Normally when someone says, “Jump off” in relation to writing, it conveys images of finding a bridge. Portland, as you may know, is a town of bridges. We don’t need anyone yelling jump off, especially not to the approximately 250,000 writers who live here.

Jumping off is a practice that can be especially useful when your creative piece is in its seedling phase. What it means, essentially, is to take a chunk from your existing narrative, regardless of the draft or version that you’re in, and “jump it over” to another piece of paper, Word document, or whatever your chosen format happens to be. Once you’re away from the structure of your existing narrative, you have the opportunity to poke, prod and explore a dynamic scene as a means of working on dialog, setting, description, what have you.

I encourage – and utilize – jump off exercises for a number of reasons. First, it’s good to get out of the story you’re writing, especially if you find yourself focusing on where the narrative is headed and how your dialog, setting or description will take you there. Working within the structure of your narrative can at best confound and distract you, and at worst could discourage you from going forward. No one needs to be discouraged, especially not at the onset.

Jumping onto a new page will bring more light into the room, give your characters, scene, etc. some fresh air and new opportunities. You’re essentially giving them a second life.

In the end, your jumping off exercise will not only help you find the voice or words you’re looking for, but you may discover that, in pulling something out and running in a slightly different direction, you’ve invented another story, or at least a new idea for another story.

Don’t let the form hold you back. If your two main characters have been locked in a bedroom argument for the past three days of writing and there’s no end in sight for you or them, take them out of there, set them on a new page and see what comes.

Campers is a book in progress. Or process. Either will do right now. I’m sharing to share. Tomorrow these same pages may read differently. Or they may disappear. Enjoy.

I’d been working since before midnight and was about to fall over. Of course I couldn’t fall over unless I wanted to sleep in the gutter between buildings. Plus it would be good of me to clock out before I fell over. Not to mention that I had plans that didn’t include falling over. Later there would be time to fall over. First there were plans to keep.

I walked up the street to see Marcus, give him my story and tell him I quit, which was ironic since the writing gig didn’t pay. So it wasn’t like I was really quitting anything. Actually I was buying my time back, or taking it back. I tried to quit once before but Marcus kept me on with another story, or I kept myself on with another story. The problem was that I liked stories, or stories seemed to like me. They came out of nowhere and hit me in the face like a jackboot, which is how this one had come to be – a story of a Nazi who wanted to be mayor of his little bumpkin town about 15-miles outside of Centre, then decided mayor wasn’t good enough. He wanted to be governor. That’s where we were now.

Most people didn’t like Marcus. He was more toad than person, big round neck covered in hair that shot straight up his face like a beard growing from his chest toward his eyeballs and not the other way around. He was the kind of guy you couldn’t take too seriously, which was the only way I could tolerate him.

His office was a mess of dust and smells. All sorts of smells and none you wanted to take home with you. Occasionally a touch of citrus would waft through that was almost pleasant until you realized it was the aerosol he used to freshen his tattered loafers.

Marcus leaned over a dish of lo mein and grunted.

“What do you have?” he asked.

“About 1,200,” I said.

“Is it any good?”

“Here.”

He took my pages, thumbed through them briefly and flicked them back across the desk, then sucked hard lemonade through a straw.

“You usually start stronger than that,” he said. “You played baseball, right?”

“We’ve discussed this,” I said.

“We have?”

“Sure,” I said. He shrugged.

“I hate baseball. Bores me to spoons.” He leaned back in his chair, fanned his arms out to encompass the bare walls that made up the basement office of Centre’s last independent paper, a rag called The Null which had gone from a semi-proud weekly to a fledgling bi-weekly to a joke of a monthly within the last year. It would be dead soon. Marcus liked to brag that he’d already picked the urn.

He leaned forward, a mass of air and warts. “This isn’t very good,” he said. “In baseball terms, it’s a wounded duck.”

“It’s been tough with work,” I said.

“You’re not performing surgery, Elliott. You mop floors.”

“I’ve been working doubles.”

“That’s not my fault.” He tossed the pages at me. “I don’t have time for this.”

“I had a deadline.”

“Which you missed twice. Didn’t you ever have a deadline up on the hill?” He nodded in the direction of the university. He hated the university. Most locals hated the university. It didn’t matter how much money it brought back into Centre, how full the streets were on fall weekends when the fabled football team made everything seem pregnant and drunk at once.

I started to answer when his phone rang. He barked hello into the receiver made a few noises and hung up. (more…)

tumble
weed.
like there’s
a wind
behind
every
thing
which isn’t
to say
you’re the
tumble
weed.
some
times
you’re the
wind.

The answer to this question isn’t all that tricky – in short, it’s No. I’m not a freelance writer. I’m a professional writer with a professional writing business in Portland. Why the distinction? Let me tell you.

Mainly it comes from the term “freelance” itself. Anyone know where it comes from? Yes, you with the hair and your hand up – go ahead, stand and speak freely.

That’s right – the word “freelance,” according to dictionary.com, refers to the following:

1. A person who sells services to employers without a long-term commitment to any of them.
2. An uncommitted independent, as in politics or social life.
3. A medieval mercenary.

While the idea of having been a medieval mercenary in a previous life seems strangely intriguing, as if I’ve walked that line before, here in this version of reality, I don’t want to be any of those three things.

Even as an independent sole proprietor or contractor, you still need to be committed to your clients, both during the project and afterwards – especially afterwards. Clients want to know that you’re there to continue to provide consulting and insight, and want to know that, when they’re in their own deep dark place, they can call on you to shed a little light when needed. It’s a good business tactic, but most importantly, it’s a good human tactic.

Feel free to bounce your thoughts my way.

See the way we shine – see, that’s us
on the beach with our feet just so.
The 10-year-old buries his sister
to the neck while the dog bites at foam
it can’t catch. You and me, we’re see-through.
We stand still while organs pump, veins
turn electric blue and our blood – I haven’t
mentioned blood but it’s brick, thick too.
And to think anyone watching doesn’t see
you or me but the highway underneath, as if
they can ever know the roads.

Fifty thousand at home,
you close your eyes,
know the moan
of a fastball to the thigh.

Working for hours alone
at the bottom of a sketch pad
I know why the art school
never called back.