From Wit's End, Where Bullshit Serves As Currency.

I could write a book, publish and print it, maybe even sell a few copies, just to tell you about what's taken place since the last post. But since I'd rather deal with it than write [whine] about it, and you'd rather laugh about [be ignorant of] it, I decided to leave that out of this scribble.

Really the only good news to come out of this week is that I did start writing again...No, not this bullshit, but actual writing, on a story I started a few years ago. Yea, I wrote about thirty pages worth of nonsense and sent it to an agent, who sent it to a publishing company, who had someone call me, and tell me that they loved the first thrity pages, and would be very interested in receiving the rest.

I've finally gone back to it, just didn't have the feeling for a while, and to write when you don't have that feeling, to me, is like the pope taking a shit in church on Sunday and lighting a candle in it :-). Ya can't cheapen or lie in what you write, or at least, I can't, and I don't think the rest of you should. Talk is cheap, mainly because it was meant to be...Writing should be worth more though, simply because writing takes more time, more thought, more preparation...If you do it right, and you respect the craft, you won't ever write over ninety percent of the things you would actually say.

Yea, but, I've started in again on the old storry, making corrections, writing some new material...They still want it, the publishing company I mean...They swear they've never read or heard anything like it, and they see the concept, language, and style as money in their pocket. I don't give a shit where the money goes, if there is any, I'd just like to see it in print someday. People who write because it's what they want to do, they don't do it to get paid. That thought never crosses their mind. They write, because if they do not, they lose sleep and so much more, every day, until they finally reach the last page.

But I can't expect anyone else to understand that, I mean, who write anymore, really? In a day and age where they can hear you hiccup from a mile away and match the sound to you, looking up your life story, who writes anymore, for that reason? I do, most authors are pushed along by a paycheck nowadays, that's why most of what you'll pick up and read is truly shit. It's not that the author's not capable of giving you something that really shakes your shit up, it's that they've become machines, printing out pages for the publisher right and left without really caring to look over what's on them first.

I, or rather, my book, when it's finished, and if it's published/printed, will not have anything inn common with the book next to it on the shelf, or the book six aisles down...Contemporary Fiction is in need of a wake up call. My book, when it's finished, will be just that. The trick to making truly incredible fiction is, there has to be at least some truth at the very heart of it. Too many authors have either forgotten that, or been drawn away from it by dollar signs. I'm not doing it for money, never was, so, I have high hopes, at least, for my book.

"What the hell?"

Some of us say it when we can't find our keys in the morning. Some of us say it when we're looking at something we can't understand...And a few of us say it just before we step into a situation we know we should probably avoid. But for one reason or another, that little tiny voive inside speaks up just as you're about to move out of harms way and says something like: "If you walk away now, what does that make you?"

So you say to yourself, 'what the hell', and then you turn around and go through the agony that two seconds before you had been smart enough, and quick enough to avoid. That's what happened to me last night.

There was a bonfire, it was late, just me and a handful of friends sitting around talking about nothing much. Then one of them starts to get in a spat with her boyfriend [which none of us liked from the start, mind you]. It gets good and heated and I stand up at some point and ask him to take it easy. So he shoves his thumb in his mouth and blows to puff up his chest [yea, I know, but he really did that] and then he tells me to go fuck myself. Not wanting to make something out of nearly nothing, I said 'okay, sure, but you get to clean up the mess.' And I started to walk toward the car, to go home. I was about halfway to the car when I heard it, and that's why I stopped.

She had told him what he was for causing me to leave [something terribly derogatory, I'm sure] and his response to that was to smack her. Now I don't like to fight, mostly because all it does is hurt, no matter who wins. But like the jackass I am, I turned around and asked him if he's like to try that again, only, on someone his own size for a change. Now, remember, we're all huddled around a decent bonfire at this point.

So what does he do? Kicks a smoldering bunch of ash and hot coals right up into my eyes, and then bullrushes me and drops me right there on the grass. You see, this was just the sort of thing I knew I would avoid by heading to the car. Just the sort of thing I knew I could expect the moment I turned around.

Long story short, he's in the hospital for another few days, and I'm half blind and dealing with burns everywhere. Now, they'll reset his nose, stitch up those cuts, and have him up and around by tomorrow night I'm sure. So did I prove anything, did I solve anything at all by turning around? No. Would I do it again? Most likely. Why? Because, 'what the hell?' Why not? What is there to lose that doesn't get taken away by life and or age at some point anyway? Not a goddamn thing, that's what.