forgotten.

No, this is about the Civic Wagon I saw today. I wanted to take a photo of it but somehow it felt too intrusive.

It was, spectacular.

It was in Ventura and it was white. There was a single surfboard on a nicely done roof rack. I could see there had been some “modifications“ on the inside. The backseat was gone and the passenger seat had its seat back removed. I could see two long fishing poles going from the front to the back where a passenger, in a different time and place, might have sat.

I wondered to myself, who owns this?

Other than the roof rack, it appeared all original. The rims were steel Honda 13 inchers and the minuscule tires looked better suited to a golf cart.

I just had to see who owned it. I thought that I knew exactly what he looked like, but I had to see him for myself. And then there he was. He was probably a little younger than me but he managed to look older. He was lean and gray with a hat on his head and to-the-knees board shorts. He loaded something into the back before getting into the driver’s seat.

The little Honda, of course, started instantly and ran smoothly, like any Civic. As he pulled out of the driveway, I could see his rear license plate, a California plate, of course, was even more faded than the car’s paint.

Both owner and car were spectacularly OG and legit. Yes, there is a part of me that wishes I had taken a photo of the both of them. Who knows, he may have enjoyed the attention. On the other hand, it would feel, to me, like disturbing a wild animal in its natural habitat. Who knows? Maybe the windows, which were all rolled down, still rolled up? As if it matters.

They don’t make cars, or even many guys, like that anymore; full of purpose and devoid of pretense.

Who knows? Maybe the windows rolled up.

Please, go ahead & judge this book by its cover!

Paul Cervantes, , , , , Leave a comment

The sequel to my 2019 novel, John J. McDermott & the 1971 U.S. Open, is finally for sale at Amazon.

I think I bettered the six months it took John J. McDermott & the 1971 U.S. Open to make it from finished manuscript to published but not by much. It’s a great feeling to be finished writing but a lousy one to anticipate all of the annoying steps that have to be taken before anyone can read your book.

Right now, it’s eBook only. An issue with the cover formatting undermined me at the last minute. Hopefully, you lovers of paper books will be able to grab a copy later in the week.

In the meantime, Cottonwood the eBook is waiting to be read.

Please, go ahead & judge this book by its cover!

January 15: Sacramento

Paul Cervantes, , , , , , Leave a comment

Thank goodness for the MLK holiday. It gave us a little time to make our way to Sacramento for a very quick getaway and a opportunity to dodge Omicron outside of Los Angeles County. I like this place. It’s not perfect but then again, neither am I. It’s not hard for me to confess the two big things that help me like it here.

The first is the welcome availability of quality golf that’s not crazy expensive. The 27 hole complex at Haggin Oaks was one of the best municipal facilities I had ever played until I was lucky enough to play Ancil Hoffman in nearby Carmichael. This last summer found me sitting on the patio at Ancil Hoffman drinking the biggest $8 Captain & Diet Coke you’ve ever seen. It is a beautiful layout that was in fantastic shape for the middle of summer, or any time of year for that matter.

Of course, that was summer and this is winter. It’s colder here than it is in SoCal. Worse, even though there’s no rain in the forecast the air is incredibly heavy, making tonight’s 43 degrees at 10pm feel quite a bit colder.

So, it’s cold, the days are short, what’s to do? There are great indoors are here aplenty. THat brings me to the second thing I love about Sacramento; the scores of great restaurants and bars. There are also tons of micro breweries around here though I must admit the pale ale I had from Berryessa Brewing this evening was not very good, but those are the breaks.

However, the cheddar burger at Hook & Ladder Manufacturing was superb. Stupid name for a place that is supposed to have an educational vibe (teacher’s desk inside the front door and school auditorium seats for use while waiting for a table).

But wait, am I so simple that burgers, booze and decent golf is enough to get me to relocate to Sacramento? Who knows, but I wouldn’t rule it out. Tomorrow I am hoping to write down some ideas for my next book. I hope you’ll be here to read them.

Sorry, no writing soundtrack tonight. Some idiotic home improvement show on HGTV is filling in, and doing a lousy job of it, I might add.

January 15: Sacramento

January 13: My friend & favorite watercolorist

Paul Cervantes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

My favorite watercolorist is also my friend, Alba Escayo. She and I go way back. I think we found each other on Elance which is now Upwork. Yup, a classic internet mogul move; change a good name to a lousy one. Alba lives and works in Spain. She created the cover on my first novel and I wanted her to create the cover on Cottonwood as well. I’m always grateful she’s younger than I am because it means she’ll be around to create the cover artwork for every book I write, if she’s willing and I am able.

I had an idea that involved a Cottonwood tree and a figure carrying a golf bag and walking away from the viewer. From underneath the tree, the figure reaches up and touches the low-hanging leaves. The idea of the walking away is that the figure is walking into the future, like all of us. The figure is faceless. It could be anyone. It could be one of the characters in the book but then again maybe not. No matter who it is, he reaches up to touch the tree, to touch a growing life.

I sent Alba an example of my idea but I did a bad job of explaining my vision to her. Probably I was in a hurry or maybe I thought we had discussed it more completely last time we emailed about it, over a year ago. She sent me this a couple days ago:

Now I have a problem, not a bad problem mind you, more like a decision. This is not at all what I had in mind, but I love it. It’s not a golf book so I had no intention of having an image of someone swinging a golf club on the cover, but there it is. And, now that it’s there, it has me doubting my concept. I’ve been reminding myself of some of my best non-advice advice:

It doesn’t really matter.

Of course it does, but maybe not. I wanted Alba to create the cover because I love her work, and this is her work. Now I find myself hesitant to continue to foist my vision on her, especially after she’s blessed me with this beautiful creation. My concept is not the idea of a visual artist but rather of a lowly writer. Part of me is screaming at myself to leave the artwork to the artist, and that is definitely Alba and definitely not me.

But we are talking about me. So, in the end I couldn’t help myself and I emailed Alba with my thoughts. As I said, I love the cover she’s done, and I want it, and I’ll pay her for it gladly. It will hang proudly over my desk and I will smile each time I see it. It may not end up being the artwork I use on the cover and then again it might be.

The decisions made in writing a book, especially a self-published book, go on and on. I’m very happy that no matter what decision I make about the cover art, the work will be Alba’s and it will be fantastic because it is hers.

Today’s writing soundtrack is an elegant 1974 record by Bills Evans called, Symbiosis. It is some of the best of jazz and classical (read: orchestral) music I have ever heard. It is melodically and rhythmically evocative of both times and places I’d like to be. I know a pianist who doesn’t think much of Bill Evans’ work from this era, but I think it is wonderful. Maybe you will, too, so take a listen.

Thanks for dropping by.

January 13: My friend & favorite watercolorist

Time enough, but none to waste: A journal of transition

Paul Cervantes, , , , , , Leave a comment

December 31, 2021

Until I finished my first novel I didn’t think of myself as the kind of writer who would or could write a novel. But, after I finished the first book I started in on the second without even thinking about it, or enduring a moment’s uncertainty about whether I could pull it off. The same may go for memoirs and journals. Outside of a less than half-hearted attempt to keep a journal back in high school this is the first time I’ve tried to write one. I enjoy autobiographies. But the truth is I enjoy autobiographies because I enjoy learning about noteworthy people. Bobby Jones wrote about himself when he was still in his 30s, or maybe even younger. Then again, he was Bobby Jones. I’m 60 now, heading for 61 in April. Things have changed, and a definitive change is coming at the end of 2022. My longtime employers will be closing their law firm. It’s time. Their decision is understandable. One of them is 66 and I think the other is pushing 70. One just lost his wife to cancer and the other’s daughter is battling a form of lymphoma. When the end of the firm finally comes I will only have one emotion…gratitude. Both of my bosses have been more than employers to me. They’ve been friends and will remain friends until that other end. I’ll have more to say about both of them later on, I think. The point is that this journal is about a particular transition, from one job to another, at the time in life where I now find myself. The determinate nature of the transition period allows me to focus and plan for the future but also to experience the days of the coming year in an unusual way. Most big changes hit without notice but this one has announced its impending arrival quite conveniently.

I don’t anticipate this to be a traditional journal. Then again, I don’t know what a traditional journal is like, having never knowingly read one. My anticipation is that it will include more than a few ideas about things I’d like to write. I’m also thinking that it will look back more than I want it to but I’m going to try hard to keep my eyes looking forward. They say a writer has to know the beginning and ending of a novel before sitting down to write it. I agree with that. A journal is a different proposition. No one knows how anyone’s journal will end, even and perhaps especially, their own. There’s a kind of freedom to writing without knowing the ending.

It should be interesting anyway. The year, I mean. No promises about the journal.

Time enough, but none to waste: A journal of transition

I’m 168,000 words into my novel, Cottonwood

Paul Cervantes, , , , , 1 Comment

I really regret not keeping up with progress reports on Cottonwood over the time I’ve been working on it. The funny thing is that I until I checked I couldn’t even remember how long I’ve been working on the book. Now that I have checked I see it’s been a good long time since my first novel, John J. McDermott & the 1971 U.S. Open came out in April of 2019.

Cottonwood is a sequel of sorts. No, I guess it’s just a plain old sequel. It takes the lives of the two main characters from the early 1970s in Pennsylvania all the way to the desert of California and the late 1970s. I didn’t really have another book with the same characters, or at least some of them, in mind when I was putting the finishing touches on JJM. But suddenly, when I was totally done with it, I realized that I wasn’t totally done with it.

I imagined the book continuing into the future, the future being nearly a decade later. I saw the book continuing into my own time and closer to some of my own places. So much of the first book was an educated guess. Oh sure, I’d been to Pennsylvania when I was a kid but I didn’t have any real memories of it, other than staying with my mom’s cousin in an ancient row house in Reading, Pennsylvania one summer when I was about 12. Worse, I’d never been to Wales or anywhere in Europe for that matter (still haven’t, in fact). That was a huge problem. I spent hours looking at maps, imagining how the sun rose and set in various parts of the country. I read about how much it cost to take a ship from New York to Wales and how long the voyage took. I came to know some of that stuff, as we know facts that are printed on the page, but I couldn’t know them as experiences.

They say to write what you know. It makes a kind of intuitive sense but the need to know breaks down quickly when you start to write. The important thing for me has been to know and understand my characters. From there, my book is only a measure of how well I can bring my imagination and my relationship with my characters together. I think that Cottonwood will be a better book than JJM, or at least I hope it will be. It’s certainly a longer one and it’s not quite done yet. I wanted Cottonwood to have a more leisurely quality than JJM but life over the last two and a half years got in the way, both for me and the main characters. Life up and took away some of the meandering feel that I had hoped for the book and replaced it with something more intense, and I guess that’s Ok. We all write, partly, to make a character come to life. I hope that Cottonwood will do more than keep the characters from JJM alive. I hope it will show them as they change and meet challenges in the world they exist in much as I try to do in my own.

Anyway, it’s been a long effort and I happy to have made as much progress as I have. I can see the end of Cottonwood coming and also the beginning that will follow it close behind.

Looking down on the setting for Cottonwood

I’m 168,000 words into my novel, Cottonwood

Social Isolation Part 2

Paul Cervantes, , , , , , , Leave a comment

Why have I always found it so pleasant to drink while I sit in the sun?

IMG_2245

I’m sure I can’t explain it. But, in these days of Social Isolation it still has its pleasures even though for now outside is a front yard rather than one of my local bars or brew pubs.

Plus, I’m dodging some clouds. Still, you know what they say about beggars and their lack of choices.

Now, the thing is I find outside & alcohol mentally provocative. Many times I will find myself enjoying a good IPA (like this one: Santa Monica Brewing Inclined IPA) and about halfway through I’ll get an idea and have to mosey on home to put it down. It’s not true every time but the reaction, or effect, always surprises me when it happens.

And, I do wonder why.

Is it the sun or the IPA or more likely a symbiotic combination? I vote for a symbiotic combination that flows from the sun’s gathering warmth and the mental softening effect of the IPA.

But, there’s something else and again it works in concert with both solar radiation and a good IPA; the lack of hurry, the feeling of easy contemplation, the sense that one is where one should be for that moment.

It’s often hard to create a lack of hurry sense, but that’s what I need.

Anyway, it’s a hard balance to strike and it’s all to easy to take it too far (IPA wise) and to become insensitive (idea wise). The key is to create a combination of balance & opportunity. If I can achieve that balance perhaps I can make some inroads on my book while staying safe. I’m well over halfway through but it’s still a little hard to see the end of tunnel.

I encourage all of you to do the same while being safe.

 

Social Isolation Part 2

Kingdom of Dreams Part 3

Paul Cervantes, , , , , , , Leave a comment

This is Part 3 of Kingdom of Dreams, my 2014 golf short story.

Part 4 will be available soon so please check back.

I hope you enjoy it and thanks for having a listen.

By the way, you can buy the ebook here: Kingdom of Dreams ebook at Amazon.

Kingdom of Dreams Part 3