drmstream[writing]

a place for things that don't have a place elsewhere

Category: writing

Serendipitous Soul: A Serial Story — Part 3

Part III: I Know I’m Los­ing You — Your love is fad­ing. — What? — I can feel your love fad­ing. It’s fad­ing away from me. — You don’t sound very orig­i­nal, Adam. — I’m not. — What is it then? — I thought you’d know. — Don’t give me a hard time. — The Temp­ta­tions. I played it for you the […]

With every sentence you write, you have learned something.”

I want to assure you with all earnest­ness that no writ­ing is a waste of time — no cre­ative work where the feel­ings, the imag­i­na­tion, the intel­li­gence must work. With every sen­tence you write, you have learned some­thing. It has done you good. It has stretched your under­stand­ing. I know that. Even if I knew […]

Serendipitous Soul: A Serial Story — Part 2

Part Two: What’s Going On? Reck­less, urgent, hun­gry? Seiz­ing the moment, mea­sur­ing out rea­son to sus­tain the mad­ness needed to make that true love take root in the dri­est ground? Empty, des­per­ate? — What do you think of me? — You’re going to take over the world. — Is that why you won’t open up to me? Soft, chocolate […]

The place your foot lands is the last step

  First, sink the foun­da­tions.  Pro­ceed slowly, make sure that each load-bearing point is set firm and square.  There’s no vis­i­ble progress and patience, an under­stand­ing of the big pic­ture, is required. Then, erect the frame.  Dis­trib­ute the force of the beams and gird­ers across the bear­ing loads. You have made the skele­ton, strung the tendons. […]

Serendipitous Soul: A Serial Story — Part 1

Part I: Just My Imag­i­na­tion Deep morn­ing city lights, all rounded edges and first sleep. A cab runs by and the chrome tires keep spin­ning. My eyes want to squint. I’m not ready to fall down. There’s a cost to flex­ing your sched­ule to get the last hour of work in. The pur­ga­tory of New York […]

It is time to leave” — the internment at Manzanar

It is time to leave now. When it started, it was time to go.  Pick up and go from your home.  Take a bag.  Go live in this ‘camp’ behind barbed wire fences and men with guns. You have nar­row eyes.  Your lips are thin.  Your skin is dif­fer­ent.  You have to go away. Because you might kill […]

You don’t want to marry a girl who can hit like a man” — A sketch with 3 voices

- Get your gun. — I’m watch­ing… –Get your gun to show the boy. –Hit that record thing for me. –I said,  Go get your gun. –You work that thing then. –I got it, Grams.  I’ll make sure you don’t miss any of your show. — All right then. — She’ll be back before any­thing hap­pens.  Ain’t noth­ing hap­pens on that show […]

Recognizing someone is complicated:” A conversation about Love

- When you found me, you rec­og­nized me. –What do you mean? –You know who I am. — No, what do you mean, When I found you? — You found me. — We found each other. — But I wasn’t look­ing for you to find me. I was look­ing to find some­one. I just didn’t know what it would mean. — I […]

Michael made it on stage with U2: A 9–11 Memory

You could tell when he got up to the podium that he had seen some­thing that he couldn’t leave behind, that time had stopped and he was claw­ing at it. He was the last speaker for the night. He wasn’t pol­ished. His hair was uneven, plas­tered on his fore­head by a layer of sweat. The suit […]

Practical tips on using social media tools to share creative impulses

Don’t you love the com­mu­nity around your inter­ests and enthu­si­asms that you find on the web? You can’t repli­cate the expe­ri­ence any­where in real life: the vari­ety of view­points, the excite­ment of shar­ing and the feel­ing of val­i­da­tion that comes from con­sort­ing with peo­ple who see the world from the same angle but who are […]