A fist to the back of your throat by the Almighty himself

And then the spray of glass and plastic blasted up over the back end of my car as my glasses flew off my head as I snapped my neck back. The rear view mirror shot back like someone pulled it away in a violent fit and every light in my dashboard lit up like the control board of a nuclear power plant on full-metal meltdown.

And so goes that last few seconds of my car's life yesterday as I was rear-ended by a car which didn't even to give me the decency of a cacophony of screaming tires before accordining the back end into my back seat in one solid 'whump' that punched my entire body and made me flash David Fincher "Panic Room" style coldly and fearfully, the way you do after you wake up from a nightmare and you can't tell what's real or dream, to the bloated tank of gas freshly filled up at the Gas and Go just a few miles from the impact site. Don't they explode after a collision? They do in the movies.

You have to admire the marksmanship of the person who hit me, with her hood and front bumper dead on to my trunk. Both of our cars mauled like Christians in the Roman arena. Blunt force trauma and elementary physics become the same thing. oh, are those police cars? Mass times velocity equals you are so fucking lucky you are walking away from this one, cowboy. Besides the soreness in my neck and the small mark on the side of my nose that was removed in the tangential toss of my glasses at Ground Zero, I'm fine...Bruce Willis in Unbreakable fine, and being compared to Bruce willis is creepy enough. What gets you is the context, the survival from the crash despite my airbag NOT deploying, is like staring through ice, looking back on yourself in tiny reflective frozen rivulets and being amazed you are your own two feet.

You stare at your car, back end crumpled like paper. You see her baby SUV-like beast and look at the front of it, crunched in, the warped and bent and busted hood training your eye to her exploded airbags, looking a sickly yellow and limp like shed snake skin. Both of you are too tranquil, standing there as traffic flows around you like river water does to a rock in the water's bed. Yeah, gape at us, you joyless little shits. I hope our little improv act makes you better fucking drivers, or makes you reconsider your pointless little lives. Pools of different colored fluids are forming octopus legs under her car, a green, a red, a rainbow shimmering the festive yellow summer sun when the day is perfect at 73 degrees and no wind. Seattle only gets 10 days like this a year, you know. It's like a punch card. Use the 10 and it's done.

Maybe the designers of modern cars didn't expect for this moment, when you both stand there...assailant and victim, looking at your dead metal servants, your commuter cages, wondering how you got here. The machines are dead, but you are doing just peachy. Oh, yes Ms. Firefighter, today's date is Tuesday, July 15. I was wearing my seatbelt. And the driver who hits me, her makeup is running one black shoelace down her face, just under her left eye. Ask if she needs a tissue and she looks at you as if you are from Mars.

Yes, officer, I feel sore, but that may have been from the Bikram hothouse yoga session I had last night. I wonder if I crashed because I actually ate breakfast this morning. My wife....my wife is on the cell phone buzzing in my hand. I forgot about the frantic call I made seconds after the hit. Hit...hit hard....accident on Lake city way...oh god.

The tow trucks arrive. I get my driver's license back. When did I give it someone else? My car won't move. Dead. Juice back to life in an ugly corpse-dance, making the car lurch forward 20 feet for the cleanup crews to begin their vulture work. Sand is being dropped to soak up the fluids. Bits of red and white plastic are being swept, along with chunks of parts from bumpers, faux chrome coverings and a weird positively Radio Shack green plug unit that belongs on a DIY computer kit. An hour after the crash, it looks like it never happened, minus the traffic buildup.

Soon, she is gone with her dead champion and my car is rolled on, me in the screaming metal fist of a tow truck cab, rolling back home, rolling to an auto shop featuring a manager that will tell me at first glance that my car is gone. Phone calls, business cards, an insurance rep who is gunning for minor deity for her clarity and efficency and over-the-phone compassion. I get in touch with my boss. The day off. Someone will fill in. I walk home, up a hill, a mile to my house. I close the door. I drop my bag. It's terribly silent. My overfed cats regard me with a blaise glance that only felines without a care in the world can muster. I'm alive. My wife shakes when she holds me when she sees me for lunch. I'm alive. That's all I knew yesterday.

Note: This was originally a letter sent to my fellow e-mail addict and budding writing friend, Zoe Trope.

Note reloaded: Found out today that Frank Herbert, the guy who wrote all those Dune novels, used to be a reporter at the paper I'm working at now. Wow. To paraphrase my wife, "I thought he was like Tolkien, a guy living somewhere else, like in his own little world." Tom Robbins also worked at our paper, but, dude, Frank Herbert!

Mother of invention

So, I'm driving into work and I caught sight of a government billboard advocating being ready to combat terrorism if and when it hits American again. And I'm thinking, "No way in hell can we ever honestly be ready for someone unleashing anthrax in the New York subway system or detonating a nuke in downtown Seattle or opening a bag of sarin in your favorite airport the day before Thanksgiving." Forget it. Government agencies will be reduced to playing cleanup, finding the dead and dying and closing off parts of an already crippled infrastructure. You can't fully prepare against the anarchic nature of terrorism; that's its beauty. That's its simple, elegant truth. Damage from terrorism is unpredictable at best, and a horrific Cassandraesque nightmare to those that think about protecting our borders.

However, I was curious about planning for the worst on a citywide level. It makes the most sense to revamp whole downtown canyons and major road systems to a) deliver emergency containment crews to the scene and b) allow people in other parts of the city a fast way out of town. You would need to station first responders in different parts of your major downtown zones and give them unfettered access to hospitals, water and power pipelines or, god forbid, city dumps.

And then it hits me.

SimCity.

For those of you not in the know, SimCity is a widely popular video game where you take on the seemingly unsexy role of a city planner/authority figure/unelected mayor and try to develop your little patch of land into a thriving metropolis, complete with suburbs, office areas, parks, roads and industry while trying to meet the needs of your citizenry without too much crime, pollution and traffic jams. Like chess, the concept is easy to get, but will take years to master as you try to balance the needs of your people with want you can do. Around since the 1980s, it's a game that has helped launch the "God" gaming genre, where you are in total control, and has led to a zoo of other Sim titles, from SimEarth (run a planet) to SimAnt (run an ant colony) to The Sims (run...er, yourself).

So, I'm thinking that the makers of the SimCity series could cash on the whole "be ready" craze (or at least point out how futile it is to think we can minimize an attack) by creating a modified version (a.k.a. "mod") of SimCity to incorporate terrorism into the spate of disasters that can befall your city. In SimCity, players can find themselves coping with the aftermath of an earthquake or a leaky nuclear reactor or rioters, so why not the hell on earth of a dirty nuke?

I'm not saying terrorism is a game, although the makers of first-person shooter Counter-strike had no problem putting you in the shoes of a terrorist. Why not seriously give city officials a special version of SimCity to help them run scenarios of terrorist attacks? If the Army can get off licensing a first-person shooter that simulates you as a soldier, then the best we can do is make a portable engine of SimDestruction to get our town leaders ready for carnage.

Maybe there'll be a "WarGames" moment for the elected leaders. As in the 1983 Matthew Broderick movie, it became apparent that when NORAD's master computer was simulating nuclear war (inspired by real software that is used to run horrific "what-if" scenarios) that the only way to win this game was not to play. If a machine can piece that together, then possibly some elected official will too, and maybe we'll figure out a new, smarter way to win this war on terror.

Thoughts on the Experience Music Project

Things I observed from a recent visit to the music museum in Seattle

1) It's a great thing that it has venues for classes and live performers because the museum itself is as interesting and as organized as some obsessive rock fan's closet full of goodies. Note to museum founder Paul Allen: We get it that you really, really, really like Jimi Hendrix and we also agree he could play some smoking guitar. Side note: The museum is really damn small. I have no idea how this place is going to thrive or grow. They boxed themselves with Frank Gehry's metallic hemorrhoid structure...very little room to colonize for new space. It's not worth the $20 admission when you can chug through it in an hour. Contrast: It costs less to get into the Louvre, and you can spend the day in there and not be close to seeing it all. It's the Disneyland of art.

2) The museum's Tricorder-purse audio guide needs to be shrunk down and severely put on a diet. It's an unwieldy box that looks like a funky Geiger counter but is a pain in the ass if you are my mom (or any female) who was balancing a purse on one hip and the audio guide on the other, making any female look like a pack mule. I understand it's a remote connected to a fat Discman, but this is the age of MP3s. Make the tour files digital and don't make the device that you use to guide yourself through the exhibits look like a TV remote on steroids. Take a tip from the elegant tour wands from the Roman Bath tours in Bath, England or the slim and lighter self-tour devices from the Louvre or the Tate. Also, don't subject your patrons to "surprise" sound bursts when they pass into a new exhibit. It's startling and cheap, a techie's idea that you have to be inundated with sound when you enter a room, akin to "smart" houses designed by uber-techies that play riffs from their favorite songs as they go from room to room. Stop it. Stop trying to reinvent the whole concept of a museum, where people enter new exhibit in near-silence, gazing upwards to soak in the displayed items. Give them a moment to get their bearings, to feel the room, to see where the corners go, or wait for slower members of their party. Please see any major room in the British Museum for better illustration. Finally, employ people to be living, breathing tour guides. Don't rely on the self-guides all the time. Have people talk about certain special items or go for audience interaction by asking questions.

3) This isn't the museum's fault, but I caught sight of the Fattest Man in the World wearing a shirt spoofing a popular clothing brand saying "Grababoobie and Pinch,' and I'm thinking, "You, sir, are a pervert and physical assault is probably the only way you are ever going to get some action."

4) As a museum that's trying to be all cutting edge and hip, its music section in its gift shop is way poor. This is all very terrible, considering there's a Tower Records a block away. There’s not even a collection of "Live at EMP" when local bands or larger acts played the museum (It's not that hard and pricey to create on-the-spot CDs of live performances). You can get CDs of your own personal performances in the museum's DIY lab, but then again, you can get the same thing at the "Make Your Own CD" kiosk at the mall.

5) I wish DVDs of video collections by an artist would also carry the audio tracks of the songs on the DVD in a special pocket on the disk. I mean, a collection of videos is already a "greatest hits" beast to begin with, so how much sense would it make to press a straight-audio version onto a DVD?

6) This, like #3, doesn't apply to the EMP, but I saw this in the parking lot. You know how you see all those window decals with Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes taking a leak on some other rival product (a Chevy, another college, Islam, etc.)? Well, I have to ask, where is Hobbes in all this because the stuffed tiger would never little the precocious child Calvin be a urine vandal. For that matter, Calvin wouldn't let himself do it either. He's probably use his imagination to turn into a dinosaur, stomping his toy cars...or maybe use a snowball in some fashion. He would never get caught up in a stupid brand war. Stop it. Leave Calvin alone.

7) If this museum is so with it when it comes to music and music history, where's the exhibit about file sharing over the Internet?

Two devices that will make anyone a trillionaire

1) A TV remote that will let you know the plot up to now (including taking into account backstories and hidden in-jokes, incredibly valuables for newbies to The X-Files, Buffy or 24). The device can also allow you to zap at any character onscreen and tell you what else he or she has been in.

2) A device of some kind that will, once you have seen the movie (or agreed to see the movie when it comes out), never ever expose you to another ad for the movie, whether it be TV, radio, Web or whatever.

The next voice you hear

A couple weeks ago I auditioned to be a reader to the blind in my community, including reading books to tape or reading the local newspaper live over a radio signal. I went in and filled out all the paper work and read a selection of items for analysis. Stumbled over three words and got a little dry mouth here and there, but I was okay, I thought. I hadn't done broadcasting work since high school (and I wasn't that good at it back then either, come to think of it). Thursday, I got a call back from Linda, a very sweet lady who keeps the place running with my verdict.

The nicest thing she said was, "You sounded nervous." She offered to let me come back in and audition again, but I was already crestfallen. This may be a bit petty, but I don't wan to try again. I gave it my best and trying again would remind me how crappy I did the first time around. I'm sure it would drag down my performance. I was offered a position as an audio monitor, someone who would sit around listening to other people's reading for errors and such. Again this may be petty, but to me, that's a consolation prize, along with rubbing it in my face that I failed being a public speaker. I wish them luck, but I think my time is best spent writing letters for Amnesty International.

It's quiet. Too quiet

I've been noticed a slowdown in the postings on the diverse tiramisu of blogs I visit throughout the day. Some are toning down for the summer, but some, like me, are facing a kind if ennui about this, getting tried about having to post, like it's a chore...a duty to be fulfilled. Tom Tomorrow in his blog recently said it best about taking more time to contemplate than instantly slapping up text. (He put in a good riff on the absurdity of the self-regarded blog titan, Instapundit.) There's wisdom in Tom's words, and it's something I've been feeling growing in myself for a while: Blogs are starting to lose their luster, being the digitally amped-up attention junkies they are. You have to start reassessing where you want to put your time. I love this blog and all, but here's the pecking order of my life as it stands, ranked greatest to least.

1) Family and friends. Top of that list is my wife and cats
2) My creative stuff
3) My job (this is a distant third)
4) Household chores
5) My latest video game addiction (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic coming July 15)
6) This blog
7) Deleting pornspam from my email accounts
8) Watching American reality TV

So, there will be fewer postings here because I don't have the time or the attraction to keep this garden in shape. If it looks slothful that I don't have fresh content daily or hourly, well, that's my cross to bear, I suppose. Blogs are great, but they waste far too much time when you have a novel to write or a wife to admire.

That said, I want to leave this entry with a note about me having a running e-mail conversation with author Zoe Trope, who you may not know about now, but will in the fall, when her book "Please Don't Kill The Freshman" invades your local Corporate Bookstore. She is not even 17, and she has a book coming out. Very cool, I think, and it makes me want to get writing more myself.

I'm working on the novel, as always, but also been doing a lot of reading on graphic novels. If you are at all interested in getting into the genre, I heartily endorse this book, "Writers on Comics Scriptwriting" by Mark Salisbury. It's packed full of interviews with Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane, Frank Miller, Peter David and Garth Ennis, and if you don't know those names and are trying to get into the business, then you got some homework to do, chum.

Glass half full

I know swore off talking about current events on this blog, but you have to admit that the Supreme Court overturning the Texas sodomy law is absolutely glorious for two reasons. 1) It was an incredibly stupid law to begin with and 2) The ruling just makes all the homophobe talking heads and pundits out there just freak out, thus making them easier to spot as the pitiful, hateful, repressed dorks they really are.

I'm sure Mark Morford will have oodles to say about this tomorrow. Hit the link to the right to dose yourself on Mark's ever-kinetic and life-loving wordplay when the sun rises in your part of the globe tomorrow.

And, damn, but isn't it just a bit of crazy-karma-cool that the ruling came down mere days before many Gay Pride festivals are set to take place around the nation. Personally, I'm just your average straight breeder boi from the burbs, but there's such a sense of supernova joy about this one, an inkling that we finally may be turning a corner after three years of BushAmerica and 20+ years of religious right fearmongering and syndicated radio-based hatred and instead we're getting to accept one another without worrying about what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms.

Honestly, people...we have more important things to worry about. As for the shrieking "What shall we tell the children?" crowd, tell them this...it's all about love, honesty and respect. Once we nail those very basic concepts, life on our tiny planet will get a lot easier.

Mom

She's coming in tomorrow. Little updating will be done. Not that much writing will happen. Go outside and get some fresh air.

Speaking of writing

Came home last night after auditioning for this volunteer program to read books and newspaper articles to the blind (another entry altogether, let me tell you) to find my loving wife scrubbing the house clean. After a quick dinner of veggieburger and fries from the local non-global chain Burgertorium, we wrestled with dust cloths and vacuuming machines until the front room, guest bath, guest bedroom and entrance way was clean. Tonight, groceries and the rest of Chez Ryan will be rendered spotless.

But last night, before I got home, I stopped off at the aforementioned burger place, and got my order taken by maybe the funkiest cashier grrl in the world. Right there, I came up with another character for the novel, a very minor character that Patrick, one of the main characters, meets when he has to go to the grocery store for some reason I haven't honestly figured out yet.

On my receipt, I began jotting notes.

"Designer mods, acceptable level for corporate environments. Like flair in 'Office Space' or tattoos on today's employees as long as not visible through work shirt or extends below short/sleeve line. Sea green hair - straight - no visible roots, Roman nose, bee stung lips, cropped eyes to resemble Asian, tattooed-in black eyeliner, caucasian-basic face with bleached out skin, elf ears (boss probably allows this due to Tolkien/Spock fan). Mods approved by corporate head office. Perhaps differences allowed in acceptable situations. Body design is part of corporate branding, an expansion of the pretty young things that sell you clothes at GAP. Bosses hand out MDMA homebrews to employees to keep them loving and friendly smile-smile to the customers."

Song of the Day: "Layoun Lokdhor," by Toires.

Self loathing and other cheap hobbies

You wanna know what's worse than getting a verbal smackdown by your superiors about your ability to do your job? Getting a compliment that's meant for someone else.

Of course, I hate my job, and it hates me. But in the end, I get upset with myself that I have to have a copy editor amble over to me to go over such a rookie thing as not pruning out old data. It's embarrassing, it's kinda petty, and I wish it didn't bother me so. Personally, I thought I handled her comments with a cool Zen grace, absorbing the criticism without kissing the razors that were sandwiched in her words. But it got to me. I grumble and wish I was, I dunno, better and didn't make as many errors. Consoling yourself with the fact that most of the time you're clean and perfect isn't going to help because in cases like this, defending yourself reduces you to a whiny shell of a peon whose feeble protests won't stop your accuser from rolling right over you.

I hate my job because it's a million tiny petty things that you have to pay attention to, and it's draining all the energy that I reserve for more important life-affirming endeavors. Herding cats like this would be more fun if you loved the cats you were herding. To paraphrase the license plate holder, I'd rather be fretting over my creativity.

Very little writing done last night because my computer kept freaking out on me. I think it knows about my newfound lust for Apple's new G5, although I should just stick to the laptop. In all honesty, our computer is about three years old, and I imagine it is just a junkyard of fragmented files dragging down performance. If I had my way, I'd get my wife a nice compact Mac for her writing/music listening thing and I'd get my bad self a Powerbook. After all, all I need is a laptop. And proper spelling and grammar skills. And an attention span longer than a hummingbird. And about six extra hours in the day.

Song of the Day: "Teardrop," by Massive Attack.

P.S. Would the co-worker with the "Ride of the Valkyries" ring tone on his/her cell phone, the one that goes off every three minutes and is left to ring its whiny-tinny ring for a good 30 seconds at a spell, please flush the phone down the nearest toilet? Thanks. You're not Robert Duvall and this isn't "Apocalypse Now."

And the vowels consoled the consonants

Body count: Something like 1750 words.

I couldn't do the count last night. I mean, I did write a whole bunch, but the daily toll looked like the transcripts of a weasely liar under police interrgation, changing his story every few seconds to fend off his accusing questioners. Breaks in conversations, logical jumps, switching scenes. All very suspicious, if you ask me.

But it's not like headway wasn't made. Got some interesting hooks in place. And it's now Leonera as the name of one of the secondary characters. Flamea is her performing names. A lot of the underclass characters have second or third names for different reasons. Some criminal, some more noble and ambitious. Leonera/Flamea will play a major part in Rayelle's life, perhaps the most important rescuing Rayelle from certain doom in an early flashback and getting her into The Circus, Seattle's pre-eminent tent city.

I love Leonera. I think she'll make a wonderful figure, if I play her right.

With regard to the rest of my life, I'm going to be entering a phase of two weeks where my life won't be...well...mine. My mom's coming into town on Friday, and my work schedule has been bumped up a day for the July 4th holiday. All this means I have less than three days to do five days of work.

Cue "Run Lola Run" soundtrack and far too much Diet Pepsi.

Song of the Day: "Rock and a Hard Place," by Supreme Beings of Leisure. Way, way cool in a funky, "James Bond opening song" sort of vibe. You know, there ought to be an album of musicians doing either covers of James Bond theme songs or something inspired by Bond movies, because you know who would buy it? Yep, me!

Yet, something in the back of my mind tells me there was a Bond tribute album back in the mists of the 90s. I swear I heard about it, with Bjork of all people doing "Diamonds are Forever."

Yow. That would be playing on my iTunes at home until my hard drive melted.

Speaking of hard drives and iTunes, Apple announced their new line of G5 computers coming in late summer. I will say this about Apple, they make computers that are outrageous expensive (or completely dead-end like the Cube), but they make them so crazycool that I just...have...to...have...one. It'll be a waste, since I'll just be doing writing and music on it, but man would it look so luscious, the sleepy chrome finish on a digital tower of Babel, as silent as an angel, as gorgeous as any object of lust should be.

Bits and Pieces, Fits and Starts

Body count: 1410 words.

It's not all written in a linear order, more like a paragraph here and a line of dialogue there. Equal parts joyous and terrifying. Deep in the text, I can see passages knitting themselves together, scenes growing and shrinking, the corners of this literary Polaroid coming into sharp resolution from the putty-gray fog that once covered the landscape.

Have a character coming to life named Flamrea. I know, I'm not keen on the name either. Thinking Leonera or something less showy and more gender-blending. But hey, forward motion made.

I'm working on things from a "Rayelle" standpoint. She's the gutter rat main character that starts out screaming to rock bottom. I'm thinking I should be working on "Patrick" more, the other main character who has it all, and then has to run for his life.

Much work ahead. I'm not too keen on the piecemeal approach, but it's getting words on to the ethereal screen. Went out looking for a Superdisk this weekend to store all my notes on. A Superdisk, for you non-techies out there, was this storage innovation that, although it looks like a normal 3.5" disk, had enough space for something like 80 3.5" disks. Of course, they don't make them (or at least have them in stock) anymore, with the advent of burnable CD drives in your average new PC. Still, I'm stuck a couple notches down the computer evolutionary scale, so I'm riding with the hip-to-be-square diskettes, and not the space-age shiny-shiny compact disks.

I know, not exactly a war refugee's tale, but I need something sturdy to place my notes on. In the end, a CD-R would be the best, most durable medium, but I'm kinda tapped for cash at this moment.

Which reminds me.

I owe the charity of my choice $20. Bought the new Supreme Beings of Leisure over the weekend.

Song of the Day: "Scent of the Day," by Dragon Chai.

Today's Word: Loft

From One Word

A nest for artists to hide themselves in to cultivate their masterpiece or throw wine bottles at their muses, who left them an hour ago to take up residence in a penthouse suite. Better views, and it doesn't always smell like pot noodles or desperation.

Body Count

860 words.

Last night, at about 11 p.m., after we turned off the lights, my lovely wife rolls over in bed and asks me in the gentle darkness, "So, wanna crash a Harry Potter book sale at midnight?"

And I'm left with that horrible point in every marriage when your spouse has gone insane. But it's okay considering my minor freakout last night seeing some of my story ideas in Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake," and how my Potter-mad wife talked me off another nearby ledge.

To do this weekend

Pilates
Write another 500 words, at least
Check wife's mental status
Burn CDs for Heather and Cori

Just asking

With the explosion of blogs on the Web, and the emergence of premiere blogger celebrities (bringing you all the latest news, gossip and partisan political bomb-throwing), it makes me wonder when these amateur sleuths and journalistas are gonna get tagged with a slander lawsuit. I've seen some pretty incendiary things on different islands in the blogosphere, and (Michael Savage's idiotic thin-skinned litigation, notwithstanding) I'm just curious when the blogs are going to come of age and join newspapers, radio and television in rules governing what you can't legally get away with under the guise of free speech.

Namely, when is someone major like Instapundit or Atrios going to get dragged into court for something they posted?

Today's Word: Sparkle

From One Word

Superficial club paint...body stars to make yourself shine when the lights pass over you. You are a constellation of one, a heavenly body, rolling in the denizens' peripheral visions like a goddess in the nightclub

Deep End of the Emotion

It's not my best. I regretted it the moment I posted it. Not too proud of myself today. Blah.

Awoke at 5 a.m. on the boomerang snap-back of a bad dream involving shadowy figures hunting me and then segued right into a panic attack about my novel's ending, again raking myself over the coals for thinking that it wasn't original enough. It's like the Kevin Bacon game inside my head, I can eventually track any idea I come up with to something else. I become a purveyor of used intellectual property, a literary Dumpster diver.

And then my little freak-out in the late morning when I discovered that a word I was so proud of creating exists in Googlespace. There's a part of me that demands I create new words (you know, be the next inventor of the next "cyberspace"), and if I can't I don't deserve to be walking around. Yeah, my pressure on myself is that severe.

And it's all crippling, or it tries to be, forcing me to not write this, posting hurdles in front of me. If I can't be creative, I shouldn't do anything. If a word comes up that's not "mine," I'm worthless. Spiral down. Hide in the caves of my self esteem. Fun for everyone in my house.

My wife has stepped up to say, just write it, and, slapped into my senses, I'm struggling upwards again, as you do when you are deep underwater. The light from above is this shimmering disc with wavy concentric circles abounding with sleepy curves. You struggle to go up and up, swallow the air to last in your lungs just a while longer. Your arms and legs ache for fresh air and you can only hope you time it right to break through the surface, face baptized in the cool air, water flicking off you in droplettes as you crane your head back to suck in bucketfuls of oxygen.

And then when you do get air...when you are out of the underwater cave, your limbs turn to lead. You're weak and tired and exhausted from the stressors you put yourself under. You can't believe how many times you put yourself under like that. You think the pain in your arms and the regret in your heart, burning with like beads of molten glass that run down your throat....damnit, you'd think you'd know better.

But then be grateful. You're back in action. You're not the Incredible Sulk anymore.

P.S. I'm developing an aggressive allergy to hype these days. Currently, I have a Type 4 reaction to all things Harry Potter, and a Type 2 to The Hulk. I expect it to replaced next week with a medium-grade infection to the newly discovered strain "Charlicus Angelicus Sequelitis."

P.P.S. Song of the Day: "Into Your Arms," by Nick Cave. In the immortal words of Scott Bateman, it rocks all sorts of ass, yo.

Today's Word: Generation

From One Word

Nostalgia and disappointment, past and future. Depends who you talk to.

1461

Today is the fourth wedding anniversary of my wife and I. Precious little writing shall be done today to make way for the celebratory acts that must take place on such an auspicious occasion.

However, I am working on an essay about music piracy in my spare time at work. In case you didn't hear about Sen. Orrin Hatch's little tirade a few days ago, he suggested that anyone who downloads pirated Web music ought to have their computers destroyed by some technological means.

I won't get into the violent asburdities of Sen. Hatch's alleged mental clockworks, but I'm thinking long and hard about this. There has to be a solution to music piracy. I like Apple's Music Store, but it, as a solution to a problem that's been brewing for years, only goes so far. Long story short: It's going to take a massive change on the part of everyone (consumers, corporations, artists) regarding how we view the sales of music.

If you're interested in the essay, let me know. I'm trying to live up to my vow of "all my fiction, all the time" on this blog...so, no posted essay for you.

And to my wife, I love you so much. I'm glad you married me and, most importantly, not smothered me in my snoring slumber. Yet.

On Edit

Yet another cool Internet error message.

400 Bad Request
Your request has bad syntax or is inherently impossible to satisfy.

So there.

Today's Word: Spin

From One Word

The turning of a world, the turning of a lie. Physics and emotions, both intersecting as we go about our own agendas. There is no such thing as a selfless act, she told me once. Everything is crafted for your gain, whether you mean it to or not.

Organic billboards reloaded

I would be remiss, in a “dirty old man” kind of way, if I didn't mention the mostly topless woman who showed off her assets at the recent U.S. Open to get some exposure for a certain Web casino, the name of which was scrawled on her torso.

You can find the story yourself. Just tool around with Google, and you'll stumble over it I'm sure.

So what?


My wife hugged me yesterday and asked in a very sweet voice, "So, what makes your new blog different from your old one?"

"It's about me writing."

"Well, I see an essay. I see you linking to another article. You said you went going to do that anymore," she said.

And like an expert chess player, she nails me in a bare minimum of moves.

She's right in all sorts of ways. She can see what I do like footprints in fresh snow. I said I was going to talk about writing more in on this new blog. I'd drop all the ranting, all the hit-and-run linking of stories that plagued my first blog.

I told her that I would regret the linking of the "organic billboard" story in the morning. Something in it just spoke to me, though...something neo-Dickensian, and I'm very much in a neo-Dickensian state of mind as of late. That, and thanks to the virtual seas of "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker," I feel myself swaying as if I'm on a boat rolling up and down in the waves.

So what. Or, so what now?

My wife is reading "On Writing" by Stephen King, a book I steal glances at while my wife is in the bathroom or doing something artsy-crafty, like making a quilt for a friend. The book is a part-memoir, part-writing guide and it's equal parts insightful and the boasts of a self-aggrandizing asshole. My wife reads aloud from King's tome that a first draft of any book should take three months. That's it.

And then my wife pipes up that Donna Tartt took 10 years to write her follow-up novel. Ironically, King recommends Tartt's decade-long ordeal in the back of his book, so either he values the hard work she put into it, or he's talking out of his ass. With King, I don't know, so I'll say both.

As a side note, I enjoy when my wife pops in a good riff on something an author wrote, especially if there's a snarky commentary packed in there somewhere, springing open like a menacing jester from a overwound jack-in-the-box.

What gets me about King is a comment (that my wife relays) he makes, something like "a thousand pages about Hobbits isn't enough." An obvious crack at Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," which took Tolkien 10 years to write, brewed up from source material he'd been studying and writing up in some form his whole life. Definitely not a three-month binge at the ol' workdesk.

But here's King, a guy who wrote a thousand-page tome about a plague, the end of the world, and the survivors...and he has the gall to take on "The Lord of the Rings"?

And it's not like King is anorexic with his books after "The Stand." Oh heavens no. Drop by your local bookshop and glance at King's hardcovers, the size of dictionaries. Granted, the guy can turn out a lot of books of sizable length, but there are vast wastelands in King novels that just drag. At least in Tolkien's epic, you meet the Ents and Gollum, witness the siege at Helm's Deep, watch Gandalf smack Saruman off his evil pedestal, enjoy the friendly barbs and an evolving kinship between polar opposites Legolas the elf and Gimli the dwarf. There's the ring's oily corruption spreading over Frodo, and Sam faced with a terrible choice in the caves of Shelob. Something's always happening in Middle-earth. Kick over any rock and there's history under there...the site of a terrible battle or the outskirts of some dreadful swamp where the dead glow with sickly little lights. In King's world...well, it's marking time for the Big Ugly to rear its head in Final Boss Battle form, picking off main and subcharacters until the Precious Magical Device/Personality Quirk established midway through Act 1 is used for its proper, divine purpose.

(On edit: "The Lord of the Rings" also does this, if you think about it, but you know...that's the whole point of the story. It's a quest. It's all laid out what's supposed to done to the Precious Magical Device. How it's done is hidden in shadow, with the ring nearly its own character. King, IMHO, practically holds up billboards with objects or quirks, telling the reader "THIS WILL BE USEFUL LATER!")

King also says people want a good read to take with them on airplanes. Um. No, Stephen. Don't go blaming the invention of airplanes for what you write. I want a story, densely packed, fine with nuisance, telling me something I didn't know before whether it be good or foul. I don't want a distraction on a mid-morning arc from Seattle to Chicago. I want a slice of a writer's soul. something crafty and honest and hearffelt. King's great in novella or short story form, and I'm grateful he survived his horrible accident with a van a few years ago, as well as his torrent of alcoholism and drug abuse.

Yet, I get more advice on how to write from Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" or by (what King even suggests) Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style," along with taking it upon myself to be an avid reader. His book, in the brief sideswipes I make of it is a well-crafted but ornery dissertation (occasionally repetitive and self defeating) on how to write and what it is to be a writer. Or, better yet, what it's like to be Stephen King (in the beginning, it sounded like really shitty work). Stephen King's a great airplane read, I guess (if that's what you really want to aspire to becoming), but I would love to hear tips on writing from, say, Chuck Palahniuk, whose forthcoming "Diary" pulls off what Stephen King does but with only a visceral third of the page count.

Either way, I felt a strange pull with "On Writing," and then realized that my blog was nothing more than a real-time version of King's book, which spelunks deep into the grind of writing, a grind I found a bit self-indulgent and whiny when I could finish a paragraph and look over my shoulder to survey the terrian.

So what?

Thanks to Mr. King and my far lovelier wife, I have to (again) figure out what I'm doing with my blog. In my heart I know I have been pussyfooting with the text here. I should stop whining about time and distractions and give you all a brief update on the magic going on behind the curtain. I'm sorry.

Another vow

No links.
No goofy pictures.
No politics.
No whining.
No more rants/essays/ramblings (as above).
Just writing, from me or One Word or updates.

But before the vault door closes

I do have to mention this Internet error message I got today, if just for its inherent, fortune-cookie philosophy.

You have requested data that the server has decided not to provide to you. Your request was understood and denied.

I'm gonna be thinking about that one all day.

What I'm working on

Three novels. One nonfiction book. Three graphic novels (including one ongoing piece). At least six short stories.

That's off the top of my head. I'm sure I'll come up with more when I decide to go back through my journals.

So, I guess I better get going.

I'm going to sign up for this "how-to" graphic novel program that's touring in and around Seattle. It's making a stop at my local library, so, there you go. Ought to be quite interesting, since I can't draw a stick figure. Whatever. Got ideas all over the place. At the very least, I'm hoping to take away the knowledge on how to write a graphic novel script and/or know how to talk to my future artists about what I want to get across.

Ugh. Getting sick of work draining all my energy. Worn out. Don't want to write, even though I feel better for it afterward. Keep moving, Marine. Started a Pilates program and my stomach and sides feel as if someone's been beating me with a baseball bat. Hurts to breathe if I inhale for anything longer than a five count, stinging for the sweet release of the long merciful exhale. The pain fades, and I imagine this is what it's like to die...as the pain receptors die off and the brain begins it's long, slow fade out. Probably feels like a gentle caress by unknown hands when it happens. Unless it's preceded by a grand mal seizure or a major coronary, of course.

Body Count: Over 200. Some forward motion has been achieved.

Useless note: It's been 22 hours since I last played "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker." Mark of improvement.

Today's Word: Hill

From One Word.

I grew up in the flat Midwest. The closest we ever got to elevated plains came one of two ways: on-ramps from the nearby interstate and when the town snow plow would streak by at 3 a.m., sculpting an instant mound of packed white snow. The street turned into a canyon, walls on either side to climb and sled down.

Organic billboards

Instead of going Dumpster-diving for maybe a half-eaten sandwich and some cold fries, Peter Schoeff, a 20-year-old homeless man, was served a slice of hot pizza dripping with cheese.

All he had to do was hold a sign for about 40 minutes that read: "Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money."

In a tactic that calls to the mind the hiring of unemployed men during the Depression to wear sandwich-board advertisements, a Portland pizza chain has hired homeless people off the street to promote the product. They are paid in pizza, soda and a few dollars.

"I think it's a fair trade," Schoeff said. "We're career panhandlers, that's the only other way we can get money."

The signs were meant to be humorous, said Andre Jehan, founder of Pizza Schmizza, a 26-restaurant business in Oregon and Washington.

"People don't have to feel guilty, while still appreciating the person is homeless. It's a gesture of kindness more than anything," he said.


Story here.

Read through it. The story is really about "ad clutter," not helping the homeless population in Oregon. Cheap labor, indeed.

Words I wish I'd invented

Part of an ongoing series.

Militainment: noun. 1) The practice of covering military actions in a way that are more like entertainment than news. 2) The blending of the entertainment industry with the military to create a genre of television shows with a heavy accent (including 'reality' programming, as well) on soldiers, the world of the soldier and/or combat activities.

Weaksauce: adjective. A generally unflattering term, mostly casting a negative light on a person's skills or an activity. Example: "You better not bring your weaksauce moves against me in deathmatch because I'll end up owning your ass with my plasma rifle."

Not enough, too much

Nothing new written. Body count still at 144. Currently, I'm absorbed in the epic quest of "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker." Lousy virtual world, all addictive yet fruitless in the end. It's a distraction on top of a bunch of others, pulling me away from the fragile strains that tie me down to my chair in front of my computer to write. I'm amazing at coming to find a distraction to keep me from writing. Currently, it's the video game, but I've taken to convincing myself that I love to wash dishes. Our dishwasher has gone south, and my wife and I have no choice (until we break down and buy a new dishwasher) to revert back to the 1960s when the whirring squat beasts weren't as popular in homes. And, along the way, I've found some kind of Zen calm in the humbling process of washing and drying dishes by hand...the meticulous care with the brush, the sponge and the dishtowel, the balance of water and soap, the sense of accomplishment to shoving your hands in hot, soapy water and rubbing stains off plates and cups At the end, all the clean dishes stacked in the cupboard. A clean sink. Hands pruning and slightly stinging from the hot, sudsing lagoon you drowned your cutlery and dishes in. A more holy man would call it a baptism. Born-again china. Knifes and forks saved from the damnation of eternal peanut butter and pasta sauce stains.

Back up a second. I do write, but it's at work when I'm indirectly warmed up during my data-entry job and it's in fragments...small, inspired pieces of orphan fiction that make some sort of sense, or will one day when I find it a good home. To me, writing these small islands of fiction is the opposite of what the French call "l'esprit d'escalier," where you think of the witty comeback when it's far too late to use them. In my case, I'm going to have this descriptions, these bits of dialogue, or whole plots just sitting around at the Big Dance, waiting for a proper suitor to ask them for this waltz.

The thing is, I have bits and pieces for the novel, but I'm only adjusting the body count when I make forward motion on the novel, starting from the beginning, or when I get the point where I can take on of those pieces and find it a good home. Tomorrow, I'm writing. I need to go through one of my scraps of paper I bring home from work, tattooed with ink stains in the form of ideas. I need to get Rayelle running for her life again.

Speaking of Rayelle (or main characters, in general), I'm planning on writing the novel based on the first-half format of Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath": However, instead of switching back and forth every chapter between the Joads' travels and the third-person narratives, I'm going to have Rayelle take the first chapter, Patrick (the other main character) the second, then back to Rayelle for chapter three...and so on. The whole idea is going to have their exploits playing as a mirror to each other: One who is one her way "up" (socially and economically speaking) and the other on his way down. There's a temptation to place them in the same sort of situation, only to have them view it through their own attitude-prism, but I can't see it happening through the whole novel. Too tedious of a trick, I figure. Could turn into a gimmick if done wrong. It's on my mind, though...how to make their viewpoints compare and contrast...one belonging to a piece of gutter trash, the other to one of the most prized corporate possessions in future Seattle.

Again, so many ideas, so many distractions.

Vow

Seeing my collection of CDs, DVDs and books stacked in ordered rows about my house, I'm starting to feel a bit...I dunno...unseemly. I used to be a lot more active in Amnesty International when I was in college...back when, you know, I didn't have the money to buy music or video games, lusting after pre-release dates on gaming Web sites, groaning audibly when "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" would be pushed back again.

Yesterday, I picked up a copy of "Dark City" on DVD, an unbelievably gorgeous and enthralling piece of sci-fi, if you haven't seen it yet. To me, it's the thinking person's "Matrix," and yet it came out a year before the Keanu Reeves too-stylin'-to-make-sense actionner. Watch "Dark City" and check out all the themes that in the film that everyone only picked up on when Carrie-Anne Moss showed up a year later in a skin-tight PVC catsuit. From the lead character emerging wet and naked in a strange world to a frantic phone call by a mysterious guide/father figure to the final reality-bending fight between the psychically charged hero and the lead overseer, it's all there. And yet. "Dark City" went unnoticed while "The Matrix" inspires college courses. It's a crime.

Well, okay...right there. I'm going on about a movie. About $16 invested in a DVD. I've been hunting for this film for a while now, even since I got some extra money in my pocket, space on my shelf and a DVD player looking for fresh bits to scan and play at my whim. And I think to myself, "Well, this is all good...but."

But. But I should do something else. I'm becoming surrounded by distractions…toys and games that go blip and bloop and will be obsolete by 2005 when the next-next generation game systems come out. I'll watch "Dark City" maybe once a year. I have it as a trophy for friends to notice.

"Oh man, I forgot about that movie. That film rocked...like when that creepy kid bit into the guy's hand as he was hanging a million feet off the ground."

It's time to give this all up. Granted, I'm not going to the WWJD thing and toss out all my stuff. No, like all Americans, I'm trying to have my gear and be karmically balanced. Or something. Reverberations of Catholic guilt in my soul saying to do something more useful. Stop pining for a Playstation 2. Do something better with your life.

And as an American, that means: Give money to someone you don't know. Give it to some organization to do something you want to do, but don't have the courage or skills to make it happen. You think it's enough to send a check. Let them figure it out. After all, you grew up in the proxy wars played out by two superpowers with conflicting ideologues, but big checkbooks. They gave cash to smaller, hungrier countries that would carry a flag for their benefactors. It's a war that's not a war. The superpowers play real-time Risk in Latin America or Central Asia, but don't get their own hands bloody. No sirree.

And you think the same thing. You write a check. You put said check in a postage-paid envelope, and you send your cash feed into some little morality army trying to free political prisoners, save some endangered species or stop some godawful disease that your tax dollars going to your government could stop except the walking dead in the country the disease is in are unlucky enough to not have any oil under their feet.

But you feel good. Somehow. For this moment, you chipped an Unselfish stone off your soul statue. You feel more pure, dosed on a Jesus-bliss for saving a little, tiny bit of the world (although you turn your head to the obnoxious fact your donation can't begin to pay for the carnage done with your tax dollars by your oil-hungry, power-mad government). You feel.... like you can see beyond the whole consumerism meme. You've beaten the system this once, and you are just one step closer understanding this whole "global village" idea that seems to have been crushed and thrown aside in the lockstep to a cable-news war. You did this because it felt right, not because you were told to. Feeling compassion for people in other parts of the world is a revolutionary act these days. We're supposed to be scared, supposed to be locked in our shells because of people across the sea who are trying to kill us. Sending a check and a note of support on behalf of a democracy activist in Beijing is the closest you'll get to affect foreign policy. You marched in peace protests and called your senators about Iraq, and whiz-boom look at the rockets fly over Basra. So, here you go. Make your plan to save the world one check, one letter at a time. Maybe you alone won't save a village, but Oxfam could use your help. So can the folks that work to ban landmines.

From here on in, whatever I spent on music, DVDs or games, I'm giving the equal amount to charity. Whatever games or CDs I sell back, the money goes to charity. I can't go through life buying something and not giving something back somehow. It's probably going about it all going, but my energy is in the right place. The money has to do some good. After all, I feel better when I finally do something charitable compared to when I buy something. That positive energy has to go somewhere.

Maybe Lennon was right. All we really need is love.

And "Dark City." It is a superb flick.

Today's Word: Basket

From One Word

Cradle the world in your hands. Take the belongings of a million years with you, past the ghosts that haunt you, past the expectations of generations, and deep into a secret place where the wind is quiet. No words come to you, but your own. You aren't commanded; you aren't forced. World in a box.

Lo-fi immortality



So this is what it comes to.

So much beauty and grace that, like a candle lit too long, she burned out and vanished from our sight, reduced to smoke, filtering into the unattainable elements in the air. We do our best to breathe in the particles, trying in vain to capture, in some crude way, what once was, what we remember, the curve of her neck as she danced and sang in a Parisian jazz club, the Holly Golightly glasses, the gutter trash dressed up to be monochromic society angel at the racetrack. And in the end, with this merger offering, we still fail, as we fail everyday to try to replicate her, that willow who was a gentle humanitarian, that gossamer human who floated across putty gray screens 30 feet high, which barely contained her poise and charisma as is. How can a stamp, this insignificant refuse of a portrait, do any justice?

Today's Word: Floor

From One Word

The favorite resting place of dead bodies in noir stories.

Literary minefields do not appear on the map

Story here. Snip below.

"The Da Vinci Code," a thriller by a relatively unknown author, is the top-selling novel in the country.

It has boosted the profile of author Dan Brown -- and it has brought him his first literary challenge.

Author Lewis Perdue says that Brown's story, which explores codes hidden in Leonardo da Vinci's artwork and a closely guarded secret involving the Roman Catholic Church, has similarities to Perdue's "Daughter of God," published in 2000.

Last week, Perdue sent a letter to Doubleday, Brown's publisher. While religious themes, secrets and conspiracies aren't newcomers to popular fiction, Perdue said he was seeing too many of his own ideas in "The Da Vinci Code," Brown's fourth novel.


While my wife would tell me that there is nothing new under the sun, this is something that just has to give authors everywhere a case of the heebie-jeebies. You write a book that's a critical and public success. You get some good buzz, appear on Charlie Rose or get an article on you in one of the mainstream news magazines...who knows, maybe there's a movie deal in the works and Brad Pitt's in talks to be the lead. (Don't laugh, just ask Chuck Palahniuk)

And then, poof...something comes up from the ocean floor. Another writer says that your novel sounds like his. You shrug and swear you never heard of the guy, you never read his book. You get antsy as everyone begins to look at you, thinking you pulled the literary version of a smash-and-grab, taking something that never belonged to you and claiming it as your own.

But...but, you stammer...you have the rough drafts to prove you came up with the idea. You had it all along. See, in the second draft, page 183, second graph...all there, some Deux Ex Machina you came up with to resolve some puzzle or to set the stage for a mid-story twist.

And you can hold your own for a couple coincidences. You're fast and sharp, clever enough to work people's good nature. When you are a success, people like you, and they'll cut you a little bit of a break. "Besides," someone will joke with you over drinks at some publishing party, "it's not like sci-fi writers had to stop writing about aliens and space travel after 'Star Trek', right?"

But you wonder...maybe you didn't read the book you're accused of ripping off...maybe your girlfriend did. Maybe your research assistant did? Maybe you heard of it at another party, or through word of mouth in your publisher's office. Maybe, in the course of research, you stumbled across a synopsis of it and absorbed it?

And then you panic, wondering how much you've been corrupted by other people's writings? Do you have any other plagiarism bombs sitting in your gray matter, waiting to go off the next time you get in a jam? Deep breath time. As a kid, you were told to read other people's works in order to be a great writer...see how it was done. Get a feel for language. Little did you know, your mind was absorbing dialogue and plot points, conflicts and resolutions, themes and tricks. Now, you can't purge it and your publisher is nudging you on the shoulder to get writing on your next book. Will you repeat the same mistakes? "What's the next one about?" the talk show host with impossible hair asks you, and you check yourself, trying not to say something that sounds like someone else's work.

And then you're screwed, because you have to come up with something groundbreaking for the next book. Otherwise, everyone thinks you are a rip-off. So, into the breach you go, hoping your skill is faster than the shadows chasing you. On the other side is either ruin, or a better book.

Your move.

Colored pegs

Body Count: 144 words

Started the opening graphs last night. I put away my notes and scraps and shot some words onto the screen. Mostly spelled right. A plus.

I know this is how and where I want to begin it, but I admit I was let down just a bit. I expected the first words to be a thunderclap of Zeusian proportions. Where's the almighty choir? Where's the ecstatic cackle in my throat as I scream into the unknown, painting images with words and making the first character appear, running for her life. I expected something seismic, and now that I didn't feel it I wonder if those were the right words. It's like that game with the colored pegs and the rows. You put different pegs in the holes and the opponent (who has a different set of colored pegs hidden in secret) tells you cryptically that you have either the right colors out there and/or the right colors in the right spots and/or the wrong ones out there altogether.

A more criminal analogy: I'm picking a lock, I can feel the tumblers sorta twist with my bent wire, but they aren't all clicking into place. There's no groove there, no magical 'a-ha' where I feel like I'm on the right track. I have the pegs out and they're all jumbled up.

Well, hey, this is the first draft, the draft Anne Lamott called the "write down" draft, as in "write it down, and not care about what it is." Gentlemen, prepare to enter the breach.

Second qualm: Now that I have start, I have the scary-vague notion about knowing where to go, but not knowing how to get there gracefully. Imagine having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night at a friend's house. You sorta know where the bathroom is, but you're all turned around and you have to go and you don't want to make the wrong turn, being forced to whiz in the potted ficus in the corner.

Okay, so I'm not ready to urinate on plant life, but I'm just queasy about trying to write and not looking like a best seller on the first try. Must not panic. Must write.

Minor music note: The new Radiohead is pretty darn nifty. It's not "OK Computer," but it's more accessible than "Kid A" and "Amnesiac." It's more textured, more fierce than "Kid A" and "Amnesiac," and it makes an ideal soundtrack to anyone making a film or writing a novel about the collapse of civilization. Plus, I picked up my copy for free in exchange for helping a friend pick up some furniture.

Minor TV Justice note: My wife is ironing her clothes for work in the other room. She mentioned Court TV (a cable channel dedicated to all things legal) is going to have a special all about the Laci Peterson case. Remember, the case hasn't gone to trial yet, and as a result, a jury has not been seated. Meanwhile, this tempest of news and speculation and "expert" talking heads going non-stop on American cable news networks has to be just poisoning the jury pool. Mark my words: One day, some accused felon is going to walk free due to some crafty lawyer making the defense that his/her client can't get a fair trial anywhere because of the intense media spotlight.

Today's Word: Yoga

From One Word

The ability to bend the body and mind in ways to show you, yes you, don't have to be so damn rigid. A little focus, a little breathing and you can achieve strength and tone without being a gym bunny, without sticking a finger down your throat.

Today's Word: Stale

From One Word.

A thousand year-old thoughts, a million year-old movie sequels, vintage clothes passed off as retro-chic, a downward spiral of nostalgia feeding upon itself in fashion, video games, mass entertainment and relationships. There's a need to invent new words, even new ways to move the body and mind, to keep a kind of stale corrosion of self-satisfaction, from corrupting us and making whatever we do and say sound and smell like fossilized dust.

Raison d'etre

Hi. Welcome.

This ever-changing blog is a Web window into the development of my writing process, most notably my novel, "Babylon By Twilight". Creating anything is regarded as a journey, so consider this a travelogue. Note: Objects will constantly shift while this vehicle is in motion. Please check back regularly.

A few questions to clear up confusion

Why did you abandon your old site?

I didn't know it then, when I started my old site about a year ago, but something recently happened where I couldn't just keep going on my old site. It's been a hodgepodge of different tools for me, from personal opinion, to political rants, to various junk-drawer text I'd throw up there. It never had a focus, a unifying theme. Granted, you can say that about blogs in general, them being reservoirs for thoughts and not having to have some theme of reason to them.

But I wanted to make a break, start something fresh that will focus on my writings. I decided to cut the Gordian Knot rather than figure a way around the loops and coils. Also, starting with a new blog gives me more of a new palate to paint on. When you start from scratch, you get a chance to try again without making the same mistakes all over again. Somehow, strangely, I feel less burdened, as if a weight is off my chest, sins have been absolved. I'm born again.

And as far as "abandoned" goes, the old site has not been kicked to the curb to rot. It's merely frozen until I figure out what to do with it.

Who is John Ryan?

He is me. Howdy.

What's the purpose of this site?

I'm writing about my writing. I'm going to let you know how I'm progressing with my short stories and my novel. I'll probably bitch a lot about not having enough time to write, or how all the good ideas are taken. Bear with me. I'll eventually post snippets of fiction (something I promised and occasionally delivered on at my old site) and I'll try to make my entries at One Word more of real feature here.

Hey, I noticed you changed some of the links compared to your old site

Yep. You're pretty sharp. You should be looking for WMD in Iraq.

What are you reading now?

Now, I'm reading "The Wicker Man" by Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer. Have recently read "Diary" by Chuck Palahniuk and "Please Don't Kill the Freshman" by Zoe Trope.

How do you write?

With my fingers. With my toes, when properly challenged.

Where do you get your ideas from?

I have a sweatshop in Honduras working 24/7. They send the day's results by UPS Worldwide. I get them at my door about 8 a.m. the next day.

Seriously, where I get them from is a mystery. Some are strong ideas that set up shop and become something. Some hit and slide off the back wall of my brain like badly cooked pasta. I have about seven journals stuffed full of ideas and literally hundreds of pieces of paper on which I scribbled something of note. Whenever I get down on myself for not being able to be creative, I rummage through those.

How often will you post?

When I can.

Wait. I have some more questions.

Good. Put them in the comment section below.