Halloween

Just got back from a party in a neighborhood off 210. Some golf-coursey kind of place with a blizzard of costumed kids whirling in every direction, cutting across lawns, sprinting suddenly and then slowing down for no apparent reason, falling in the streets with zebra/dancer/Spider Man legs pointing skyward, gobbling candy, crying, adjusting masks and bags, all under the watchful (if somewhat tippling) eye of the parents, who were distinguished not just by their height and sober dress but by their willingness to direct vehicular traffic with palms-out gestures and windmilling arms.

It was quite a scene, man. Made me verrry afraid. This is what I am now. I am one of those people. I don't live in their neighborhood, true, but the Billabong t-shirt no longer hides who I am; a white, middle-class parent with a mortgage (okay several), a car, a job, and ambitions for my poor son who only wants to enjoy standing up and falling down.

I, too, would have been directing traffic. I, too, would have been self-righteously complaining about the number of cars on the street, feeling a flush of happiness in my chest as the more paranoid/assertive mothers validated my outbursts.

Now, two quotes that ran through my head at various points in the night:

"I hate people who drive like me." -- Steve Lamott's proposed bumper sticker.

"I always wanted to be an eagle but one day I realized I was just a fuckin' sparrow." -- RTB

Your Two Sentences

Hey... I think it's pretty cool that you're kinda sorta making a good thing out of a bad experience. Sounds like a stressful bullshit kind of evening, but you boiled it all down to some mighty fine writing...

You should write poetry... you really should. Take a spiral notebook out on the surfboard with you some time (or your laptop...) and dump your thoughts and feelings and crank out some of those cool descriptions. You have a knack for word choices and paint pictures (and feelings). You really do.

And once again, I admire your balls-out honesty. That's something you've got checked off with permanent black ink on your "learn how to write" checklist. Fer sure.

And fuck all those people picking on Sting. I saw him performing at some awards ceremony recently (with Kanye West looking like an idiot as he "rapped" along side...). Sting wore a sleeveless t-shirt... tight cut muscle arms and abs of steel. Shit, I'd do him if he asked me.

Sting Worst Lyrics Ever

http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=2886

Sorry to hear about Sting. He's fine, really. Just a bit pompous and overblown...and this, of course, is the hard part about sticking with any artist for a long time. When the aurora of fame and success begins to fade, the critics move in...and they pick and pick until they crack that nut and leave the deconstructed works lying around in pieces.

But fear not! The next stage is nostalgia, when Sting (and all others like him) will be restored not just to their original glory but to something even brighter and more spectacular. They will speak for lost generations. They will be discovered anew.

Who was is that said, "A classic is a book that doesn't go out of print."?

Long may "Fields of Grain" find a listening ear....long may "Roxanne" be downloaded on iTunes or its future equivalent. Long, long, long may Sting lay a sweet yogic fucking on his pliant wife...may they clear six, seven, even TEN hours of uninterrupted copulation. When I wake in the deep watches of the night, it's comforting to think that somewhere, at that very moment, Sting is laying the pipe. And laying the pipe. And laying the pipe. Counting Sting's pelvic thrusts, I am borne back into the sweet arms of Morpheus.

Two Sentences

I was thinking that I'd like to distill last night's action, with the prodigal drunken father returning to lay claim to familial love, etc. and here's what I came up with:

Last night I called the father a disgrace, a coward, and a bully while the north wind blew sand around my ankles and in the gray background surfers dropped into fickle waves.

Baby son pooped in the tub, two nuggets, one twice the size of the other, rolling in the backwash of the draining sudsy water.

Description

Howdy...

Loved your post about your son playing with his balls... but I want to know... who made that statement?

So... I'm wrapping up the final edits on the novel before sending it off, and I've got a monster set of assignments coming up next week, so I'm doing lots of writing work, but not draft writing in the mornings, and I miss it. Even if I didn't have so much other stuff on my plate, I know I'm still not ready to jump into another novel project... Even if I were, my first phase would be brainstorming, prewriting, building characters, etc. (everything I want that software for...)

In the meantime, I wanted to come up with something to work on that allows me to tap the vein... so I don't miss out on that daily bloodletting... I don't want to lose that routine and get stuck in revision/edit world...

While I think I do a good job with story and dialogue and character (finally... that was a long battle, but I think I'm winning...) my biggest personal concern about my writing is that I don't slow down and take the time to really describe (and show) what's around the protagonist, from his/her point of view. I feel like this may be the last bit of the puzzle that I need to tweak... like working that six iron with a bucket of balls, hitting it over and over again until I can feel that sweet spot deep in my knuckles...

So... I'm thinking about spending a little time each morning working on description.

What I really need is to hire a little assistant (don't know why I'm thinking little... but an Oompah Loompah comes to mind... maybe because I don't think they can kick my ass) anyway... I need this little assistant to sit quietly in a corner and then get up and look over my shoulder when I start drafting a story, and randomly scream in my ear, "slow the fuck down, will ya!!" ...let your reader breathe a little bit... let him look around, smell things, touch things, feel things... experience the beauty or the chaos or the wonder or whatever it is about the setting that can and will affect the character's mood and therefore the theme, tone of the scene, etc...

Every once in a while I'm able to pull this off, but I think it may be the Rosetta Stone for me at this point... I feel like I have all of the other pieces of the puzzle under my belt... at least to some degree of mastery... maybe not quite that whole "unconcious mastery" thing... but close. If I can pick up the "slow down and help readers understand where they are, visualize things better, etc." merit badge, then I may just be able to write a real novel some day.

I've got to get cracking on the final edit... I'm tryin to get the manuscript to the post office by noon... but I want to take a little shot at maple trees in the fall.

As a kid, and as an adult living up there before we moved to Florida, I remember stopping on the side of the road to stare... Late fall, established maple trees that stand in ranks along wet roads. Maple trees about my age, giant swollen leaves hungover from their summer indulgence in the sun. They've lost their red and green, but not their physical presence. They are strong, bursting with energy. Ripe and heavy.

And then there's that brilliant yellow. God... that golden yellow against the tree's dark wet trunk, golden yellow swaying softly against the blue sky. I see some that haven't achieved their total golden formation... yellow at the peaks but still a hint of green in the center, rusty brown next to the veins

Looking up I see the shafts of morning sunlight pierce the yellow leaves, electrifying the gold, leaves that have had an out-of-body experience, dropping their green, the hard fall colors, survived the cold winter, ready to become electroplated with the sun's brilliance and become part of all that is gold in the sky... just for a moment before it becomes so much part of the light that it loses its life liquid and its strength and it holds on until a breeze helps it to the earth, to rest with its brothers and sisters and eventually be scooped up by some redneck in the woods who's out of toilet paper...

The Vagina Hammerlog

Hey everybody! Welcome back to GDTG, hope it wasn't too hard to find...now sit back and enjoy the vaginal discussion...and try the veal. Or the tacos. Really.

1. Beaver. Do they call it a beaver because a well-bushed vagina, viewed from about a 45 degree angle with the woman's legs spread, would look like a Beaver? I would assume that the labia etc. would form the tail and the bush itself the beaver's body?

2. In the groove. I believe this phrase was originally used to describe the act of coitus and like so many other sexual descriptives it crept into the musical lexicon. I think that's the rough etymology. So anyway, doesn't it strike you that "in the groove" must have started from the experience of having one's penis literally in the vaginal groove?

I don't know if this is interesting to anyone else, but I find it fascinating. The vagina is everywhere! Dug into the carpet fibers of our linguistic experience!

Damn I need to get laid.

Moments of Conflict

Thinking about stories with good conflict:

1. A troop of elite special forces soldiers, high in the Afghan mountains, come into contact with a group of goat herders who, according to intelligence, are not supposed to be at this elevation. The soldiers consult one another. If they don't kill the goat herders, there's every possibility that their mission will be reported back down the mountain. But to kill the goat herders would be inhumane. But nobody would know if they did. The leader of the troop decides to let the goat herders go, along with a stern warning to tell no one. Seven hours later the soldiers are surrounded by a militia and under fire.

2. A woman in a neo-Nazi compound, married to one of the leaders, bears him his third child. It is mentally disabled. The members of the compound treat the child with derision and make thinly veiled jokes about exterminating it. The husband cannot stand to be near the child. It is an emblem of his fears and prejudice. The husband quickly gets the wife pregnant again. The fourth child is okay, however, he continues to abuse the third. The wife decides to take her children and run away.

Snake Dream

Last night I had a dream that I was surfing in some fairly heavy, choppy swell. It was a tricky paddle-out. Lots of surfers strung out in front of me, beating against the whitewater. Green soupy sea, floating wigs of seaweed, the buffoonish faces of dead fish perched high in the oncoming swells.

Someone ahead of me starts yelling. There's general panic in the lineup; surfers paddling left and right, away from a dark, thick line that has made itself visible under the water. It the line moves at a diagonal, both rising and moving toward me at the same time. Now its head comes up, wide as a sewer grate, dirty gray-green scales the size of birch leaves disappearing again into the green water. It wraps itself around my head and shoulders. I reach up and tug with all my might and somehow rip the snake's head from its body.

In Twenty Years

Our baby son was playing with his new toy, taking out all the wooden balls from the little wooden cradle and admiring their colors. My wife and I left him on the rug and went over to the kitchen counter to eat our breakfast. As we were eating, we both noticed that it had gotten very quiet. My wife said, "Where's the baby?"
I hurried over to the living room area and said, "He's behind the piano, playing with his balls."
Pause a beat.
"Let's hope we're not still saying that about him in twenty years."

BCT

By GOD Steve I still love that novel. I could read it again. Really. That's a good sign.

There's this threshold when something works, when you know it works, and BCT has crossed that threshold. It's kind of cool for me to watch. Like childbirth, but without the squishy head and the strange petulant blood-smeared alien face looking around the room.

I didn't write last night. I went surfing instead. Went surfing today, too. Needed to get out of my daily grind in some small way. Needed to remind myself that if the writing isn't a gift then it's an obsession, and if it's an obsession it's no better than drinking or heroin.

No? I think yes. Alice Cooper said that whatever becomes your medicine, that's your addiction. I think there's some truth to that. So here's to doing the writing instead of the writing doing me. And here's to a fun lunch we had yesterday, when we were young and our hearts were an open book.

Something strange. You always say that I strike you as being nervous when we meet. Do I ever act that way at the meetings or when we meet otherwise? Probably not. Want to know why? That's the writing jones. And that's a whole other set of issues my friend. For another time.

For now, we welcome a new literary work into the world and we christen thee....BCT.

1010 Words

Looking for that 7k words per week. 2193 this week so far. Off to a decent start.

Have made it through the first 1/3 of your novel and so far am just blown away with how you're putting all the pieces in place. You're setting it all up like a master. Really. It's getting worse and worse for our hero but all the endings are sewn up so nicely in the beginning. It's craft. It's going beautifully.

Split Streams

Good post, Steve. Love the practical tip. And you're absolutely right, the second construction worked much better. Did 1,118 words tonight when I thought I had nothing. Now I'll go to sleep happy. Some of it was real good.

The penis is a wonderful and terrible implement. Just now I went to pee. A tinkling arc headed into the bowl, so why the splattering on the shins? I realized then that I was suffering from the dreaded Split Stream. The bulk of the urine was headed in the right direction but I had a faction, a splinter group, that was falling on the edge of the bowl.

Nothing to do in the case of a split stream but increase bladder pressure and hope to break loose that little tab of folded penis-tip that has segmented your opening. So with a mighty groan I broke through and thundered to a glorious conclusion. It was a proud moment in Standing Urination.

Now, here's something Nabakov said about story:

"In the beginning virtue is punished and in the end vice is punished."

An awkward silence.

I've done learnt a lesson about book writin'

I've learned that the phrase "an awkward silence" (or any derivative thereof) makes a very powerful impact by not existing at all.

For example...

Steve tried to explain what he meant about the phrase to the room full of literature experts. He tried to make a joke but muffed the punchline. There was an awkward silence. Everyone stared at him, making him glance down to see if his fly was open.

Can easily be changed to....

Steve tried to explain what he meant about the phrase to the room full of literature experts. He tried to make a joke but muffed the punchline. Everyone stared at him, making him glance down to see if his fly was open.

Wow... what a fucking miracle!

Thur 10/18 - Eight and a half hours... so far...

Starting to get ugly...

After my big la la post about how much I love the writing process (retch, burp, flush...) yesterday, I've hit the uglies today.

Still cranking through... about four hours up until noon, then about four and half more after starting back up around 2:00...

Going to hit a meeting in a little bit... probably will be too out of steam to do any more when I get back tonight...

Done with most of my lists... big holes have been filled... now going through the painful process of responding to my cute highlight colors... Gawd... it's the uglies...

But... that light at the end of the tunnel is glowing, sparkling, starting to smoke and spit and burn.... I know it's there...

Revision

Thanks for your post on revision, dude. I plan to steal your method lock, stock and barrel when I'm finished. I figure on my side I have another stage I need to go through there I take all the chapters and put them together and make sure I haven't left a plot/motivational hole big enough to drive a truck through. When I'm satisfied with that, I'll embark on your technique to highlight all the things that need to be changed. Brilliant! Brilliant method, really.

You might have eliminated at least six months of churn here at my end. THAT, among other things to be sure, but THAT is also a good reason why I'm glad I know ye.

I'm in Houston. One last freaking day. I don't know if you really want to get back out on the road, man. It's a grind and to be quite honest without the option of resorting to some self-destructive behaviors, there's not much left in the way of compensation. Much better to stay home and write.

I've got nothing against Billy Joel, per se. I just get the impression that underneath the piano chords and the bluster there's one of those super-annoying alcoholics who couldn't tell the truth to save their lives. Like me :)

Thanks for the blog entries. These keep me going when I'm on the road.

Revision... Eight Hours So Far...

Okay... so I got started at 2:00pm today... late start after playing golf. So shoot me.

However, I've been pretty much nose to the grindstone since then, and it's 11:15pm now. Short break to walk kids home from bus stop. Maybe a half hour to get dinner on the table. Handed the kids off to the wife, who graciously let me disappear. Every other minute has been in this chair.

So, instead of recording word counts for these next couple of weeks, I'll record hours of revision time... so... nine and a half minus about an hour or so... I'll round it down to eight hours for the day.

Good stuff so far... As I have learned in the past, the looming dark clouds of revision make it all seem so impossible, never ending, hopeless, but I knocked some major shit off my list today... really... Cranking through. It's never as bad as I thought it was going to be.

*** ONCE AGAIN, I'M LEARNING THAT IT'S ALL PART OF THE PROCESS, DAMN IT!!! ***

One big thing I started doing today that I will do a lot more in the future. Started using Word's highlighting feature to flag parts of the text so I can go back to fix things of similar types.

I made three passes through the manuscript. Not reading the whole thing word-for-word, but scanning at a moderate speed... knowing exactly what was going on in each scene, chapter, etc... scanning slowly enough to read words and phrases and know where I was, but fast enough to get through the manuscript in about an hour and a half or so...

First pass, I went through for the big nasty... the hundreds of places where I'm telling instead of showing, and I included in this pass those areas (and there were dozens) where I felt I could beef up the description a bit... maybe climb inside the character a little more and just take a look/smell/hear around the scene... and maybe show the reader what's around me a little bit... In every section that I felt needed more showing ("She looked so frustrated..." for example) or that I felt needed more description, I highlighted in pink.

Then I did another pass... this time scanning at pretty much the same speed but looking for repetition - phrases, words, etc... (Dear God, how many times did I say "awkward silence" or "awkward moment" or "awkward pause"?) I highlighted repetition in blue.

Then I did another pass, looking for problem areas. Way awkward dialogue, abrupt transitions, hard scene landings and chapter endings, etc.. This pass took a little longer, but I did some of it during the other two passes, switching highlight colors back and forth occasionally. I labeled these problem areas with red highlighting.

So, tomorrow I will sit down with all this highlighted bullshit and (theoretically) be able to go through, just focusing on the highlighted chunks (and believe me, it's probably half the manuscript, but at least I know what I'm up against) rather than reading and rereading and rerereading the manuscript.

Once I get all that done, I still have some big-ticket revision items on my to-do list (more global changes needed, etc.)

Then, finally, I will print the whole fucker out for the first time and sit and read it with my blue pen in hand, doing final copy edit, buffing and polishing, word choices, punctuation, silly typos I didn't catch on the screen (I'm always so much more critical in hard copy... weird... I always wonder about our generation... I'm sure you're like me in that you went from writing on paper to typing what you'd written on a typewriter... then computers came out and you wrote stuff on paper and then typed it into the computer, and like me you can probably peg within a year or so when you crossed that line between writing freehand (to type later) and composing directly on the screen. I can't even write freehand anymore... I've tried a couple of times recently. I suppose if I were stranded on an island with a ream of college ruled notebook paper and a pencil I'd have to learn to make due... but I can't imagine writing, composing, on anything but a computer screen)

Jesus... I'm writing another book in this blog... I guess after all this revision time I needed to tap a vein for a while...

Fuck all the people who say they love this shit... fuck 'em all...

But I do... I know it deep in my soul... it is what I am... I must do it, and deep down I know I love it... I know I do... so fuck me too, I guess... call me a hypocrite cuz people who say they love this shit make me want to puke... but I do

God, I love it... I love it...

Two Quick Things

1. Chuck Norris has shaved off his beard. In the latest commercials for the Total Home Gym he's sporting only the luxuriant stache which is the approximate dimensions of a push broom. A big square object standing proudly in the forefront of the screen. He's somewhat scary w/out the beard, though. Looks very Village People.

2. Billy Joel's song, "You May Be Right" is offensive to me. Nice celebration of drunk driving from a guy who's been busted for it like six times. If that popeyed freak had even a glimmer of awareness he'd pull that song from the airwaves. And pull "We Didn't Start the Fire" too. Has anybody done more damage to his legacy than Billy Joel, simply by staying alive and making music? If he'd faded from the scene just after he released "The Stranger" history might have been kind...

Congrats

Congrats, dude!

That's awesome shit, awesome awesome. I can see the downhill slope on my book as well. I've probably got two to three weeks left. Not too bad.

I've decided because of my crazy ass life to set a goal of 7,000 words a week. That way if I can't write one day, I can make it up the next. So far this week I'm at 4600 words. If I can get another 1000 on the plane flight home, I'll be in decent shape.

Congrats, dude. Very proud to know ya. And I'm reading your father's book. He's a gifted writer and a real thinker. I would have liked to have known him, I think.

Tue 10/16 - 2,047 Words *** FINISHED ***

Roger that, Houston.... the fucker's done!!!

Draft is finished.

Wiped away major tears.

Organizing to do lists already for the rewrite... but the fucker's done.

Major woodie... God, this is the good part.

Mon 10/15 - 2,904 Words

Cranked 'em out today... Thought about going back and doing 96 more words of gobbledy gook just to be able to say that I wrote three thousand words, but I couldn't do it... couldn't get any more blood... the vials are all full... the needle is caked up with crusty, dark red platelets, my face is ghostly white, lips powdery blue...

But... I have just begun the very last chapter. I think I will finish the draft tomorrow (or maybe tonight if I can regenerate some blood cells between now and then. Maybe I'll need to eat more iron).

Hey... 2,300 words on Sunday... that's freakin' awesome.

And you have absolutely no explaining to do choosing sex over writing.

Maybe shoot for both at the same time next time? Remember that scene in Dangerous Liaisons when John Malkovich is writing a letter, using Uma Thurman's hot twenty-year-old naked body as a desk? Gawd... excuse me for a moment, I have to step into the bathroom.

Crazy Dream

First, this line mad me laugh out loud:

"He was probably a very unselfish lover, I would imagine."

Killed me! Keep up the hilarious, man. That killed me.

Okay I'm about to get on a plane for Houston. Here's my weekend: Friday, worked, cleaned the house, packed up the car, drove to GA, got in around midnight, no writing.
Saturday cranked out 2,300 words.
Sunday. Packed up the kid and the car, made the HELLISH drive back home (w/the kid screaming the whole way and me thinking I wasn't going to make it), did some work, laundry, and was then presented with a choice: Writing or Sex. I chose sex.

So today on the plane I'm going to try to get those 2,000 words.

Now the Crazy Dream. Last night dreamed I was in this hospital and they were taking all my vitals etc, doing a bunch of tests, and they finally determined I'd had a stroke due to Special K poisoning. Special K is some kind of tranquilizer that I took once in my partying days. I don't really remember it doing anything special, as a matter of fact I hadn't thought about it in years, until this dream.

So I was like, "What is Special K poisoning?"
Doctor (white-haired old gentleman) said, "Well, we've brought in a specialist."
Lo and behold, the specialist was this guy named Ding, this Sudanese refugee I knew when I was in Atlanta. And Ding had very slender forearms and wrists. I remember I once told Ding how slender his wrists and forearms were, and how Ding gave me a dubious smile (actually that was the only smile in Ding's repertoire. He'd just moved from the Sudan to Atlanta so he was pretty much dubious all the time). And Ding was wearing a looooong rubber glove.
You don't want to know where Ding went w/that gloved hand. Let's just say that all of my cavities have been inspected. So, here's the Life Lesson. Whatever you do, don't get Special K poisoning. It's not good and the treatment is much worse than the disease.

Fri 10/11 - 1,958 Words

1,958

Totally contrived, utter bullshit, one-hundred percent forced to point the plot in its disgustingly predetermined direction....

But they is on da page, buddy... they be on da page...

Working On My Grip

Interesting post there, Bill... I have to admit it never crossed my mind before... I've never once stopped what I was doing, ran my fingers across my chin and thought, "hmm... I wonder if Jesus ever choked the chicken..."

My response would be, "of course..."

I've struggled with the Jesus thing my whole life, especially the last five and a quarter years. I had no problem with the higher power (though handing my life, will, management, control, sanity, grace, peace, serenity etc. took some time), but I've always taken issue with this Jesus dude.

Here's what I believe - I believe he existed. He was probably really weird, probably got beat up a lot as a kid because he was always so kind to people. At some point, people started paying attention to what he had to say, and his miracles were the result of lots of people together thinking about being kind, loving people, based on what he was teaching them. I don't believe he turned water into wine, walked on water, healed the crippled (though there's something to be said there about the healing power of reaching out in kindness to the sick, etc.), or rose from the dead.

I think he really did exist, and he was a way nice guy, and therefore the people in power got scared so they killed him. I also believe that he knew it was coming, had every chance to run away, or even sell out, but he chose to stick around and that he truly did die for everyone around him, and for everyone in generations to come who remember his kindness, etc.

But that's about it for me. That's as far as I go. I don't believe he was the son of God, though his actions sure made him act like someone who could have been the son of God. But I'd like to see the birth certificate.

Isn't it funny how I can just type that out loud right here in this blog without fear of imprisonment and torture? Can you imagine?

And you, you heretic... you'd have had your balls cut off and stuffed in your mouth for suggesting that Jesus gave in to such wickedness.

I've struggled with this Jesus thing for a very long time, since most any church you go into nowadays is going to hit you over the head in some way with the Jesus stuff. And I just don't buy it. For the most part, I can buy the message, the parables that all boil down to say, hey... just be kind and love each other (or, how JB said, and I love when he speaks... just don't be ugly... gawd, what a simple way to live that is... I may try it some day)

So, yes. I do think Jesus spanked the monkey, probably just as much as the rest of us. And I think while Mary Magdalene was washing his feet, she probably slid a soapy hand along his inner thigh and gave him some relief in the late-night hours. And he probably thanked her or maybe kissed her deeply, or maybe fucked the living shit out of her... Does that make him any less of a kind, beautiful person? I don't think so. He was probably a very unselfish lover, I would imagine.

I read the stories about St. Francis, and I think of him as another Jesus Christ. In the realm of social acceptability, there was something wrong with those guys. They didn't think or respond like normal people. They focused one-hundred percent on kindness, reaching out to others.

Oh... the post title... I was hitting golf balls this morning, working on my grip, that kind of grip. I don't masturbate. Never have. That shit's for weak-ass sinners and dang queer freaks. Pay no attention to my rock-solid forearm muscles.

Lack of Grip

It's been a long time since I've seen a hot chick; a long time since I've seen the way her body moved and had my throat seize up with lust and envy. A long time since I've seen a woman on the street and then imagined her naked.

Maybe something is wrong with me. I'm not gripping much. I am a man, therefore what I am about to say next, I really believe (and I'm not trying to be provocative etc...I could care less about that shit). Jesus masturbated. Maybe not right up until his death; maybe by the time he began his public ministry he'd gotten over the whole gripping thing and was just thinking pure thoughts all day long. But there was a time when the young Jesus, just like the rest of us, was gripping like a true stallion.

Every man grips. Period. I worked with this woman, she insisted that her husband didn't. She insisted that he only got his rocks off w/her, that he saved everything up for just those moments.
"Have you asked him if he does it?" I said.
"Yes, I have. and he told me he can't. He can only orgasm with me."
I groaned and rolled my eyes. "Honey, unless you're blowing that dude once a day and banging him three times a week, he's gripping. I promise."
But she wouldn't believe me. She really thought the guy only busted nuts with her, as a result of her ministrations, etc.

Years went by. Literally, years. Then one day she called me out of the blue.
"You were right," she said.
"What?"
"You were right. About the masturbating."
"Yeah?"
"I came home early from my workout class and I went in the back door because I was checking one of our sprinklers, and he had a porno tape in, cranked up really high, and I caught him in the act."
When I was done laughing I asked her what he said when she caught him (red-handed).
"Oh, he looked frightened at first, and then he said he was just trying it out but he wasn't doing a very good job and could I help him?"
"He asked you to help?"
"Oh yeah."

Now that, my friends, is a good man. That is the kind of man you don't want to mess with because not only does he have the balls to perpetuate an outrageous lie (I don't masturbate) but when he's caught in the act, he turns it into a request for sex.

The Value of Writing Methods

Ultimately the only thing we absolutely have to worry about is whether or not WE find our writing interesting. Just us, the first and only guaranteed audience. And then of course we hope to find someone else who finds us interesting. And even better if that someone else happens to be a publisher or agent. Better still if it expands from there to include paying readership, etc. But the litmus test is whether we like it.

All that is to say, these methods I'm investigating (WantObstacleActionResolutionEmotionShowing, Snowflake, Three Sentences, Hero's Journey) are best practices...they are retroactively uncovered elements that seem to be present in the majority of salable fiction. As such, I think it's time well spent to understand (as well as one can) the principles behind these methods and if you're of a certain methodical turn of mind (god help me) you might even use these tools to build a few stories of your own and see how they function. All of this is fine, in my opinion, and part of the learning process. I really do believe that one must have some knowledge of the "rules" and how they function in order to break them effectively.

Having said that, if it's no fun, it's no good. Period. And I will admit that, on occasion, my fascination with Method (which springs from the same impulse to make a SYSTEM out of loading the dishwasher or tying my shoes) had overtaken my appreciation for the simple joy of putting words on the page.

And that's it. That's the gift. Laying down words with my hands and picking them back up with my eyes. Like a game of cards...

None of the Above

I had this friend named Matt, he was really into this French-Canadian metal band called VoiVod. Their later albums were these orchestral Sci-Fi/Fantasy epics that told stories about androids trapped in bio-domes, victims of genetic tampering, and so on.

I didn't really want to like the band, but my friend insisted. He broke it down. He made me see their genius. He didn't stop until I admitted that they were good. This morning at the gym one of the VoiVod's songs came on my iPod and it got me to thinking about Matt. He's dead now. Died in a culvert outside Orlando. It got me to thinking that it's really a shame not to believe in Heaven.

Why shouldn't I believe in a place where everyone is happy and where I'll be reunited with all of my old friends and family? Is intellectual pride worth missing out on a place like that? I don't know. I just think it would be nice go to to heaven someday and hang out with Matt again and tell him that 15 years later I still like VoiVod.

So, congratulations on the 2,000-plus words! You are my hero, Steve. And my friend. I like friends who push me and get in my stuff. I don't like polite friends or friends who are afraid to be annoying. I don't like diffidence in a friend. And you are one talented bastard. I can't wait to read your stuff and giggle with glee.

Tue 10/9 - 2,661 Words

2,661 today... marathon session before lunch, and a little follow-up afterward.

Got into a scene (two actually) I've been looking forward to writing.

So much to do in the rewrite, but I'm desperately trying to not let that bother me, drag me down, etc... trying not to think and just to do... just letting the story out, letting it bleed for now, enjoying the life of the scene, not worrying about description or fancy literary devices... just telling the damn story, telling the damn story....

"In that imagined world I have a small TV that only shows boxing matches and footage from World War II. "

Not sure what part of your brain that came from... wouldn't be surprised if you don't either... but man does a little beat like that bring a scene alive. Impressive.

My Former Life

I have a friend who works in downtown Detroit, in an office across from the Fisher building. Hearing from him makes me miss Detroit. If I worked in his office I would look out the window a lot.

Once when I was living at the corner of Boston and Woodward in a carriage house (with my girlfriend Holly Body) and shooting dope at every opportunity, I took a job as a car park for the Fisher building. I remember the office was a little hut off to the left of the building and if memory serves there was either a vacant lot or a parking garage behind me. Anyway, my hours were the midnight shift and I was very excited because I knew that Kesey had written One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest while working nights.

Of course, I never showed up for work. Therefore I never wrote a good book while working nights. I did, however, get to keep the red vinyl windbreaker that would've been my uniform had I been less addicted and more industrious.

In some remote part of my mind, when things are going really bad, I promise myself that one day I'll move back to Detroit and become a junkie again, and I'll live in a little apartment on Woodward with neon light shining in the windows and I'll buy my clothes at Goodwill and I'll go see the Dope Lady every day. And in my spare time I'll go to the art museum and read books in the library. In that imagined world I have a small TV that only shows boxing matches and footage from World War II. At night I fall asleep in an old recliner and in the daytime I walk around in a cloud of loneliness that only the city, only being in the city, can cure. When things are going bad that's what I tell myself.

But things aren't bad now! Congratulations on your words on the plane. That's never easy. And speaking of writing at night, that's my new routine, so I'd better get cracking...

No Words and NoTime to Write

No time, man. For my health's sake I think I need to sleep in the mornings. This leaves me with the nights to write. Let's see if I can make it happen.

I feel like I've been resisting and struggling as hard as I possibly can to make time for my writing and I'm just about done with it. I feel exhausted all the way down to my bones. I think I'm fucking up my health and I can't change who or where I am without a complete and selfish upheaval of my life. I'm not sure what happens next but this is usually the stage where I finally give up and let the higher power decide what is best for me.

Got a rejection on the Sugaree novel. No kind words. Just that it didn't interest the publisher. The novel I'm working on now is a total mess...it keeps unfolding, each chapter seems like it needs to be expanded into three more chapters.

So, there you go. We are like the Scales of Justice...when one of us is up, the other is down. I'm not particularly down, just kind of tired. But I'm awfully glad things are going well for you and I'm amazed, frankly amazed, that you are planning to have the novel done in three weeks. That is really, seriously, great. And I don't say that with any jealousy in my heart. I'm jealous of just about everyone (stars for their fame, athletes for their skill, drivers for their cars, bums for their freedom, teachers for their settled lives, cripples for their sympathy, writers for their books, etc.) but I'm not jealous of you because...GOD DAMN, I love you man. I love you like a brother except I was always jealous of my brother (for being the eldest).

Freedom!

Hey.. I assume that 1700+ number with your John Updike post means that you cranked out that many words today... Way to go!

And I'm proud to have come pretty close on that book prediction. Funny stuff. And by the way... I wouldn't have waited to put it back on the shelf... I probably would have wiped the roach guts off on my shorts.

Been cranking through my re-read of Immediate Fiction in the late evenings... loving reading through it again, this time taking time to really digest the plot stuff... we'll have to sit and compare notes. I plan to go through and make notes of all my highlights to create a bullet list for rewrites... If I get my shit together on that I'll send you a copy.

Okay... jumping out to try to see if I can knock out some novel words before bedtime... I want to finish it so badly...

I don't want to do that with this book. I need to add the scenes that need to be added, go back and flesh out the description I've left out... fill in the holes, sand each layer with the finest grain, and coat it all with a gentle lacquer... buff it until it shines and sparkles...

Reading John Updike (1784)

He makes it look easy and advisable to slow down and write long passages describing short interchanges and short passages describing the rise and fall of entire civilizations and he'll bathe it all in bath-warm prose that *just* barely somehow avoids the maudlin but it's damned close, and that itself is thrilling, like riding in a sedate old car along the edge of a steep gorge that has been formed over millions of years by the steady erosion of the River Cheez, which, from this height, looks like a yellow thread laid over the brown rocks.

Dell Latitude User Guide

That was the book I used to whack away at the roach. You were pretty much dead on there, Steve! Something techie and completely dispensable. Funny thing is I haven't actually thrown the book away. It's still sitting on my filing cabinet...I figure if I wait long enough, it will somehow become usable again.

I have this rule, it's kind of like a corollary to the five-second rule, which says that if I wait long enough even the grossest-ass mess (including bug guts) will, through the simple action of time passing, become hygienic again. For instance, who among us would take a look at roach remains on a ceramic shard at Pompeii and say, "oh, man, that's gross, look at this bug."

Not at all. We'd pick said shard right up and put it on our pockets and, looking furtively about, make for the door (or whatever). So the Dell manual sits on my filing cabinet, waiting to be returned to active duty. Well, that and I'm too lazy to throw it out. Come to think of it, most of my rules -- 5 Second Rule, the Wait Until It's Not Gross Rule -- are really all about my laziness. I'm too lazy to go on with this thought.

Speaking of killing roaches, our dog whined to go out early this morning (about an hour ago) and my wife, after opening the door, fell asleep on the sofa. The door was open for an hour, allowing free entry to any and all roaches who were brave enough to take a chance on a new and fabulous life. But like all migrations, like all journeys into new territories, there are risks, as these unfortunate roaches soon discovered. When I came downstairs, the hallway just beyond the open door was littered with roach carcasses and the dog was sitting there with her paws crossed, watching the doorway with a loving and expectant expression. When she saw me, the dog jumped up, lay back her ears, and wagged her tail as if to say, "How can I ever thank you for this wonderful night?"

Glad you've apparently reconciled (and then some!) with your wife. I'm writing but it all feels like crap. Just letting you know.

What Book?

Hey... I think you should thank the cockroach... perhaps that little burst of adrenaline helped you punch through fifteen-hundred words.

I had a similar experience over the weekend. Wife and I were in the shower... (we'll just let that go...) and she saw a big ol' wolf spider sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor. I promised to be the hero and squish it into a wad of toilet paper, but when we got out of the shower (we'll just let that go...) that big ol' wolf spider was gone.

My theory... I think that big ol' wolf spider was watching us. I think he was a peeping wolf spider. And after yet another stellar performance on my part, he rushed off to his web, where he squirted a tiny drop of KY lube on the tip of each leg and wanked himself into oblivion.

So.. instead of calling in the air strike... I'd consider leaving things as they are. In some dark corner of your office, Gregor is sitting with a sandwich and a diet root beer, reading over your shoulder. He's reading your shit, wondering why you didn't think to put the brothers in the cell together in the first place, and sending subliminal messages filled with other literary criticism that only cockroaches can think up.

Now, here's the burning question... With what book did you try to kill your cockroach (and don't come back with Kafka, cuz I beat you to the punch on that one). I hope it was something literary, but if I had to bet money I bet you wouldn't want to get roach guts on a book you cared about, so I bet it was "One Hundred Ways to Decrease Java Script Memory Footprints" or some such techie glop.

I'm dying to find out... and I think it's fitting that I'm leaving you in position to post our one-hundredth blog post, sharing the answer to this burning question.

1523

Killed a cockroach when I first came up to write. Followed it across the room whacking it with a book as it ran. Because it was running along the floor (and therefore at a bad angle for book-whacking) and because it was so early (and I did not want to wake the family), I did not strike with my full fury, but only verified that it was lying on its back, legs twitching. Then, because I needed to write, I went back to my laptop and got to work.

When I finished I looked over and the roach was gone. Sometime during my writing session he clicked those little mechanical legs and then with the precision of a wind-up toy he popped back over onto his stomach and scuttled away into a dark corner.

I do not feel good about this. Time to call in the bug man. If this were Vietnam I would order a napalm strike.