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.