oil in the river

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Cynthia G.

OIL IN WATER

Pam Lazos

Chapter Forty-Six

The day dawned bright and balmy in Houston. Bicky Coleman sat behind his antique mahogany desk, smoking a cigar and reading The Philadelphia Inquirer. Akanabi was taking less of a beating in the newspapers now that Hart was on the scene, commissioning overflights and vacuum boats, throwing all kinds of money at the situation. Maybe it would help them later when the feds and everyone else sued Akanabi out the wazoo for penalties the company didn’t deserve. After all, it had been an accident.

When Hart had called last night he babbled on and on about retiring all of Akanabi’s single-hulled ships. Bicky had humored him, but knew that suggestion would end up in the circular file.

“You want me to retire all the single-hulled ships?” Bicky had asked Hart.

“At least let’s phase them out. Fifteen to twenty percent a year.”

“Hart, my son, are you sure hypothermia hasn’t set in and affected that brain of yours?”

“It’s gonna hit you where it hurts, Bicky, but it’s the right thing to do. The river’s black like you’ve never seen. Just avoiding the devastation to wildlife should be cause enough.”

“Give me a memo. We’ll talk about it when you get back.”

Bicky had said that to shut Hart up; he had absolutely no intention of following through. Building new ships was an expensive proposition. More than half of Akanabi’s supertanker fleet were single-hulled ships, purchased in the heyday of oil drilling. To replace them all at once, even over a period of five years would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. And Bicky was loathe to spend that kind of money. Legislation would eventually force his hand, but why rush things?

The intercom buzzed and Phyllis’s voice jarred him to awareness.

“Jerry’s here.”

“Send him in.”

➣➣➣

Jerry Dixon walked in, looking grim, but impeccable. Bicky’s face was stuck in the paper so Jerry waited. Bicky had several personalities that didn’t always talk to each other, and Jerry thought it best to see which one was in residence.

Bicky looked up and smirked. “How many of those suits do you have?”

“I don’t know. How many do you have?” Jerry said, indicating Bicky’s Armani.

“You know what I mean. Do you spend the whole day ironing or change suits every ten minutes? Cause you know I’m paying you good money to keep things secure around here, so if you’re ironing….” Bicky’s smirk turned to a smile.

Jerry relaxed and sat down. “How’s Hart doing with the spill?”

Bicky studied his buffed fingernails. “Apparently something a little better than damage control. Seems he’s making friends.”

“What are the odds on the cleanup?”

“The river will survive. It’s rebounded before, as have countless of her brethren. It will do so again,” said Bicky, sounding like a Sunday morning TV evangelist.

Jerry scowled, a reflex. Akanabi could dump ten million gallons of oil in the river and Bicky would insist it was nothing.

“You have no faith, Jerry,” Bicky continued. “I’m not even sure if there’s a limit to how far you can go.”

Here we go, Jerry thought.

“Mother Nature is infinitely capable of rejuvenating herself.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not doing such a good job with the ozone layer,” Jerry replied. “I got a spot on my nose here that the doc says is pre-cancerous. Too many hours spent outside in an ozone-lite environment,” he said, rubbing his proboscis. “I’m getting it removed tomorrow.”

Bicky rubbed his own nose absently. His face bore a healthy, radiant glow that smacked of hours spent on a tanning bed. Jerry knew he kept one in an office down the hall. Some people used makeup. Bicky used processed UV light. Jerry wondered just how many of those “freckles” on Bicky’s face had their own story to tell and when they’d decide to start talking.

“Spare me the details,” Bicky said. He stood and stared out the window. “You don’t have any information yet, do you?”

Jerry shook his head, watched his boss, looking for clues.

“No. I’ve made discreet inquiries. No one saw anything.” Bicky flashed Jerry an angry look.

“The coroner says it was an accident, Bicky. Why don’t you believe that?”

“Graighton’s the only other one who knew Sonia had the report. He was at the Union Club that night. It’s only a couple miles to Sonia’s house….”

“You’re saying Graighton left the Union Club, killed Sonia and returned without the report?’ Jerry asked.

“Of course not. Graighton didn’t go himself. One of his lackeys did. You remember where we found the report? Whoever killed Sonia didn’t find what he was looking for. Maybe that’s what angered him in the first place.”

“But what would Graighton gain by killing Sonia and stealing a report he already had a copy of?”

“He was trying to get to me. Put me in my place.” Bicky sat down. “Even that doesn’t make sense.” His head fell against his chair. “Just keep looking.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jerry said.

“One more thing,” Bicky reached into the top drawer. “I want you in Philadelphia.”

“For….?”

“I got another tip.” He handed Jerry a piece of paper. “Recognize the address?” Jerry’s eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing.

“Don’t botch it this time. No commando missions. Nothing getting blown up. No one dying. Just bring me back the technology. You got it?”

Jerry nodded, a face set in stone.

“You’re sure you found out nothing else…about Sonia?” Bicky asked.

“You think I’m not doing my job, old man?” Jerry’s face remained cool and impassive.

“I think, that you’re too quick to accept the opinion of other’s. What’s that jackass coroner know?”

“She had an accident. She died. Accidents happen.”

“Accidents don’t just happen. Not to us. You should know that better than anyone, Mr. Chief of Security.”

“You’re wrong. They do. But what precipitated it? That’s the question. Perhaps she was depressed, worried about her husband, flustered. Or maybe something spooked her. Or someone.” Jerry placed his hands on the front of Bicky’s desk and leaned into it. “Came around hassling her for something she wasn’t inclined to give. She spills her drink. The floor’s wet. She takes a step. She slips. She falls. A body in motion stays in motion. She can’t stop herself from falling. She bangs her head and, is out like a light. And if the baby didn’t decide to come out at that moment, if he didn’t decide to come out upside down, what do they call it, breach? Maybe she’d be alive today. The fact is, unless you were there,” Jerry looked Bicky directly in the eye with malicious intent, “you’re never going to know.”

Bicky shuddered. After several seconds, Jerry stood up and backed away from the desk. He massaged his eyes and forehead with one hand, trying to squeeze the images out of them.

“I loved Sonia like she was my own kid. That she’s dead pains me – like you can’t even believe,” Jerry said. He turned and was gone, an exit as quick and silent as death.

Bicky let out the breath he’d been holding and pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. He wiped his face and dabbed at the moisture forming in the corner of his eyes.

So far, it had been a hell of an afternoon. He walked to the wet bar, poured himself a scotch and soda and stood at the window sipping it. The world below soothed him. He could control it simply by pulling the blind. When he finally turned away, he pulled out the bottom desk drawer. Below a stack of papers, tucked in the bottom drawer, lay the coffee-stained report. Satisfied, Bicky closed the drawer and thumbed through a stack of mail in his in-box. Phyllis had opened everything, laying it in a pile for his review except for one letter, marked personal and confidential. He ripped the envelope open and pulled out a small stack of papers.

It was a letter from Kitty’s lawyer, a Complaint for Divorce and a Postnuptial Agreement with which she proposed to divest herself of everything just to be rid of the marriage. Bicky sipped his scotch for five minutes before pulling a yellow sticky pad out of a side drawer. He placed one on top of the lawyer’s letter, wrote Forget It! in bold, black ink, and stuffed the papers back into the envelope. Then he buzzed Phyllis.

“Is Jerry still here?

“He just went down.”

“Catch him, will you, and tell him to come back up. I want him to deliver something for me. To my wife.”

to be continued. . .

to read how we got to this state of affairs jump here

crashing cliches

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Cynthia G.

Journal THAT

a guide to writing

Cynthia Gregory

Like photographs, clichés are the shorthand of communication. If a picture truly is ‘worth a thousand words’ (a pretty cliché) it’s because its cash value rests on the fact that the ancient part of the brain, the primitive lizard brain, the dreaming brain, communicates with pictures. I mean seriously, think about it. Before written language, our ancestors drew pictures of actual horses to represent “animal” or “the hunt” or “wild and free” before there were actually spoken or written words to convey the ideas. Now, however, we are wildly sophisticated and have a language (or two) that we can manipulate to communicate otherwise free form ideas floating inside our cabezas.

Storytelling served as a history lesson before written language, and storytelling today is as popular around the campfire, board room table, or cafe four-top as ever. Stories are innately wired into us and as humans, we crave and respond to the story. The stories of our lives, our novels, movies, television and cable news, are a series of pictures – both visual and virtual. Actual photographs and pictures illustrate a narrative we may tell, as in “see? I was in Paris – here’s the Eiffel Tower,” or “here’s a photo of little Sophie Soo, ten years old.” In each case you may be telling a story, constructing a narrative and sharing information about your travels and your dog, backing your verbal story up with photographic evidence. So yes, pictures are worth thousands and thousands of words.

And if all those wonderful words at our fingertips were colors, original ideas are bright, clear fountains of rich hues, and clichés are dull as dirt.

The trouble with clichés is that they are so infused into our daily language, we hardly recognize them for their trite, frayed selves. Advertisers know this. They know that people are put off by formal language, fancy words, words that stand up straight and march with a snap in their step, so they dumb down marketing messages, intentionally inserting clichés so that their uber-sophisticated messages sound “down to earth” (cliché!) and “right as rain” (cliché!). Television programmer know this too, and make sure our televised stories don’t get too smarty pants, else run the risk of losing viewers –although because of the trance-like fog I fall into when I tune into a program I happen to enjoy, “viewing” isn’t exactly what I’d say I was doing. I’d bet a nickel that not one filter remains intact with all that bad, cliché loaded language comes washing over me. While some programs are brilliantly written, most programming I’ve observed seems to be no more than 30 minutes of tired ideas strung together. So when you think about all the hours of programming and bad language we’re exposed to, it’s no wonder we’re up to our eyeballs in clichés.

So, if everybody is guilty of crimes of language abuse, then it must be okay, right? In the words of mothers everywhere, “just because all the kids are doing something doesn’t’ make it right.” Clichés have their place, which is definitely not between the covers of your journal. You want your journal to be clear, concise, absolutely fecund with the rich details of your life, so absolutely pitch-perfect that with even a quick glance, you inspire yourself to write. Even. More.

So, once in a while work your language muscle a little harder. Avoid the flabby turns of phrase. Jettison the flaccid prose that comes so easily. Instead, read an amazingly genius writer and then journal. Turn the TV off, and journal. Instead of taking the easy way out and dropping in an over-worked and sad sad sad cliché and reach for something original. You may just surprise yourself with your own genius.

without warning

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Cynthia G.

OIL IN WATER

Pam Lazos

Chapter Forty

“What?!” An incredulous Hart stared at his father-in-law across the broad expanse of Bicky’s mahogany desk. “How the hell did you let that happen, Bicky? Every regulatory agency within a hundred mile radius is gonna be on this. Not to mention the citizens’ groups. The lawyers are probably running to the courthouse now.” Hart rubbed his temples.

“Oh, would you cut the dramatics,” Bicky said.

“Negative. Positive. Attention’s attention. You must like it regardless.”

“Of course I don’t like it. Who wants to get sued?”

Hart paced the floor and ran his hands through his wavy black hair, puzzling out the next move. Bicky grabbed a cigar from the humidor, put his feet up on the desk and lit up.

“Did you get the leak in the Gulf under control?”

Hart interrupted his pacing to stare at his father-in-law.

“Well did you at least tell them it was fixed?” Bicky lit his cigar with great care.

“Or that we were working on it? They might not come inspect if you tell them that.”

Hart struggled to control the myriad profanities readying themselves for dispatch. “You know, the thought just occurred to me that I have no idea how I’ve managed to work for you this long.”

Bicky chortled, set his feet on the floor and shuffled through the newspapers covering his desk, a cigar wedged between his teeth, his right eye closed against the smoke. “My, my. Somebody needs a nap.”

“You might prefer to pay the paltry fines rather than fix the problem, but I’m the guy they come looking for. And I’m not playing cover up for you or your sorry-assed company anymore.”

Bicky leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Are you job hunting?”

Hart waved him off. “And yes, as a matter-of-fact, the leak is fixed. Mahajan and Stu finished the job.” Hart sat down opposite Bicky and glared at him. “I suppose you heard what happened to Stu on this trip?”

“Yes. Most unfortunate. But you managed to save the day once again.” Bicky smiled, baring his picture perfect, ultra white teeth. It was a malicious smile and Hart shuddered. “Sonia always said you were her hero.”

The blow was calculated and intended, hitting its mark with precision. Hart blanched. He felt better, more in control since the dive with Stu, but it was tentative and fragile and he knew it. A wave of nausea surfaced and he swallowed the telltale saliva pouring into his mouth along with the urge to vomit. Hart walked around to Bicky’s side of the desk and stood at the window behind him, a breech of etiquette, definitely a threat. Bicky sat motionless, refusing to turn around.

“You better give the man some time off unless you want to lose your best diver.”

“I’ve already sent a memo. He’ll be receiving a substantial bonus in his next paycheck.”

“It’s not about the money, Bicky.”

“It’s always about the money, David.” Bicky opened The Philadelphia Inquirer with care as if it were a sacred parchment. The front page news covered the oil spill in the Delaware River and continued on A-3 with a full two-page layout .

“Not for Stu. You can’t keep giving him six-week rotations with no time off to see his family. He’s got a baby. And plenty of money saved.” Hart glanced at Bicky who registered nothing, then down at the street below; people scurried along, no bigger than ants. He knew why Bicky liked this window. From here, the world outside was sterile and inaccessible like most things behind glass were. From here, both the minutia and the momentous in life fell the same way, like raindrops swept into the storm drain en route to the river. The river where all would be washed clean. The problem was what to do when the river needed a bath.

Hart caught a slight twitch in Bicky’s shoulders as he rounded the corner and he smiled to himself. Although he would never intentionally harm his father-in-law, there was no telling what he might do in a fit of rage. And there was something about Bicky that could bring a man to a boil. More than once lately, Hart found himself wanting to throttle the stink out of him.

“Duly noted. I’ll make sure he gets the next three weeks off.” Bicky sighed and turned to the Daily News . “Happy?”

“As a clam. Although I’d sleep better if I knew you did it because you understood why.” Hart knew that everything Bicky did sprang from an ulterior motive as opposed to a stab of conscience, but still he held out hopes for redemption.

“I never understood that clam reference,” Bicky said. “Is it because they look like they’re smiling or because they harbor expensive jewelry and think only they know about it.”

Hart continued pacing.

“Sit down already. You’re grating on my nerves.”

Hart flopped down in a chair. Although the dark circles under his eyes looked permanent, physical exhaustion was remediable. Emotional exhaustion, however, had etched a deeper, wider swath in his soul and left scars so deep that even a truckload of vitamin E couldn’t eradicate them. Sonia used to put an eye pillow filled with lavender on Hart’s fatigued eyes when he hadn’t slept. Then she’d massage his feet until he did. The body repaired itself in sleep, she said. The healing occurred while the mind was dreaming. She said it wasn’t sleep that healed, but dreams. Whatever it was, Hart was deprived. He rubbed his eyes too hard and sparks of light shot across his closed eyelids. He finally stopped and looked, bleary-eyed at his father-in-law.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Oversee the cleanup for starters. I got guys down there now, but frankly, some of them couldn’t find their ass with both hands. And I mean that in the nicest of ways.”

Hart studied Bicky’s face. That smooth, tan, imperturbable face. He couldn’t remember if Bicky ever had plastic surgery, but if he hadn’t, he was some freak of nature. At sixty years old, Bicky had barely a crow’s foot. Maybe that’s what a clear conscience got you.

“Get you out in the field, man. Meet some people. Life goes on. So must you.” Bicky said the last bit summarily, but Hart pressed him.

“And by that you mean…?”

“It means what it means.”

“Coyness isn’t one of your best attributes,” Hart said rising.

“I’ve got a driver downstairs waiting to take you home. Call Phyllis an hour before you’re ready to leave for the airport. She’ll arrange for my private jet to take you to Philly. You gotta give them an hour to get ready, though, if you don’t want to wait.” Bicky smiled, his trademark, like he was in pain.

Hart sighed. The job did have its perks.

“Call me with the details as soon as you have them,” he said, returning to his paper.

Hart left without saying goodbye. Had he known at the time that this particular exit would be his last, he might have made more of an effort.

➣➣➣

Mrs. Banes greeted Hart at the door. He tried to engage her in small talk, an activity toward which he knew she was favorably disposed, but she was tight-lipped and unflappable, a sure sign that something was up at the Coleman estate. He was not surprised, therefore, when she lead him to the drawing room where he found Kitty holding court with Jerry Dixon. Hart saw Jerry stiffen, but his facial expression didn’t change.

“Hey, Jerry,” Hart said, extending a hand. “Good to see you, man.”

“Good to see you, too, Hart.” Jerry shook the proffered appendage, warmth replacing wariness.

When Hart kissed his mother-in-law hello, she took his hands and held him to her, studying his eyes. He flushed, but did not pull away from the bony, arthritic pressure of hands that had aged overnight. He dared not look at them and was relieved when Kitty released him.

“Have a seat, David. Mrs. Banes will bring us some tea.” She turned to Mrs. Banes, but the housekeeper was already out the door.

“I’m going to make a few phone calls,” Jerry said.

Hart caught their exchanged glances and used the few moments it afforded to study Kitty’s unguarded face. It had lost that luminescent quality that pointed to eternal youth. Where all her high society friends had plastic surgeons on the payroll, buying face lifts and tummy tucks like magazine subscriptions, Kitty came by her beauty naturally, and could have passed for a woman in her forties rather than one in her sixties. Not now though. Sonia’s death had knocked those indigenous good looks right off her face; the former light scratching around her eyes and mouth now deep and embedded.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Jerry said, solely for her benefit.

Kitty nodded, rubbed her gnarled hands together and grimaced in pain. Tossing protocol aside, Hart knelt down and took one of her hands, and, rubbing in circular fashion, started with the knuckles then worked his way toward Kitty’s palm.

“It’s like it happened overnight,” she said in answer to his unasked question. She lifted her free hand, studying it abstractly as if the appendage were not her own. “Rheumatoid arthritis runs in my family. My mother’s hands looked very much like mine do right now for as long as I can remember. Although that never slowed her down much.” She curled her free hand into a fist, testing its suppleness.

“I thought I had it beat. I mean, there was some stiffness in my joints in the morning, and at odd moments when I stopped to pay attention, but I exercised and I ate right. I didn’t abuse my body.” She smiled and put her free hand up to Hart’s face, tracing the jaw line over a faint line of stubble while he continued massaging her other hand.

“They aren’t kidding when they say stress can kill you. It almost got me,” Kitty said. “Almost.”

Hart squeezed the sides of each finger and pulled them gently from their sockets, releasing the air that had gathered in the joints with a slight popping sound. Hart rubbed the other hand, massaging the stiffness out of the joints, the wrists, the knuckles. Kitty’s face look serene and for a moment, pain free.

“I know it’s not like the pain you have, but it’s my own and I don’t think I can come to terms with it. Children are meant to bury their parents, not the other way around.” Her voice caught and she said nothing further.

Hart hugged her gently, afraid that her frail body would crumble in his arms. He felt the warm tears land on his shirt in rapid succession. He rubbed her back until she pulled away and wiped her eyes. His heart, cleaved into two useless and ineffective pieces on the night his wife died, migrated an even greater distance apart. He held both Kitty’s hands in his, rubbing her knuckles with his thumbs the way he used to do for Sonia when her hands throbbed, the signs of the rheumatoid arthritis already apparent despite her youth.

“A paraffin bath would help this,” Hart said. “Sonia’s got a machine that melts the wax. You dip your hands in a bunch of times, put on plastic gloves and then a cloth mitt to keep them warm. I could bring it over.”

Kitty smiled. “It’s not paraffin I need, David.”

Mrs. Banes entered with a pot of tea and a platter of cakes. She poured the tea, added cream and extended the cup to Kitty. Hart let go of Kitty’s hands and took the tea pot from Mrs. Banes before she could pour him a cup.

“Thank you,” he said, and set the pot down next to Kitty. Mrs. Banes nodded and left.

Hart glanced at his watch. “I gotta go, Mom. I told Bicky’s pilot I’d be there by three.”

Kitty nodded and sighed. She handed him the tea cup which he set down. She lifted her arms to him and he pulled her to her feet. They stood facing each other, Hart still holding her arms.

“David?” she said. He lowered his head to better hear her. “May I ask something of you?”

“Of course, Mom. Anything.”

“Get out of the oil business. Before it ruins you.”

The smell of jasmine tea wafted up to him, and Hart inhaled deeply, searching Kitty’s inscrutable face for clues.

“It may be sooner than you think, Mom.” He looked at his watch again. “But right now I’m still on the payroll, so… I’ll call you when I get back.” He kissed her on the cheek and released her.

“Be careful then,” she said, touching his cheek before she eased herself into her chair. Not without difficulty, Hart thought, as he left the room.

➣➣➣

Jerry was walking the length of the driveway when Hart came out of the house.

“Pretty big mess you got up there in Philadelphia, eh?” Jerry said.

“Worst part of my job,” Hart replied. Hart had his keys in hand, but Jerry stood rooted to the spot in front of the driver’s door and Hart couldn’t get in the car.

Hart always had an affinity for the man Sonia called uncle, joking and laughing with him whenever they had occasion to be together. But in the months since Sonia’s death, Jerry had become remote and uncommunicative and they found themselves with little to say to each other. More than once, Hart’s mind wandered back to the snippets of conversation he’d overheard while sitting in Bicky’s study, when his mind was reeling from the effects of his drug-induced state. Hart’s inability to recall those few days had left him with an uneasy feeling, like Bicky and his chief of security had been involved in some sort of conspiracy which Hart was not privy to, but at the heart of which was Sonia. Unable to recall more than fragments of what transpired, he’d put his suspicions aside, but the wariness revived itself at times, sua sponte and without warning. What Jerry wanted now, Hart could only guess, but something was bothering the man.

“What’s up, Jerry?”

Jerry bent his head like a bird trying to get a better view, and looked at Hart as if he’d just spoken to him in Aramaic. “Ummm.”

Hart eyed his colleague with a scrutiny generally reserved for problematic oil derricks. The once erect figure sagged a bit, the squared shoulders hunched, the closely cropped, military-style haircut had grown unkempt. Hart thought about his own appearance of late and cringed. How could one woman affect so many people . Their eyes locked and Jerry stiffened as if preparing for a blow.

“I… I blame myself. If I’d been there, I’m sure there was something I could have done. I had this feeling….” Jerry shook his head and stamped his foot like a bull ready to charge. “She’d be alive today.”

Hart stared at Jerry, mouth agape. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected the ex-marine to say, but it wasn’t that. “Hey, Jer. How could you have possibly known?”

Jerry cringed and stepped back as if Hart had delivered a physical blow.

“Jerry,” Hart said. “I could say the same thing. If anyone’s to blame it’s me.” Hart had never spoken the words out loud, although he’d thought them a million times, and they came out now, slow and deliberate. He was guilty, and what he stored could power a small city. The words hung in the air between them like wood smoke until they both looked away, blinking their eyes with the sting of it.

“I gotta go,” Hart said.

Jerry moved away as if commanded. Hart put it in reverse and didn’t look back.

to be continued. . .

to read what let to this state of affairs go here

eat the world

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Cynthia G.

we have another blush-worthy post; read it here.

bodice rippers and summer reading

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Cynthia G.

meanwhile back at the ranch, we’ve got a whole lotta blushing going on

outside looking in

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Cynthia G.

JOURNAL THAT

a guide to writing

Cynthia Gregory

Jounaling works if you’re just a baby writer and not sure where it’s going or what you want from it. Journaling works if you’re a seasoned writer and you need something to keep your writing muscles toned when you’re not working on a project. It’s even good when you are working on a project and need an avoidance tactic that can still work to your benefit event while you’re avoiding working on the actual thing you promised to do. What you may not know if you’re new to writing, is that there is nothing like an assignment or writing goal to make you think of all the things you’d rather be doing at that moment than actual writing.

You might think you’re the first to experience the avoidance factor, but no way, Auntie Mae. You can’t believe how sparkly clean my house becomes when I’m on deadline. And it isn’t that you don’t want to write, it’s just that sometime a writer needs to focus on something else for the ideas to become clear. You know how when you try really hard to remember something, like maybe the name of your third grade teacher, you can’t? And then the minute you let it go, it just floats up through your mind like a leaf in a stream: Miss Gerber.

Sometimes taking a break works. Other times, you just need to plant your tush on the seat cushion and write. One day I realized that I became bored with my own voice when I journaled. Granted, I bore easily – but hardly ever where my writing is concerned; good, bad, or mediocre. Nevertheless it began to seem . . .familiar. This of course is what happens when everything starts with me.

It all began to sound the same: I see, I feel, I want. I found that my writing was starting to become labored with too much “I.” This was troubling, especially since writing is almost always fun. I wondered what was up. Then, I developed a method that added some zing to my narrative and my journaling hasn’t been the same since.

You don’t eat the same food every day, and you don’t wear the same clothes, right? It’s important for the human spirit to express itself creatively – otherwise, we would all be dull as rocks. But we’re not. There is an infinite variety all around – from the stars in the sky to the blossoms on a tree. Variety is the pickle juice of life. And the nectar, and the sweet cherry on top. It seems completely logical, requiring no leaps of faith whatsoever, that if you enjoy variety in your non-journaling life, that your journaling process might benefit from mixing it up too.

It’s very true that you need guidelines in general writing and in journal writing too, because if there were no rules and guidelines, there would be complete anarchy and no one would know what anyone else was trying to say. I’m not advocating that you give up structure at all. The same rules apply to journaling that apply to any good writing, and this is as it should be. There are the rules of punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure. A system is necessary, or your journal becomes complete gibberish, and that serves no one, least of all, the journal-ist in you. But it’s possible to add variety to your method, one tweak at a time. So if you suspend one element, everything else stays in place and a sort of balance is achieved and your journal entries still exhibit a sort cohesive read-ability. You may have heard that good writers break rules. But here’s the truth of the matter: they know the rules they’re breaking. They’re not just randomly committing bad writing to the page and calling it creative.

So here’s a very cool way to add variety to your writing, to maintain a certain creative flexibility to your narrative without sending all the rules up in smoke: change your point of view. This doesn’t mean change how you essentially look at life (though that sometimes leads to a creative breakthrough), but it does mean that you get out of your own head. You look at a situation not from your dearest, most precious vantage point; you step aside and consider it from a slightly different angle.

I’m not sure when but at some point in time, I found that I could increase my interest in writing exponentially, when I changed my point of view from first person to second or third person. I began to refer not to “my thoughts” but “her thoughts.” She did this, and she said that. Suddenly, ZOOM! I felt a shift of perspective that allowed me to view my journaling as something not so intensely personal, and therefore allowed me to the freedom to go writing on a tangent if I felt like it. It allowed me the freedom to drift from my life up close, to a view of some one’s life not unlike my own, but because of the distance, it was infinitely more interesting. I became a voyeur in my own life. It sounds like crazy-talk, but it works.

Sometimes feelings are too intense to embrace. This is why people get addicted to a million things: yoga, chocolate, sour apple martinis, you name it. Anything to put a buffer between our hearts and our heads, because otherwise, life is just too real to deal.

I discovered that if I wrote “she came to the conclusion that she had to fire the boyfriend” it pinched a little less, and by the way, made for some slightly juicy “fiction.” We can split hairs about what is “memoir” and what is “made up,” but that is a debate that’s been raging for centuries. Really. And all fiction is at least marginally revisionist memoir at its most basic level. So what if you make your journal slightly fictionalized? Does it really matter? If it helps you get to the heart of what’s bugging you about what your sister said, or the fact that when you opened the door for the plumber expecting a soiled tee shirt and three day stubble but found instead Adonis’s younger and slightly hotter brother, slide that narrative into third-person and start writing.

Shifting point of view allows you to explore themes and ideas from a slightly higher vantage point, and so allows a roominess to enter into your writing that might just allow you to spread your wings and soar.