Writers! Get Motivated! Wisdom From Trotsky!

I have these videos in my "Watch Later" list on YouTube.

What follows is what I listened to and found helpful.

Note From Anna Dahland (Substack)

Typewriter interview with Laura Lippman (Austin Kleon)

 WRITING MOTIVATION - Do you really want to be a writer?:

It got me motivated - hard talk, lots of reasons for running away from any idea of ever being a writer. Wish I had seen this in 1982.

David McCullough Reflects on a Life of Writing and Learning

You will have to hang with this one, until McCullough explains what motivates him.

WRITING MOTIVATION: WHY WE WRITE

More hard talk, because the work is hard. 

THIS VIDEO WILL MOTIVATE YOU TO WRITE

Have you gotten the point yet: writing is not easy, but if you have the itch, then scratch it. Scratch it hard. That is my goal now, to get back into things and work. Last night, I revised again, a very old story. I will be laying off the politics - for all that the subject worries me.

I hope these help you, too.

sch 7/10

What Trotsky? I ran into the following quote from Unsentimental Education: Peter Weiss’s Aesthetics of Resistance (Liberties),a nd it seemd a good idea adding it here:

... For the Modernists, certainly, the relationship between radical politics and radical aesthetics was obvious. More still, many revolutionaries recognized it to be urgent. In 1923, barely a year after the Russian Civil War and with the new Soviet economy in shambles, Trotsky wrote Literature & Revolution in an attempt to address this very matter. Economic problems, Trotsky makes clear in his introduction, are “the problem above all problems” but stresses that a new society cannot understand itself, let alone survive, without art: “In this sense, the development of art is the highest test of the vitality and significance of each epoch.” 

Now, isn't that motivational?

(BTW, Peter Weiss’s trilogy of novels, The Aesthetics of Resistance, reviewed in the above link was the subject of another review that I noted in my Doing What I Can: Naps, Resistance, Rejecting Psychotic Ape, Books, Euripides. Which I think I will need to read this book - if I still have time in this life:

Engagement with art and literature is a way of turning towards the world, towards reality, even in a state of captivity or desolation. “But this path” as the narrator says — that is, the path to art — “only remains open so long as there is a willingness to address the outside world… The border between closing oneself off and opening oneself up, which bears the promise of a cure, is always present in art…” We know that aesthetic experience and expression can survive in even the most hostile and dehumanizing conditions. There was literature in the gulag, there was painting in Auschwitz, there was poetry in the trenches. “Imagination lived so long as human beings who resisted lived,” as the narrator says. “However, the adversary aimed not only at material devastation but also at the snuffing-out of all ethical foundations.” And therein lies the essence of the aesthetics of resistance — rather than simple resistance: there is the tacit recognition that any triumph over fascism is ultimately incomplete if it doesn’t recover the fundamental moral supports of human existence, without which not even the past is safe. Weiss’ novel shows that not only can one not live in such times without art, but that aesthetic education is necessary for survival, especially when the brutality and misery of political life threatens its existence, when the space for aesthetic contemplation shrinks, or seems secondary to more immediate concerns. Even though it is a chronicle of defeat, demoralization, murder and calamity, The Aesthetics of Resistance, as an act of remembrance, as an engagement with the past, with art and literature and the things that exist under the umbrella of eternity, nevertheless opens up an inspired space for thinking about the future of humanity. Memory, after all, is the Mother of the Muses.

sch 7/12 

Nothing Much to See Here - American Carnage

I just woke up again. This time I have to fight the urge to go back to sleep. I have been asleep for most of the past 17 hours. I really need to get this problem with my lower limbs fixed. My Open Door clinic appointment is at 9:45.

I worked until around 1 PM yesterday. This may be what else wore me out. All I accomplished was getting through my email.

It is raining, so maybe it will be cool enough that I can get some work done.

I read American Carnage: Hammett’s Red Harvest and Mass Violence in the United States (CrimeReads) earlier in the week. It is worth reading, not so much for the Hammett novel, but for the history it puts forth. Knowing about things like the race riots mentioned in the essay is one of the reasons Trump and his MAGA franchise have never interested me. That cities were run by corrupt political machines is another reason. My mother was born in 1933; her mother was born in 1898. My mother's relatives were old. It was the Thirties, not the Fifties, that meant anything to them. That was also true for my father's side (born 1934) where his father was born around 1910. The nuclear family, trad wives, were unknown in my family. The women worked. The family was broader than just mom, dad, and kids. Politicians were not saviors without blemish. I am thinking more and more these days that the ideal of "Leave It To Beaver" was propaganda for a movement meant to tamper down the unfinished business of the New Deal; a movement fueled by the survivors of the Great Depression desire to enjoy prosperity, the desire of veterans to enjoy the peace, and by the anti-Communists indulging in their fantasies of why we were better than the Communists. Bubbling under "Leave It To Beaver" are the changes in racial politics that are coming on the heels of Brown v. Board of Education and Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. Reality was lynchings and Emmett Till confronting the fantasy of TV family life. Reality was the Hollywood blacklist against Truth, Justice, and The American Way. No, we are better now than we were then - so long as you are not a racist male.

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Me at 53 (Part Five): 3/6/2013–3/10/2013

  [ I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. Continued from Me at 53 (Part Four): 3/6/2013–3/10/2013. sch 7/14/2025]

I have had peace and quiet enough to contemplate what got me here. Not my crime so much as my life. I risk annoying the officials who control my life now because of the thousands upon thousands of dollars spent on my crime and punishment will possibly appear money ii-spent by saying my crime is not the worse thing I have done with my life. My crime is merely symptomatic of a worthless life.

I see now the only real struggle is between those favoring life and those who do not. I got sidetracked by a failed relationship into issues of sexual power games. Those games left me in an intellectual cul-de-sac. The longer I stayed there, the more self-destructive I became. I thought Olympic curling lit a path out of there. Immigration and Customs Enforcement came along instead with a different escape from my life.

I believe now that there can be no hedging one's bets with nihilism. I know we carry within us our personal abysses that lure us into the muck of self-hate and self-destruction. We can see all succumb to negation.

I also believe we can redeem ourselves.

[7/14/2025: Continued in Me at 53 (Part Six): 3/6/2013–3/10/2013. sch]

New Site: Keeping Up With Indiana's Education News?

 I just added Chalkbeat - Indiana to my links. Just in case anyone here has a particular interest in Indiana's educational issues. If we do not properly educate our children, there will be no future.

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A Blunt Post On Trump, NATO, Ukraine, and Our Future

 Isolationism is possible where there is enough space to buffer us from the evil intents of others.

We have not had that buffer space since Imperial Germany started unrestricted submarine warfare; maybe we have never had it - the British did come here and burn the Capitol during the War of 1812

Now I need to get to work, so I leave you to consider these articles:

NATO’s New Strategic Conscience - by Mark Hertling (The Bulwark)

Before this month, I hadn’t visited the Baltics in more than a decade. What I saw and heard on my recent trip confirmed a shift that, like an earthquake, had been building for years: The Baltic states are no longer on the periphery of NATO. They are part of its new core. They are now NATO’s strategic conscience—small democracies preparing for the worst. With Russian oppression still a living memory, the Baltic governments are leading because the Baltic people are serious about their defense.

As I left my last stop in the Baltics, I reflected not just on the terrain and strategy, but on the people. These are nations that remember tyranny because their fathers and grandfathers lived it and fought against it. Their citizens have no illusions and are not divided about Russia’s intentions. And yet, their response is not panic—it is preparation. Quiet, determined, and unified.

We in the United States—and across the broader alliance—would do well to study the Baltics. If American leadership in NATO is waning (and it shouldn’t), I hope we reconsider and instead emulate the strategic vision and courage of those in the Baltics. 

 Trump Asked Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Shocking Question in Private Call (The New Republic) - but does he mean it?

On Tuesday, The Financial Times reported that Trump, in a July 4 phone call, asked Zelenskiy, “Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow?” and also inquired as to whether he could hit St. Petersburg, the second-largest Russian city.

“Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons,” Zelenskiy is said to have replied. Trump was apparently open to this, reportedly mentioning a strategy to “make them [Russians] feel the pain” to pressure Putin to negotiate a peace deal.

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius seemingly reported on the same conversation on Monday, writing that Trump had reportedly asked why Zelenskiy “didn’t hit Moscow,” and urged Ukraine to “put more pressure” on the two Russian cities in order to get Putin to the table.

sch 6:58 AM

Writers: Plots

 8 Brutal Truths About Plot that Writers Learn TOO LATE

A story is a character growing and learning, twists and turns. Plot and character is entangled. Structure can limit, so maybe change your model. Watch out for the middle; break it into chunks. Aim for the point before the climax. Plot twists only work if properly set up. Pacing - it's the contrast between slow and fast. The ending needs resolution of character and plot.

When I finished "A Song of Fire and Ice", I was wondering how Martin was going to get out of the mess he had created with the plot, and that is what I have been waiting for. Now, George R.R. Martin Finally Delivers Good News About 'The Winds of Winter'

Martin acknowledged that part of the delayhasn’t just been his famously packed schedule or various TV projects — it’s the scale of the story itself. With more characters in play and more plotlines converging, the narrative has ballooned in complexity.

Perhaps, Martin should have listened to the above video?

Or check out my Writers: Anti-Novels? Anarchist Plots?

sch 7/5 

Me at 53 (Part four): 3/6/2013–3/10/2013

 [ I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. Continued from Me at 53 (Part Three): 3/6/2013–3/10/2013. sch 7/14/2025]

Why write? I expect neither these notes nor my fiction ever to see the light of day. These notes will take too much effort to type. Who will punish this felon's fiction?

I write because I can do nothing else with my time. I have things to say, stories to tell. They are my notes to you, I send sailing over the walls surrounding myself. I experiment with the possibility of communication. If they answer a question, edifying you in any way, then we can count the experiment a success. You know who you are, don't you?

I read Michael Eric Dyson's "Hip-hop and Youth Culture" chapter of Can You Hear Me Now?, and not sure if I agree with his thoughts about the positive effects of rap on our culture. Yes, I am white and 53. What I can see in prison have me thinking rap has a detrimental effect. I figure now rap is as banal as album-oriented rock and heavy metal were 30 years ago. 

I realize now how superficial I was in all my relations. This applies not only to the women in my life, but also my male friends. I feel fortunate not to be lambasted by one particular friend. I find another's silence and inactivity boggles me. A fellow from Richmond, Indiana would probably like to kick my ass, as much as those who have known me longer - and better. You think prison protects you from me. I think it protects me from the outside world.

sch

[7/14/2025: Continued in Me at 53 (Part Five): 3/6/2013–3/10/2013. sch]