Starbucks Summit

Man, what a wonderful time I had with you at the Starbucks yesterday. Kicking back in those comfy chairs, no one within conversation distance, old ladies coming in thinking we owned the place... that was great. And like I said, I think it's really cool that we came upon Starbucks as a brick and mortar meeting place in convenient proximity.... as opposed to gathering up our wool jackets and briefcases and strutting over to Starbucks to exchange highly intellectual literary rhetoric.

The more we talk about shit, how we get down and dirty into the trials and tribulations of it all... I just floated out of there, bud. Really. I walked into our 8:00 all smiles and pumped up to be with good people.

I love how we laugh at each other... not really at each other, but at ourselves when we see the same struggle/passion/bafoonery in the guy sitting across the table. In many ways, we're like soldiers in the trenches, sharing war stories, strategies for staying alive, occasional tiny victories.

I love how deeply intense our conversations get when one of us is sharing a plot point, a struggle with conflict, an honest cry for help to pull out of the muck. And I appreciate how we listen to each other, and how it never feels like one of us is trying to one-up the other. Nothing to prove, nothing to win, fighting the battle together... that's some good shit, brother.

So... I'll now stop professing my love for you. Just know it's there. I've never had a writer friendship like this before... I've been close to others, but I've never clicked in so many ways and on so many levels like we have. Not trying to get into your pants, honestly... Just want you to know I appreciate our friendship and I'm happier than shit that the big Prick got a message from God to put us twose together.

I can see him sitting there in front of his TV, sitting up on the couch all of a sudden, punching the remote to turn off the TV.... clapping his right hand on the front of his right knee, preaching in the air with his left hand to a captive audience... "you know, I think I need to get them two pricks together... you're mother-fucking right I do... That prick Bill, and that other prick Steve... they need to get to know each other, you get what I'm saying here?"

So... talking about the Recovery RoCo (that has a cool ring to it)...

I love the idea of the AA guys accompanying him to meet the parents. Gawd that would make for a funny scene. And we're both having a lot of fun talking and writing about RTB. I guess a big part of me would be worried about the eleventh tradition, and of potentially making fun of the program, or maybe coming across that way even if our honest intentions were to build wonderfully funny characters who just happen to be in that environment.

But the "Eye of the Tiger" stuff... great visual... man, we could have fun with that.

I dunno, what are your thoughts about attraction rather than promotion, and anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film and all that? My reflex reaction is to think there is no way we should cross that line, even if it were done in anonymous ways... I just don't know.

I guess we can talk about it a lot more off line... kick around some more thoughts, figure out where we both stand...

Bottom line, though... it would be some funny shit... We could have a scene just like last night, when those two potentially lethal characters damn near made contact with each other, like pouring a big jug of vinegar into an open box of Arm and Hammer... and you looked over at me with those wide eyes and that little twelve-year-old grin of yours, two things on your face... one just an innocent "...hoh shit.... something funny's about to happen..." and the other a look of glee, knowing that by looking at me with that goofy face in that current hyper-kinetic situation, you'd probably get me going and that would make the whole situation that much more fun. Old J was sitting there next to you, holding back a grin as well. If one of us had let out just a tiny little snicker, it would have been all over... a laugh fest that would have set off fireworks in that little church room.

Recovery RoCo

Here's my stab.

Boy meets girl:

Boy is in recovery. An office drone and a failed stand-up comic, he is intervened on by some of his customers and club owners. During his time as a failed stand-up comic he meets a girl who rejects him and maybe that's the romantic interest. You could even have him be so egregiously bad at a gig that the (small) crowd follows him out into the elevator to heckle him, and that's where he meets the girl? Don't know. Thinking of "meet cute" scenarios.

So boy goes into AA. Meets all sorts of zany characters, none of whom take themselves too seriously, all of whom have some hilarious character quirks/defects. One of the people the boy meets is a very hyper, very sleazy and disingenuous young guy who the boy takes home from a meeting...the young guy is living with his sister, who happens to be the same woman whom the boy met when he was a sauced-up flop comic.

Now that boy is sober, he has stage fright. His AA buddies try to find ways to get him back onstage. Once up there he can't remember anything and ends up talking about traffic. However, he is staying sober...and has a date with his buddy's girl.

Boy gets girl:

Boy dates girl, shares hopes/dreams with her. They are opposites. She's from a good family and until her brother, nobody has ever had any problems with sauce.

Boy goes to girl's house to meet parents. Due to his extreme stage fright, his AA buddies go with him. Hilarity ensues.

During this time the boy is still struggling with his stage fright but he's found another job and seems to be doing all right. However, due to some bad influences, (the girl's brother) he's taken a drink or two? Something to set up his fall from grace.


Boy loses girl:

Here I was thinking that the brother would have to be involved in some way. The brother of the girl would perhaps spike the boy's drink with a beta-blocker or a valium, some kind of anti-anxiety medication, but an excessive amount, in order for the boy to not be so stricken with stage fright. The girl is there watching and sees something is wrong. Boy has become the same combative, abominable comic as he was when she first met him.

Just thinking out loud here.

Complication. The girl's brother begs boy not to rat him out. He won't have a place to live, etc. He's afraid he'll go out for real, etc. Boy could then catch this guy using again and realize that he wants to do this recovery thing for real, and not mess around.

Boy gets girl back:

I don't know how that should go yet, haven't thought that far. But maybe he'll tell jokes about his friends in recovery, how screwed up they are, and that will get him back onstage. Maybe he'll take an office job to prove to the girl that he can be versatile, I don't know.

Was thinking of a "training sequence" here, set to "Eye of the Tiger" in which boy is show eating donuts and drinking coffee in slow-mo. His sponsor will have boy working at a clubhouse, handing out chips, sweeping floors, shaking hands...all a part of the "training" montage.

Lots of humor around strange characters and the unfunny comic as the central character. I'm thinking of a character for his sponsor who is a cross between John Goodman from "Big Lebowski" and RTB. I'm thinking a no-compromise, very strange sponsor who nonetheless guides him in the right direction.

Anyway there's my stab at it.

Spelunking

Lately my writing has been like spelunking...like Tom and Becky Thatcher in the caves on the far side of the Mississippi w/the candle burned to its last. It's been thrilling and rather romantic.

I would say that my entire conception of romance can be traced to Tom Saywer and Stranger in a Strange Land. I believe my first spontaneous boner came during a scene when Mike from Mars is seducing some chick by the poolside and he says, "We Grok together."

My cock, as it became a rock, really did grok.

Glad you survived your own spelunking there, as the medical professionals made their way into your "Heart of Darkness", if you will...hopefully they didn't find a bloated white turd who held sway over a village in a backwater bend of your intestines. A turd who had become almost a god to the superstitious natives...who, when he saw the scope coming toward him, whispered, "You're just an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill."

Post After Writing

My title has a redundancy; but only in one interpretation. What I mean to say is I'll post after I finish my grand words. I'm still rather bogged at this juncture in the story but I'm going to grind ahead and get out the other side, into the downhill-race to the end. Then if I need to come back and finish something in the middle or re-write it then by God that's what I'll do.

Still digging the Cleavage and the Immediate Fiction. The dude pretty much spells out all the issues that I've encountered. I honestly believe that if I'd read this book in 2003, when I was first coming back to writing (at the advice of my therapist at the time...who, one day, in the middle of my couchified rambles, stopped me and said, "Are you a writer?" To which I replied, "no, although I always told chicks I was.") I would have...I would have discarded this book as a piece of trash written by a hack. Back then I had this cringe-inducing faith in "talent." Hah.

So the teacher appeared when the student was good and worn out, after the student spent four years thrashing and mauling his reflection in a puddle.

I am confident, my friend, that there is some nurse, somewhere, who still wears those white-silken hose w/the seam up the back of the calf, those o-so-sensible white shoes w/the stack rubber heel, and that just-uncomfortable-enough dress w/the zipper traversing its entire length. Yes, and that nurse will specifically dig the handsome but slightly graying intellectual writer type (she will think of you as an intellectual -- this is necessary to her fantasy). And she will understand that you're undergoing a certain degree of emasculation in this colon scope (understand like an animal, w/her emotions) and will seek to make reparations in the form of a long, slow unbinding of the zipper's teeth as you sit propped in the hospital bed, speechless, your eyes flicking to the door and the telephone as if to verify that you're not dreaming.

Well shit, I guess I just posted after all. Anything to avoid the story!

The Teleological Urge

I don't know that I'm so different from my father. He was in a state of constant preparation for a military Armageddon. We had grenade launchers, M-16s and cases of freeze-dried food in the basement to arm us against the communist soldiers and the long nuclear winter.

I swore I'd be different but I live my life anticipating a technological Armageddon in the form of the World's Most Challenging Job. I try to store up knowledge against the moment when I'm challenged by the REAL experts in my field, the Doctors of Computer Science. I'm like my old man; as much as I profess to be horrified by this bleak future actually coming to pass, I secretly crave it.

Layaway

First things first, Steve: I really did laugh at your description of this poor woman's writing. She sounds like she's trying *damned* hard to make something happen. Actually, she sounds a lot like me. Some of my old stories are like that. Perhaps not crippled w/similes to that degree, but my intent was the same! I was fortunate enough to have a guy on my side then who had given up writing but who was still willing to read my stuff. Many's the morning he would sit across from me, shake his head, and say, "Just tell the story, will you? Just tell the story."

This is probably the writer's equivalent of "keep your eye on the ball." Shrug.

Just wanted to briefly describe the agony and ecstasy of the married man. Wife took the day off work. Wife made the suggestion to me that perhaps, since she's home and I'm home and infant son is off in daycare, perhaps we could get together and know one another they way Adam knew Eve. Sounds good, I say, trying to act casual, trying not to do the math in my head, trying not to remember how many days it's been.

Wife leaves to run some errands. I'm thinking about the impending freak-session and debating whether or not to grip. On the one hand, gripping will make me more relaxed during conjugation. On the other hand, gripping will take the edge off of my performance, and I'm kind of enjoying this feeling of abject desperation. It reminds me of the way I used to enjoy the junk-sickness when I knew for sure I was going to score. Fortunately work intervenes and renders the grip/no grip conundrum moot.

Wife comes home, I hear her go lie on the bed. I enter the bedroom and lie beside her. She rolls over, opens her arms...and then picks up a book.
"I have to read this to you," she says. "You have to hear it."
She begins and account of animal slaughter practices in meat processing plants. It is graphic, it is horrible, it goes on for a long time. I roll over on my stomach and shut my eyes. Is she doing this on purpose? Is this some kind of joke? Here I am, brushed, flossed, and cologne-spritzed. And for what? She's having me on. This has got to be a joke.

But it's no joke. When she's finished there are tears in her eyes. I'm also a bit misty, but it's got nothing to do with the poor animals. I just can't believe this golden opportunity has passed me by. Does she know what she's done? Does she realize that she's just crushed my manhood completely, just dealt a death-blow to my sexual confidence? Does she realize that she's just plunged my entire universe into darkness? I shuffle back upstairs without a word. I sit in front of the computer and try to compose myself. Her voice comes wafting up. "I understand that was hard, but I felt you had to know."

A half-hour later, she calls me back down. I am a broken man. I have decided that the universe keeps me alive purely to amuse itself at my expense. I stumble down the stairs, overcome by crushing fatigue, barely able to stay upright. My wife is naked on the bed.
"Will you become a vegetarian now?" she says.
"Oh, yes. Yes yes," I say, stepping out of my clothes as fast as humanly possible.

So I can now understand how a man might change his entire philosophy. How an atheist might become a Christian, or vice versa.

Kimberly's Timbering Limberly Similes

Damn, boy... 2700.... that's freakin' great. And even if you feel like it's a mess it's still a lot of pages... I'm sure there's some salvageable stuff in there.

I think it's great that you got up and went for it yesterday morning and then went surfing... I bet you were flying high the rest of the day.


We'll call her Kimberly (cuz it goes so well with "simile").

I think she wrote her manuscript and then went back through the whole thing after deciding she was going to insert a simile in each paragraph. Many (many, many, many) paragraphs have two, sometimes three similes, back to back, within the same sentences. It wouldn't be so painful if they carried the story, or the theme, or the mood, or the setting, or something. But they are just random paint splotches that have nothing to do with what's going on in the scene.

For example (and I don't want to direcly quote anything, for fear of being mean) I'm complaining about her overuse of similes. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. I still have forty pages left of her flowery writing before tonight's critique group meeting. If I were going to insert a literary device right now I might say her similes were crawling all over her pages like fire ants, biting my fingers every time I turned the page. Now that's not all that creative. In fact, it's kinda stupid, and I only took a half second to pull it out of my ass.... but AT LEAST it has something to do with the feeling, the message, the tone... whatever... it has something to do with what's going on in the paragraph/page/scene.

She goes off with stuff like... her similes pop off the page like billions of turtle-fart bubbles rushing to the surface of a secret pond in the middle of a forest. Yes... she's that extreme... Actually, I think I'm being conservative in my example.

I always feel like my writing is lacking in this regard. I often think about going back through, looking for places where I should "insert literary device here," make sure to provide a prescribed balance of metaphor, simile, alliteration, etc... But I read stuff like Kimberly's and I think, maybe I should just be happy when, during a long writing session, I lean gently to one side and squeeze the occasional juicy metaphor/simile out from between my buttcheeks. Sometimes I'll sit there in that stinky little cloud that has been inserted into my writing, and I'll think, "Cool... that little metaphart really visualizes that feeling... it makes it come alive for the reader."

God, the pain... I've been picking up this manuscript of hers every couple of nights, forcing myself to do twenty pages here and there. It's that bad. Part of me wants to tell her... uh... sorry, lady, I just don't think you've got it, not here, not this, probably not nothin' no time... but I never will. Even if they were right, if someone did that to me I would die. And I don't want to kill anyone, like a happy clown might with a steak knife, stabbing its victim over and over again, like a happy child playing whack-a-mole at a carnival, while the carny guy running the booth looks on, a look of horror twisting his face like a washcloth soaked with sweetened condensed milk.

(all brilliant similes above copyright Steve Lamott, 2007)

2700

Was cranking it out today with no regard for scene or description or anything at all, really. Racing through the story. Wanted to get down exactly how the brothers interacted when they were young and how exactly Martin managed to convince Oskar of his guilt.

Started with a game of D&D. Martin as DM. Oskar railroaded into the evil magician role. Martin already squeamish around Oskar since he knows about the abuse. Interesting but no longer hard difficult to believe that Martin should loathe his brother or that he would continue to reinforce Oskar's delusions about his magical powers. Or of course, are they delusions?

Anyway the entire thing will have to be re-written at some point, there is nothing salvageable , but it is a good solid piece of backstory that ties things together. I'm thinking of ways for the brothers to exchange to exchange notes when they're imprisoned by the cult.

Anyway I'm supposed to be making a mess, so I'm making one.

Went surfing after the writing. Dawn patrol. Waves about thigh high and breaking for a long time. Cruising on my longboard. That's the way to start a Sunday.

Seeds in Mouth

I recall the specific instant when you looked up at me and your salad fork was arrested in its mouthward journey. For a moment, just for a moment, you lost your train of thought as your eyes focused on the gooey mash in my mouth. Good stuff.

All I have to do is look at the writing as a gift. As long as I don't pressure myself to write something GOOD, I do fairly well. I even stand the chance of writing something good. But if I sit down with the idea of writing something GOOD in my mind? Forget about it. It's gotta be fun or it ain't worth it.

I'm sewing the seeds of love today, my friend. Sewing the seeds of love. These days my issues can almost all be solved by sleep. I took a nap yesterday and woke up into a new and much less complicated world. This is what parenthood has taught me; nine times out of ten, whatever is wrong with me, no matter how deep or complex it seems, it can be fixed by a little extra time in bed.

My mother-in-law came to visit. I love my MIL. She's a really nice lady. We were having gyros for dinner. She's from the South and has never had a gyro in her life. She was really looking forward to it. I toasted her pita bread for her but unfortunately I left the bread in the toaster a bit too long; it emerged with the consistency of a kiln-baked pot. It literally clinked when I put it on the plate.

A thrifty woman at heart, the MIL would not allow me to throw the pita away; she insisted on using it for her gyro. Halfway through the meal I left the table, and as I was returning, I heard the faint sound of a saw cutting wood. Strange, I thought. One of the neighbors must be working on a project. No, it was actually the MIL. She'd immobilized the pita with a heavy stab of the fork and was sawing away with her knife, trying to chip off a little piece of that bread.

Fri 8/24 - 1,509 Words

Yee haw...

Interesting today... I hit a convenient stopping point, pulled the word count, and was only at about nine-hundred. So I jumped back in, started another scene I wasn't going to start until tomorrow, and suddenly took off, ending up with 1,500... I like when shit like that happens.

Yes, Bill, I find most of your perils amusing, mostly because there is so much with which I can relate... but at the same time I feel the need, as fellow writer, friend, salad bar muncher, to make sure you're not dropping off the deep end. I fully expect you to do the same for me, and I fully expect to reach a point down the road where I will share within these blogs my utter despair, ready to give up.
We'll be there for each other, bud... That's what this is all about... (and I'm having a lot of fun, too...)

Herking and Jerking

Hopefully you find some small amount of amusement in my tales of frustration and mystification. I actually love my life, it's just that I operate with a very narrow margin. Between work and baby and writing, any little thing can throw me out of balance.

Plus the heat works against me, too. This time of year I'm always a bit frazzled. About three years ago, August, I drove my wife to the waterfront to tell her we needed to get a divorce. Turns out I was just hot.

Support, Desperation, Third-Person

Sorry about your Linda Blair experience... I can't imagine what the car must be like today after sitting through the late-morning sun. Gawd... I feel for you.

I'm more sorry that you're struggling with the wife on the writing support thing... But I'm glad to hear that you're sticking to your guns. Quite frankly, I think if you choose to drag your ass out of bed at 3:30 in the morning, you should continue to be allowed to do whatever the fuck you want... That's you're time. I can't imagine having to fight your battle. That sucks bad.

I can feel your struggle, your desperation... I can relate to that need. I'm glad you feed it. I'm glad you don't let it wither away, because if you stop writing, it will. And I'd hate to see you walking around with that big hole through your body.

People fill that hole in different ways... but it's gotta be filled. And I admire your dedication... dragging your butt out of bed in the dark, forcing yourself to stay awake in front of the screen, suffering the sleep deprivation and resulting mental retardation later in the day... that's tough work... that's dedication.

It's good for me to see how much you struggle... maybe it'll make me appreciate the nirvana I'm in a little more. Wife paying the bills, kids at school now for six hours a day... I'm terrified of not using that time wisely. There have been many days that I've squandered... sat in my poor-little-me I just don't feel like writing today state, surfing Direct TV channels, eating ice cream, feeling sorry for myself.

But every morning I roll out of bed and see your post, I see your passion and desperation, but I always read a tiny bit of hope, and I think, shit... look at the battle he's fighting... you can at least get off your ass (or on your ass) and knock out your silly thousand fucking words... and I can continue to care about it as much as I do, and remember that it keeps me alive and keeps me sane and that it is a gift...

Like you said.... a gift... I believe that now. And what a shame if we let it go. What a shame if we weren't allowed.

Okay.. bugging out now to try to knock out some draft time...

I will be grateful, and I will recognize the struggle that you, and thousands of other writers, are going through to fight for time.

I will try not to be a big baby.

Hang in there, my friend. You are doing the right thing!

Re: Third person... hmmm... I have no idea why that happened or if it's something you should talk to your therapist about. My guess is that it probably has something to do with the way you dressed up like Elvis as a kid.

Selfish Writing Bastard

Interesting post below Steve. I like your logic. It's got a certain inevitability about it and makes me feel better about some of my own choices, starting as it does with the premise that we're doomed to write, that it's as essential to our survival as moving our bowels or the occasional grip/sexual encounter.

Let me tell you about a little incident that happened last night in the Dovany household. So, as you know, Bill leaves early and misses the meeting because his infant son is throwing up all over the inside of the car, not feeling well, etc. When Bill gets home, he finds this to be true. He pitches in as well as he can, and somehow a discussion is joined about an upcoming business trip and from there it comes around to Bill's insistence that he get time to write.

Bill is not exactly rational when it comes to his writing time. In Bill's mind this is non-negotiable. Bill would rather get fired from a job than miss his writing time. He'd rather get a divorce than give up his writing. Honestly. He doesn't know if that's right or wrong (how did I end up in third person and is this psychologically significant?) but he knows it *is*.

The wife voices a resentment about Bill's writing time. She doesn't think it's very loving that Bill is so dogmatic about putting something in front of his family. Bill doesn't care. He explains to his wife that it *must* matter a great deal to him since he gets up at 3:30 in the fuckin' morning to do it, since that's the only time available to him, given his demanding job, his participation in household chores, and his full involvement in the raising of the young son.

Bill's wife is forced to admit that yes, right or wrong, Bill's commitment cannot be questioned. His sanity? Yes. His moral fitness? Yes. But not his commitment to writing. Overall this is an argument that, like all the rest, Bill will lose because as usual Bill lost the delicate thread of cause and effect and hidden meaning about halfway through. Still, Bill doesn't give a fuck. Bill's getting up at his usual time and do his writing.

And here's the thing: this isn't about what Bill does with his writing time. If he screws it up and doesn't write a word, well...that's Bill's fault and s separate issue entirely. But he wants that time every day to at least sit in front of the screen and NOT WRITE. Make any sense? I'm not sure it does. Bill hopes so!

Tears

Never had tears. Like to have tears someday. I have a fairly good handle on what I need to do for the story, methinks I do. Looks like I just have to push through it. I like Cleaver's stripped-down advice for analysis and re-write.

Conflict, action, resolution. Want, problem, action in direct reaction against the problem, problem acts directly against the character, etc until resolution. When something is wrong, go to the conflict. I think he's right about that and I thank you again for your support.

Just thinking about the way we are viewed by the outside world. Not saying you're screwed up or anything, because the Wiping Tears post made me jealous. I *wished* I was you, Steve. But someone not of our persuasion (my wife for instance) might read that post and think, "You dropped your boy off for kindergarten, wouldn't that be the event in your day that triggered tears?"

But no. Not in this forum my friend. In this forum we are free to be honest about what it's like to go through life as a writer. And it ain't no joke! Not saying I'd trade one day of really spectacular writing for a precious memory of time w/my son, but I'd think about it, I really would.

So here's a little game. Let's say you can trade the memories of your children (their first wobbling bicycle ride, first tooth, first steps, whatever) for the experience (just the experience, not the fame or fortune) of writing one of your favorite stories.

What would it take? Would I trade my son's first steps for Clean, Well-Lit Place? Probably not. But I might for Big Two-Hearted River or Gatsby. Okay, screw it. For Gatsby I'd do it. Not for anything Faulkner, though. I'll take my son over Faulkner. That shit might be good to read but it never looked like any fun to write.

Wed 8/22 - 1,162 Words

Felt good... knocked 'em out... met my quota...

But I'm just having fun in the story right now, knowing that I need to get serious with the "next big conflict."

I have a fairly decent outline, where I did a great job nailing down the first five or six chapters, and then I nailed down the last few... solid concrete ideas of what I want to be doing in scenes in those parts of the book, how I want things to wrap up, the thrilling scenes at the end, the resolution of conflict, the hope and love at the end of the story. So that's all fine and good.

Then I hit the middle.

I've battled this before, and we've talked about it a lot. I'm at the point where I know the story is strong, characters well-established. I know where it's all going to end up, but I need to flesh out the story, have more happen to turn it into a full novel, without making the stuff in the middle look and feel like marsmallow fluff.

Again, I've fought this battle before... I know what to do. I know I have to introduce another conflict (or an extension of the original), just like that Catherine Zeta Jones movie we were talking about.

Part of me just doesn't want to do the conflict work... I'm having so much fun having fun in the story, having the two lovebirds enjoy each other, laughing at the antics, etc.... but I know that recess is over, that now it's time for some serious shit again.

Part of me is excited too... cuz I get to play a little bit of God at this point... kinda like an adolescent God with a mischievous grin on his face.... hmmm... what can I do at this point to really fuck these two characters up and make them do just about anything to get back together? There are so many choices, what seems real at this point?

So... I need to spend some time plotting, cleaning up the outlines, pitting characters against each other until I find something that feels right... maybe I need to kill someone. Maybe I need to drop a bomb in a closet...

I will take the dog out on some long walks and think about the story. What's the best way to make life really fucking awful for the protagonist, so the reader says, "Oh no! How will he get out of this? Will he win her back? Did he screw up? I'm routing for you, main character... I care so very much about what happens and what you do. I want you to win. I want you to be happy. I want you to make me happy. Don't you dare piss me off at the end of this book..."

Love the pepper flakes analogy there, Bill...

Wiping Tears

Registering my oldest boy for Kindergarten this morning... have to leave in ten minutes. Wanted to try to get a tiny bit of time in here so maybe I can start priming the pump early... hoping that it'll be wide open by the time I get a chance to sit back down after the registration.

Yesterday, I had to stop writing several times to wipe tears away from my eyes. Not because the story was sad, but because what I was writing was so beautiful... I don't mean beautiful writing as in poetic bullshit. I mean beautiful in how it moved me, how very real it was for the story, how the characters came so incredibly alive for me.

This happens very rarely, but it does happen. It is these times I think of when I hear people talk about the "need" to write.

I was flying high yesterday... so excited to have finished that one scene and to have knocked out so many words in one session.

Of course, I'm terrified of what obstcles I'll face today, but I can still ride that wave a little from yesterday. Wiping tears away so I could keep typing. That's some good shit right there.

1115

I've found if I drill three holes in my skull and then bang my head over the keyboard the words fall out like flakes of pepper.

Tues 8/21 - 2,516 Words!

First of all...

"I need a big and bad-ass Charleton Heston to come along and knock some Egyptian motherfuckers out..."

I can't stand when people type LOL a zillion times in emails and such... but I truly did laugh out loud when I ready your Charlton Heston comments... that's some funny shit there, brother...

Dunno if it was the time I spent not writing, wishing I was writing, building up the recent scene in my head, or the wonderful posts you wrote, or our discussion about writing on the phone, or taking the time to get juiced up in the blog ahead of time, or (most-likely) a combination of all of the above, but I knocked out 2,516 words today... that's like ten freakin' pages..... I'm way psyched.

I guess it helps that I finally sat down and made the decision to write out a scene I've been plotting in my head since the week I started the book... I even had pre-written memorized lines of dialogue, ready to spew, but then, of course, I had a ton of stuff that came right out of my ass during this particular writing session, and I love the way that happens, how all of a sudden a character will do something or say something that you had no idea had anything to do whatsoever with their character and you get to see it come alive right on the screen in front of you and have it become part of their character, sometimes even a vital part of their character... that's so way cool too... I think that's what Stephen Kin was talking about when he wrote about the story being revealed, his concept that the whole story is sitting right there in front of you, waiting to be uncovered, like a big block of limestone looming in front of a nervous sculptor.... it's in there somewhere.

Great to be in touch with you, Bill... I hope this stuff is helping you as much as it's helping me. As long as we are there for each other, clinging to each other when things get really dark and scary, I think we can fight off the dementors... the ones stealing our breath and happiness away, whispering, "you will go fucking crazy if you try to play this game... ha ha ha... you will go fucking crazy..."

Deano and Strokeage

Okay that post cracked me up. I have been there with the cell phone. Once in hotel room I contemplated gripping w/some cellphone pictures of naked girls but I was worried that the tiny images of the women would be distracting; it didn't seem like the cellphone pictures would have enough detail to facilitate a grip session. I tried holding the screen very close to one eye, but I was left with a pixellated mess or a very blurry woman. Just didn't work.

I am also fascinated by Hurricanes. While I've never driven from Hawaii to California, I've heard that the traffic is murder and that they charge an arm and a leg for gas. I particularly like hurricanes when they miss me. It's much more fun to watch the mayhem and destruction on TV than out your windows.

I wrote 1200 words to myself. Still struggling today. The struggles have not ceased. As Moses once said to Pharaoh, "Let my people go."

I feel like one of the Children of Israel, making bricks under the hot sun while the stinging lash torments my puny shoulders. I need a big and bad-ass Charleton Heston to come along and knock some Egyptian motherfuckers out. Then I say to Chuck, "Cool, man, let's get up outta here. I know this place called The Promised Land where they have a Starbucks on every corner."

Later, when we're all sitting at our metal table sipping our lattes (under the stars of course) I'll tell Chuck that in the future someone named Michael Moore will ask him to do an interview and that he should not under any circumstances accept this invitation.

Hot Seat Update

Got up this morning at my usual time (3:30). Unfolded the laptop. Blocked. Not so much sure if it was blockage or fatigue. Wrote some things about the novel. Journaled to self about novel. Still couldn't figure out motivation of one character.

Blocked. Blocked. Passed out in chair w/laptop running. Woke up. 10 minutes had passed. My eyes ached. Thought of the Green Day song: "Dried up and bulging out my skull." Wondered if there was any irony in the fact that Green Day was singing about insomnia whereas I was experiencing an uncontrollable urge to sleep and yet in both cases the eyes felt the same.

Realized the futility of further resistance. Went downstairs and got back in bed.

In church the minister's sonorous and cultured tones were like a cool hand laid on my forehead. My head dropped and I took a series of seconds-long naps. My eyes always opened again on a stained-glass window that depicted an angel soaring above a line from the gospels: "Glory to God in the highest." The sunlight through the colored lozenges, the way the angel seemed to spring out of the window as a being of pure light, all this was brought home to me in each instant of awakening. Then I remembered that in my split-second dreams I'd solved my problem with my novel and was no longer blocked.

Even though I knew this was a lie I let it soothe me. I let my head dip again, half-hoping that I could drag back that beautiful secret, somehow sneak it past the angel who stood guard over my subconscious, neatly replacing my magical dream-words with that yellow, stained-glass bromide: "Glory to God in the highest."

The minister was finishing. He was benedicting with his palms upraised, his plump forearms emerging triumphantly from the loose folds of his robe. He had a small white goatee which adhered to the underside of his wattling chin. I'd never noticed. I was still freaking blocked.

Hot Seat

Hey there Steve. I went out to dinner last night with some friends. The waitress was one of those women who focuses on the table in front of her, preferring to take complete care of one set of customers before moving on to the next. One consequence of this monomania; we were in the restaurant an hour before the entree arrived.

An hour. In that time I consumed several slices of bread and a salad while I remained focused on meltdown prevention where my young son was concerned. When we made plans with this (very nice) couple the evening before, spirits were running high. We'd just begun the weekend and all sorts of delightful visions of rest and relaxation danced in our heads. By Saturday afternoon, however, I'd been worn down to a frazzle by the baby and really only wanted to go to bed. He'd done enough wiggling screaming, jumping, banging, expostulating, expectorating, regurgitating, and masticating to last me an entire weekend. I desperately wanted a nap, and got 10 minutes. I was going to have to content myself with those 10 minutes, spread them ever-so-thinly across the remainder of the day.

So when my wife and I arrived at the restaurant we did this dance around who was going to sit next to our son. She suggested I should be the one to sit next to him and I weaseled out, knowing full well that whomever ended up in the hot seat would not so much eat dinner as they would snatch huge bites of whatever was on their plate during the brief moments when they were not running interference. But then my crafty wife went to the bathroom, forcing me to move into the hot seat in order to keep the baby from one or more of the following:
a) Gumming the table
b) Cracking the glass table top with a spoon, which he'd picked up and refused to relinquish
c) Toppling water glasses
d) Screaming at the top of his lungs for no apparent reason

When my wife returned from the bathroom she quickly occupied my former seat. No discussion. So now I was in the pole position. By the time the food came I wanted more than anything to just stand up, walk away, and find a nice quiet spot under a table someplace where I could lie still. Just some cool, dark grotto where I couldn't hear babies cry, where babies had never been invented.

I have again been mystified and crushed by the baby fatigue. The Soviets used to force detainees to stand for days in one spot without rest or sleep; while this is certainly one way to do it, they might've saved time by isolating each prisoner with the infant son for a day.

No idea if I can write anything on the novel.

Girls and Miscellanea

Okay first I have to talk about the girls you've featured in your last post. Jennifer Beals, I think we're pretty much done there. Agreed. Shaken upon, sealed with a curt nod of the head. Absolutely.
Jodie Foster, I thought I was the only one. I have never known if it was all right to crush on a lesbian. I mean, obviously it's all right, but does it say anything about me that I'd rather people didn't know? And then there's the whole Reagan assassination/Hinkley/James Brady in a wheelchair thing, which seems like so much history now, but at the time I found exciting and troubling because it confirmed to me that yes, the young Ms. Foster was a worthwhile crush. Not only worth a few sleepless and self-flagellating nights, but perhaps even more. Perhaps even some reckless deed. I'd never thought of assassinating a US president but I had considered the delivery of some well-placed karate chops to an annoying photographer (yes I used to dream of karate chops. Taking karate lessons was a major downer; I waited and waited and was never taught how to incapacitate someone w/a strike to the side of the neck).
But let's get to Kim Richards. I'd never heard of her. Had to google her. Can understand, from looking at the pictures of her early work, you a young man on a cold winter's night could fall in love with that cute, wholesome face, could build an entire system of youthful fantasy around her movements and inflections on the TV screen. I could see it. I grew up in Michigan and our attic was unheated; in the wintertime you could see your breath hang in the darkness of the room. I had to develop a healthy fantasy life just to ward off hypothermia. I'd have slotted Kim Richards into my rotation, I can assure you.
Good choices, all.

Thanks for the advice about telling the story. Just tell the story. It's always true, always always true. Most of what I talk about can be used as an excuse for not writing and when I do that, it's curtains. Once I get obsessed with technique it's difficult for me to get back to telling the story, so thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow.

One thing that has been very helpful to me lately is this concept of "writing about writing." You sent me a link to some advice on writing a novel and one of the things that was mentioned there was the idea of journaling in order to solve problems with your story. I've been doing that lately to really good effect. I've done that in the past, but only when I was completely whipped. Starting that process a bit earlier has been a boon to me. Writing about writing. I love it. It's just the sort of thing I would love. As a matter of fact, I was thinking; too bad I can't just generate all the artifacts *around* the writing of a novel w/out generating the novel itself. If that were permissible, I'd be considered prolific, trust me.

Hope you enjoy the blue ridges of Kentucky there, Steve. Hope you and your two strapping sons are treated well and that your boys are both given football scholarships to the university which you are visiting.

Jennifer Beals, Jodie Foster, Kim Richards

Great stuff, Bill... and trust me, I think you're vocabulary is, like, awesome. Much better than mine. That's because you're much more well-read than I am. And I do understand your frustration when you read great literature... I guess that's what makes it literature... timeless themes, perfect balances of literary devices, just the right mix of seasonings - character development, dialogue, symbolism.

Well fuck them.

Just tell your damn story.

And Nabokov... the guy started out in Russian... English was his second language! And he still pulled that vocabulary out of his ass (without wikipedia and dictionary.com, by the way...)

You have the talent, Bill... but more importantly you have the drive and the thirst, and most importantly you have the passion... you do not go lightly. Remember that next time you're kicking yourself around because Nabokov's so fucking good.

Nabokov - def. - a facsimile, cheap reproduction - Ex. - "Ugly Betty was disheartened to discover that her recently purchased Gucci handbag was actually just a cheap Nabokov."

Now, about recreating Jennifer Beals from a video cassette. Sign me up. I want to read it now. Talk about a major masturbatory fantasy from my adolescence (shit, probably from a few days ago...)

Then there's Jodie Foster, who I felt hit her prime (physically, not professionally) in the really stupid movie Carny.


See ya,

S.

Done with Bonaparte

The title comes from a song by Mark Knopfler about a soldier who is, well…Done with Bonaparte.

By the same token my obsession w/Nabokov has, I think, just about played itself out. I was watching one of the many lifestyle reality shows on MTV last night with my wife (I find women who consume pop culture very attractive) and it occurred to me just how worthless it really is to pursue the elegant constructions of a Nabokov. These kids on these reality shows, their vocabularies can’t be more than 100 words, at best, and they use these 100 words in various rote incantations centered around “amazing” or “completely” or “you know”. Watching them, you are struck by the idea that most human communication is no more complex than its animal equivalent. All the real subtext comes from facial expressions, hand gestures, that sort of thing.

So I went to bed thinking that I was done with Nabokov. What’s the point, anyway? I can’t write like him, I haven’t got the talent. And even if I could, how relevant would my stories be? Wouldn’t they just be wrapped in layers of superfluity? And even if I had Nabokov’s command and every word had its meaning and purpose, how many people would “get it”? You can see, following Nabokov’s career, that at some point he developed a technique by which he could satisfy both himself and the reading public’s craving for the sensational; he re-invigorated that old Russian staple, the Buffoon.

Bringing the Buffoon into the 20^th century and turning him into something both menacing and mesmerizing allowed Nabokov to win readership while at the same time remaining true to his craft, etc. But few people really get it; they will tell you Lolita is about a perverted old man and a hot young girl. Or they’ll tell you it’s about a Sting song. Really, it’s about language.

But I don’t want to be about language anymore, I can’t do it. I don’t have the talent. I’m at my limit. Nabokov will keep climbing but I’m staying behind in this village with its houses nestled in the mountain’s snowy mantle. They have cable TV. The Hills is coming on.

1200 Words

Today I wrote a little section where an adolescent Oskar tries to re-create Jennifer Beals from the Flashdance videocassette cover. It does not turn out well, natch.

I also continued the scene between Oskar and Kimberly, setting up the moment when Tyler, Hannah, and Oskar all, for various reasons, join the cult. The scene I'm working on now serves as kind of mirror for the second scene by showing Kimberly's fascination with a powerful man. She can't leave her dangerous boyfriend just as Hannah will later follow Tyler into danger.

Words

Hey man I think I had like 1200 or so. So that's good. But I'm Nabokov obsessed at the moment. You, my man Steve, are in so many ways my better. You had a wonderful image in a post below that involved your head below water in a tub listening to the metallic ringing sounds. Great image.

Now I give you a bad paraphrasing of Nabokov, because I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get the book:

"His cigarette, with its excrescence of ash, reminded him of lichened firs through which shone a dull sunset."

Read a line like that (though he said it better) and I'm the hillbilly who can only express himself by dancing up and down and beating his straw hat against his leg.

And yet Nabokov's imagery is never gratuitous. Because it so happens that the character looking at his cigarette is a Russian exile. And he's thinking, always thinking of his home country but this loneliness has not yet penetrated his consciousness. So Nabokov uses images associated with Russia until the character's ardor finally bursts through (to tragic effect) into conscious thought.

Wed 8/15 - 1,216 Words

Yeah, baby...

Yellow-Bellied Monkey Snorkel

Yeah, you're all over it with your last statement...

"More vitamins! More technology! Anything but words on the fuckin' page."

Anything but words on the fuckin' page.

But I don't think your time is wasted when you're opening the streamofconsciousness spigot in this blog. I think it's smart to get the juices flowing, if anything (for me) to continue to force a regularly scheduled flow of writing at pretty much the same time every day.

And I'm at my seat, sitting upright (feet on the floor means serious draft time, as oppposed to feet up during casual pinking around...) With the intention of writing some bullshit in here and then jumping into the book.

I see Stephen King not even bother to glare at me over his glasses anymore. He's focused, big bushy eyebrows furrowed into one line of concentration, his monitor's reflection glaring off of his glasses. He knows I'm there, enough that he's shaking his head back and forth slightly, enough to let me know I wouldn't be such a pussy if I just sat down and wrote the fucking story, but not enough to break his stride.

Shit, a guy almost killed him with a van, broke pretty much every bone in his body, and Steve got back in his chair, writing until he was screaming in pain.

But it's getting to that point that's the hard part. Getting the kids into the tub. Once I'm in there, it's grand, and I'll slap soap bubbles around and cover my face with a smooth, wet washcloth and listen to the metallic underwater sounds when I dunk my head... I may never want to get out.

Just get me in there, God, please... Get me in there on a regular basis.

Keybard

I'll check out the keyboard. Yes, you're right to warn me off the researching but it's too late I tell you, too late! Yesterday I was outlining the plot in Visio, and then I started looking at the boxes I'd drawn and thought how nice it would be to attach metadata to each box. And maybe organize each box by facets.

And that got me thinking about facets and how perhaps there was something useful in using a kind of ontological approach of associating one-word metadata fields to each scene and then arranging them by theme, right? The way really clever writers do, when their chapters are all organized not only by the dictates of the story, but each section explores some theme or preoccupation. Kundera, for instance. I was momentarily breathless w/excitement. Did I suddenly find myself in Kundera's section of town? Look how impressive the solid brownstones with their sweeping staircases and look at the doorman with his genial but forbidding expression! Yes, Kundera was nearby, sitting at a plate-glass window with a view of the city below and from his altitude all the messy problems of composition had been reduced to small and easily solved mathematical puzzles.

So I'm totally fuckin' nutso off the rails blocked but I know this can be solved by a simple good morning's work. Of which I've already wasted 35 minutes (now 43). I need one of those days when it simply flies out...when it's controlled regurgitation onto the screen. More vitamins! That's what I need. It's all a vitamin deficiency. Do you like water, Mandrake? I first discovered this problem in the act of love, Mandrake.

All of my frustration somehow resolves itself in the image of my brother-in-law. He puts his bare feet up, compulsively, on any surface. If he's sitting on the sofa, his dogs sprawl on the coffee table, toes nudging magazines, remote controls and bowls of potpourri out out of their way. If he's at the dinner table, he'll pull a chair close by and the dogs go up; his hairy phalanges wrestle with themselves as he chews. If he's upstairs watching my baby son play, the dogs go up on the playpen. At which point my baby son seizes a toe to thrust it into his mouth.

I can recall every detail of those naked feet; their length, width, the ragged yellow bits of nail that capped each restless toe.

More vitamins! More technology! Anything but words on the fuckin' page.

Keyboard Suggestion

Jokes aside... I can completely accept your misery over your new keyboard's soft plunk behavior.

A real suggestion (like we really need to buy another gadget).

And... the best part for you... the keys are quite clackety. No soft laptop thuddly plunks.

Here's a link... try not to spend three days researching other alternatives, but I understand, buddy... I understand...

http://www.pacificgeek.com/product.asp?id=43118&c=206&s=1313

Par for the Course

Losing steam? Phlipping and phlopping in your seat?

Sounds like you're right where you're supposed to be.

This internal struggle, the plot and character pieces slowly being revealed... I think it's all part of the game. The winners are those who stay with it long enough to be there when they finally make sense.

This doesn't make it any less painful, and it doesn't mean we should be expected to stop bitching about it... but I do think there is enough sense among us that we at least know to continue to ride it out.

My trashcans are at the end of my driveway right now. Dear God I hope they're empty by now... I haven't looked outside yet. We had a freezer catastrophe with the fridge in the garage and lost about a hundred dollars worth of meat... mostly chicken... lots and lots of chicken that had gone on sale at Publix a few months back. And some fish.... Figured out the freezer wasn't freezing after more than a week... then double-bagged the already nasty meat and put it in the trashcans almost a week ago. They've been simmering while trash day slowly took its time to arrive. Simmering... the ultimate slow-cooking crockpot. Even double-bagged and stuffed into the trashcans with the lids closed, the sharp sweet smell of decaying chicken meat has floated around the yard, seeped into the cars, wafted I'm sure into the neighbors' houses.

I thought about making a run to the dump, but then I would have had to get close to the trashcans, even lift them up.

All this reminds me of that scene from The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (I think I have that right...), where the lovers escaped, naked, in a trash truck full of decaying meat. Not sure what significance this has on anything, or why I even brought up the whole thing about the trashcans... It's just so wonderfully disturbing.

I have every intention of continuing to bitch about writing... I think sharing our thoughts with each other will help us dig ourselves out of desperate moments. But I can't stop thinking of the real work horses, like Stephen King, perhaps, who would lift his eyes up from his computer screen, stare at us over his glasses just long enough to figure out our concern, then he'd call us pussies and tell us to sit the fuck back down and keep writing. Then he'd turn back to his screen and keep clacking away. I bet he's got one of those keyboards that make nice high-pitched clackety-clacks, rather than the career-ruining ones with the dull, non-creative thuds... :-)

Phlop Morning

Trying to iron out some major holes in my story. Such as character motivation, for one. I get 30 percent into my first draft and find that my main character is just flat running out of steam, so I gotta go back and figure out why he's tired of his own story already.

My story is about a guy with an unfortunate gift. He can create things. They're not good or useful or nice things, but they do seem to have existence, at least for a time. The problem is these things he creates (or miscreates) usually go on to figure in another person's death; usually someone to whom our main character is emotionally tied. So in response to these early misfortunes (the accidental death of his abusive stepfather, the death of three bullies at the grocery store), our hero decides to stay away from people. So by age eleven he's cut ties with everyone and lives as much as possible to himself, by himself. His whole life is centered around the avoidance of emotional upset, whether positive or negative because, as he puts it, "Every emotion is negative. It's just a matter of time."

I really didn't know how emotionally cloistered this guy was when I started writing, though. I thought his conflict was about trusting himself and it is, but it goes deeper than that. It was only through the process of drafting that I figured this out. Obviously I have work to do now. So as I go through the process of analysis and re-writes ect. I'm losing steam.

Losing steam. I like what I've learned about my main character but I'm out of steam.

Crepitation

Defined -- To make a crackling or popping sound; crackle.

Nabokov used it as follows:

"Limpid chimes called back and forth from tower to tower; the din of motors, the crepitation of wheels, and the tinkle of bicycle bells filled the narrow streets."

Nabokov rule(d)s.

Keyboard

I had a cat climb on my laptop when I was over at a friend's house. W/out thinking I shooed said cat off with my hand. Cat promptly extended claws. Ripped six keys out of keyboard.

Got a new keyboard but it's mushy. When I hit the keys it makes a low thunking sound instead of that high tight popping sound that I loved so. Too much play in each individual key. My fingers sort of slide off after hitting a letter.

I'm sure my writing is going to suck because of this new keyboard. Probably forever.

Reflux

You talk about everything in your life centering around your writing, and I believe that's true. Somehow I believe that even my acid reflux is rooted in my writing and I'm afraid that I'll ultimately be forced to give up writing in order to cure it.

That's because all my stomach problems started shortly after I implemented the new writing schedule of getting up at 3:30 in the morning, writing until 5:30, and then going back to bed. In order to give myself some juice at that ungodly hour, I was drinking a cup of super-strong coffee and eating a square of two of extremely dark chocolate. On an empty stomach. Then lying back down in two hours.

If you know anything about reflux (and I didn't), that's pretty much a recipe for disaster, which is precisely what I got. Approx. two weeks into my regimen, I developed awful stomach cramps, etc. and things just sort of got worse from there. Now I've gone to the doctor and am on Nexium but my gut is still as touchy and wildly reactive as a menstruating wife.

So the reflux has its origins (not its absolute origins but more when it became so painful that I sought medical help) in the writing and I fear that the only solution is to give up writing. As if writing equals Jonah and my reflux is the terrible storm. So who are the superstitious sailors? I don't know. But someone is going to throw the writing overboard.

And then of course, I can't let that happen. There are lots of things I could give up (and have) in this world but don't ask me to stop writing, please. When it's even suggested, even when it's only me suggesting it, I react like the handgun psychos..."You can have my writing when you pry it from my cold dead fingers."

Maiden Bloggage

Thanks to the whole GDTG executive crew for the warm welcome. This is, in fact, my first blog post, the Maiden Bloggage. I am about to click "Publish Post" for the very first time. Quite surprising, I think, considering I'm such a major geek. Just haven't had the opportunity to cross into blog world.

I have to be honest and say that, for all the efforts and agreements regarding anonymity, for the whole purpose of allowing total freedom in what we say, what we talk about, the use of the word "fuck" in total spontaneity without fear of offending anyone, etc., I'm still feeling this overwhelming need to say something prophetic, creatively brilliant, maybe try to sound like a fucking writer. I said fuck again, and it feels good. I will say fuck a lot. I do say fuck a lot, just ask my wife, ask my kids, ask the fucking dog.

So, I will get the hell over myself and try to follow through with the whole original idea... I will try to let loose, hold nothing back, just rant and rave and get the juices flowing.

And I will say fuck. Cuz sometimes there's just no fucking substitute.

Love,

Steve

(Clicking "Publish Post" - it may hurt a bit at first... I'll click slowly...)

Welcome Steve Lamott

Welcome Steve Lamott!

Steve comes to us from...well, I can't remember, frankly. One of those hideous Midwestern industrial towns, I think. Right Steve? Love ya, Steve. Love ya.

You know what? I'll let Steve introduce himself. But from all of us here at GDTG, welcome.

Madness of King George

I had this friend who used to buy the little brown vials of cassette head cleaner at a local music shop. He'd sit around in the park near my house and sniff from the vial. When you asked him what he was doing, he'd take a long sniff and as he was geeking he'd say, his eyes bulging and watery:

"Madness of King George, man. Madness of King George."

For awhile I wondered if he meant that the Madness was the actual contents of the vial, or that the state of mind post-inhalation was the Madness. Then he got me sniffing and I understood that the two were inseparable. The madness came up from the bottle and into your brain, where it danced in a whirl of flashing light before escaping, genie-like, back into the vial. I was left with a melancholy that seemed to have both its origin and resolution in that little brown fuel-smelling bottle with the black threaded cap.

Writing reminds me that childhood Madness. A first draft is always the Madness. There's that brief moment during composition when all is right with the world and I'm dancing/soaring across the page. That sensation crests and is immediately followed by a creeping terror about the QUALITY, what the words actually represent in the cold and unforgiving world of men. Did it translate? Did I carry it back with me or was it hopelessly degraded by the lossy transfer from muse to brain to keyboard? This fear points me back to the story. Which turns me back to the story. Which points me back to the story. What was the story? It's lost, and not just the story but the whole tiny perfect universe in which the story was set and played itself out, that's gone too, destroyed by my bungling. So I pick up the keyboard and begin again, chasing the madness anew.