William Hazelgrove's Open Salon Blog

The Secret Writing Life

Thu, 31 May 2012 13:05:00 -0400

Most people don't know you are a writer. Most people wouldn't know what to do if you told them you were. You are the father, the husband, the wife, the mother, the sister, the brother, the neighbor, the shopper, the guy in the garage, the man on the roof, whatever. But most people don't have any idea you spend most of your time alone and unseen in a different world. It just doesn't fit into today's hyper connected world... if it ever did.

Ralph Ellison never told his neighbors what he did. Everyone thought he lived off a sugar mama. Cheever would leave his house in the morning so his neighbors would think he had a job. A lot of writers never tell anyone they are a writer. They tell them they are a business man or a teacher or a housewife, but never a writer. People aren't comfortable with this. Writers don't really work...do they?

Nothing new under the sun. The question I get of course is what have your written? I tell people and they shake their heads. Never heard of those books. Or the very courteous, I will have to read your books. Fine. Fine. But then it is forgotten. Much easier to tell someone you are a plumber or a roofer. They accept that on face value. You work. You work just like me. Not like a writer.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Finishing a Book

Wed, 30 May 2012 18:05:00 -0400

Just finished the first draft of a new novel. The weird thought of what next begins right away. For almost a year you are focused on just finishing. And then you finish and immediately you think about the rewrite. And you give yourself a day to officially put the capstone on the first draft and let it sink in that you just finished something. But the rewrite is sitting there like a Buddha, waiting for you to begin again. You think well most people take time off after a big project, but of course you cannot do that. You are a writer and writers don't get time off.

So the next day you sit down and start to read back through your draft. The easy fixes hit you first. The glaring problems with form, organization, bad sentences. The read through is mostly enjoyable and you edit along the way. But then you reach the end again and now you have to go back through it and really start cracking sentences. There is still much that needs work and each reading brings up more problems. The second time through is slower than the first and then you go back to the beginning.

Now you are in the heart of the book. What is is really about? Can some of these extra characters go? Is the book dragging? Do I need all this setup? What about the ending? Is it too neat? Too tidy. Maybe some things should go unsolved. You make adjustments, cuts, expand some areas. You reach the end again and then go back to the beginning. This will go on for a long long time.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

The Politics of the F Bomb

Wed, 30 May 2012 17:05:00 -0400

I know a woman who was threatened with the loss of her job at a company because she used the Fbomb. Apparently the manager called her into the office and said that he had reports she had been throwing Fbombs around. The woman didn't know what he was talking about. The company was Christian based and very conservative. The woman was a liberal Democrat and had made her views known. The manager said that if he had any more reports of her using the Fbomb then he would have to think about terminating her. The woman admitted she had used the fbomb once in the office. The manager said he had numerous reports of her fbombing.

This woman said the manager said she had a bad side. He went on to say that she had to use her good side and not fbomb anymore. The woman didn't know what he meant by good side or bad side. Well obviously your bad side commits the fbombs he pointed out. But that is just a form of expression the woman protested. Well I don't want Corporate to hear about this he said ominously. I can't have anymore reports of fbombs the manager finished. The woman was very nervous because she didn't know who said it. She sat in her cubicle and was very quiet. Apparently another woman whom she had a political discussion with had reported her use of the fbomb.

The fbomb is used in our movies and literature and television. We hear it at the Academy Awards. Clark Gable would have said it if he could have at the end of Gone With The Wind. Adults like to control people by what they can and cannot say. I know a man who said he cannot stand to hear the fbomb. He said it offends him deeply. I said it sounded like a personal problem. There are clearly two groups in the world now. Fbombers and those who would stop the fbombers. Freedom of Speech might be invoked. Political coercion might be cited. Pettiness. Venality. Childishness. Prudishness.
You know what...fuck it.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

The Hell of Health Care

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:05:00 -0400

So I got a flyer in the mail saying I could get my teeth cleaned with X rays and a general oral check up for thirty nine dollars. Great. Why not. I have Dental Insurance but it is very low limit and I thought it would be better to just pay for the cleaning. So I went. The receptionist asked if I had insurance. Yes, but I am here for the thirty nine dollar special and I'll just pay for it. Fine she said, but I will make a copy of your insurance card for our files. The dentist checked out my mouth and asked about X Rays. Not wanting to get too many Rads I told him I would get the X Rays from my other dentists. Then we will continue this next time he said. By the way, do you have insurance? Yes, but I would rather just pay the thirty nine dollars. Fine he said. You can take care of that next time.

So I went home. Two weeks later I got an invoice from my insurance company. The dentist had filed for an Oral Exam and billed insurance ninety dollars. The doctor also wanted seventeen dollars from me. I had opened my mouth and the insurance forked out seventy seven and I was on the hook for seventeen. I left a nasty message. The receptionist called back and said it would all be straightened out when I returned. I returned. The receptionist smiled. So, she said. Our system automatically billed your insurance in error. Huh I said. But, if you want we can continue with your insurance and we will bill them ninety for the cleaning and you will just have to pay the difference.

Wait a minute. You mean you are going to bill them another ninety dollars? Yes, that is what we charge she replied. But I came here for the thirty nine dollar cleaning I pointed out . Well, you can still have that, but if we bill insurance then you just owe us the seventeen and whatever the insurance company doesn't pay on the the new billing. I stared at her. But that means you are then getting probably one hundred and sixty from the insurance company and thirty four dollars from me! She smiled for the condemned. But that is to your advantage....you are still paying less than thirty nine dollars, she pointed out. I shook my head. But that means you are double dipping I replied. You are getting money from the insurance company and from me...much more than the original thirty nine you would have gotten if I had no insurance.

She squinted her eyes. I see your point, but we can't do both. We either charge you the thirty nine or we charge the insurance company and you pay the difference. I stood there. One of us was seriously impaired. Alright. This is what I propose. You bill the insurance company and eat the difference because you are still getting one hundred and sixty from insurance and that is a lot more than thirty nine from me. She paused. I will have to ask the dentist. I waited. She returned. The dentist said he will bill the insurance this one time and that he will eat the difference but after this you will have to either pay the thirty nine or the difference.

I stared at her. Blinked. So he is still coming out ahead because he is getting one hundred and sixty from the insurance over my thirty nine I concluded. The receptionist suffered a smile. But you don't have to pay anything now she pointed out. That's true I said. I guess we should do the X rays since I didnt get them from my dentist. We cant include X Rays because we would have to bill the insurance company another one hundred and sixty and you would have to pay that difference she replied. I stared at her. How about just the cleaning then I pleaded, clearly beaten.

That would be just fine she sang.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Going to the NATO Demonstration

Tue, 22 May 2012 17:05:00 -0400

First you ride the train without any backpacks or suitcases or satchels of any kind. No one is on the train on the third day of the NATO Summit. You ride along as a suspicious conductor with SECURITY takes your ticket and then moves on grim faced to scan the car for anything that shouldn't be there. It is bright and sunny and a warm seventy degrees in Chicago but everyone is staying away. More guys with guns and SECURITY on their back sweep through the METRA car and look at you and then your book and then they sweep the car the way the conductor did moments before. This happens every five minutes as you stop at stations with armed men standing at attention like soldiers.

In Chicago you get off with the other silent travelers. Grim. The world is grim today. Something could go off in Ogilvy Station and you hurry past cops and guards and plainclothes men and beat it out of there because you really don't want to be that casualty. Then you start to walk toward the lake where the demonstration is supposed to be. Crossing the Chicago river on foot you realize Chicago is a ghost town. You have never seen the city so empty before on a Monday when people should be bustling from lunch to offices to cabs to bars to restaurants. The few people walk stone faced to their destinations and you wade into the cops on every corner and keep walking East.

Finally you see the squad cars and the humanity. Multicolored people across Michigan Avenue on the North side of Millennium Park. They have blocked off Randolf and you pass through the army of police. You have never seen so many police before.They are all in black with riot vests and guns and masks and there are brown shirted State Cops to back them up and then there are lines of police that cannot be crossed and then are lines of bike police and then there are city buses full of more cops. It is a police convention, a police city. And in the center of all this are the demonstrators. They seem very inconsequential and not a threat at all as they play music and listen to a speaker no one can hear.

You are dressed like someone who is working downtown so you slip between the police and shoot pictures and the silence that hangs over the world is there and you feel like someone could light a fuse and the whole place would blow up. A helicopter shakes the air and hovers overhead. A man with one shoe calls out to the cops who don't move. They just stand there as human warnings. And it works. The demonstration is more like Halloween, people playing at demonstrating. So you slip through the cop lines and take more pictures of cops, demonstrators, the ACLU observers in green hats, the bicycle cops, the state cops, the black shirted paramilitary cops. The air doesn't move and everyone just waits. Waits for something to happen.

But nothing does. Eventually you have a train to catch. A girls softball game with your daughter. You hurry back to the train and ride home with the commuters. No one talks. The Security Sweeps don't happen. The NATO Summit has ended. You show the photos around to your friends and they ask if you were there. Yeah, I was there you say, and even then you aren't quite sure you aren't lying.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/