Why Don't You Write Me
(27 May - 5 June 2001)
5
June 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Been reading up some more of late on
Doug
Hopkins. It's a depressing
experience, but then again, following most of my favorite
songwriters is. If anyone's
wondering why I don't drink, this man's life has as much to do
with it as any of the other little
factors.
-Tell me my novel isn't falling into the trap of
taking longer than it can afford
to. It's my consistent theme in longer works, to make them
too long. Here I may be
going again. I just don't have time to go over 300 pages, do
I?
-What IS a
"parking page",
anyway? I know that this
is partially my responsibility, finding an alternative to this,
but Schteino needs to get back
to me.
4
June 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Happy Birthday Madeline!
-My Dad's
right: Life is
fraught.
-Well, yesterday I actually
cracked the 4-page barrier (it's like breaking the sound barrier
or something!), turning in
about 3,000 words in the 24 hours. Maybe I'm picking up the
pace. Either way, I've
certainly heard a lot of kind words egging me on of late, which is
always neat. Good to
know that other people believe in me more than I do.
-The
Mariners, in case you haven't been
paying attention, are off to the 3rd-best start in MAJOR LEAGUE
HISTORY! If nothing else
were going well, methinks that would be keeping me
afloat. Who doesn't like icing?
-I'm not big on dividing
the world into 2 kinds of people, but I must admit that I'm sorely
tempted here. Those who have never been in love just don't
seem to manage to understand
the way that those who have will act or think from time to
time. It would hold vice versa,
except everyone who has been in love remembers a time before they
had been, & thus can reach
out to those folks' perspective. Just an
observation.
-16k.
-Wouldn't that silence
Russ if the M's won 120 games this year?!
-Well, will you look
at that... FFI went
& got
itself a website! Too bad that 1998, not '97, is the first
year they really have
chronicled, so my exploits with funny hats & the 2307 crew are
not on display. But it
would seem Pesola & his cronies are still at it. Besides,
good ol' Friar Tuck is still
there!
3
June 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-I'm ready for this headache to be
gone... how 'bout you?!
-Talking
to JP for 5 hours in the Frontier last night was great, even
though conclusions were scant &
depressing when present. It really is too bad that one can't
meet lots of girls on the
hiking trails of Nuevo Mexico, that'd really beat bars or or any
other locales we could come up
with. I swear I'm not gonna be able to hear the word
"connoisseur" without
cracking up for a while, though.
2
June 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-I'm not too pleased at the moment, after
spending more or less 16 hours
out of commission with a migraine/naseua. Joy to the
world. Not only did this briefly
derail the novel (now over 10k), it just augmented feelings of
minor to no productivity.
The last of these things is earnestly silly... I just made
(2 days ago) probably the best
tape I've ever recorded & that's something. & for
the love of the baby, it's my
last "real" summer in some ways. & I'm still
on pace for about 70k words,
which is a lot, last time I
checked.
-Must... get... coffee...
-Well, I just had perhaps
the most grueling movie-watching experience since "The
Talented Mr. Ripley". "Moulin Rouge" isn't
quite as good as the prior film,
but carries with it enough of the weight (for different reasons
entirely) that made the former
so tough. There's a couple of slight plot alterations they
could've made to "MR"
that would have made it perfectly brilliant & devastating; I'm
not sure if I'm thankful or
upset that those weren't there. It sat on the line too much
of the time to allow me to
sit comfortably. The movie is recommended, though the preview
of "Original Sin"
is not, especially followed by the preview of "American
Sweethearts". At this
point, I'm being so obscure & cryptic that probably no one is
following me, but trust me, if
you see those 2 previews in a row right before "Moulin
Rouge", you'll be right there
with me.
1
June 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Hey June, don't make it bad...
31 May 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-I feel a little behind, after spending
the better part of today discussing
stuff with my Dad. Mostly just stuff about his potential web
project. I still have
written within the past 24 hours, but I really wanna catch up on
e-mail sometime too. Shucks.
I haven't even gotten to Part One yet; I'm still in the
Prologue.
-I must concur wholeheartedly with Lisha's reaction to
our unfortunate city's vote on the
baseball bond issue. Just when you thought it was safe to
call Albuquerque a city, with
the Big-I renovation making us look serious, we decide to
"renovate" the sandlot &
call it a stadium. At least we're bringing baseball
back. But why would we want a
revitalized downtown?
-I wonder if there's gonna be a bond issue
on what to NAME the new team
that's arriving here. I have this bad bad feeling that
'Querque voters, by a 2-1 margin,
would opt to rename it the Dukes. At least that would be
better than the Scorpions.
30 May 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Current pace: 70,000 words by
August. I think I should
start to give myself an August deadline, given how hectic (in a
good way) that month is shaping
up to be. Hm.
-I am SO BEHIND on e-mail! Ay, no me
gusta.
-I read it, but I
don't understand it. Maybe that's the point.
-Why is no
one responding to a bid for a
Civ 2 game? I understand Kunx & Freez waiting till they
head for more permanent
residences, but where are Jake & Fish? C'mon, play
me!
29 May 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Kate & Stina are in quite different
mental states right about now.
But good talking to both of them, of course.
-Do I need
to make a new tape soon?
Parts of "A Midsummer Night's Theme" ring true,
but parts are just sounding
flat. I still haven't even made the tapebox for
"Renaissance=Rebirth"
anyway.
-I need to stop dreaming about being a
bestseller. I think it'll be plenty to
just have all my friends read it.
-At this rate, August is gonna
rock. Not only are JP & the Griser coming back with
me from here to Waltham (where the House of Mep is looking likely),
but Ariela's actually coming
out to pay a week-long visit. This puts a little more
pressure on me to finish the novel
early (another 1k words in the hopper so far today), but gives me a
lot to look forward
to.
-Yes, I'm currently obsessed with the writing
project. It should be obvious, but I
don't want to leave any doubts...
28 May 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-What's a good guideline for
pages? I'm writing in 9-point font,
Times New Roman, single-spaced, but that's so I don't get too
caught up in how much I'm writing
& because I like looking at as much of the tale at a time as
possible. My Dad tells
me that 400 pages (full paragraph text - obviously one-liner
dialogue is gonna be less) per page
is a good guideline. If that's true, I've got 14 pages so
far. Fourteen pages! In
about half a week. Did I mention that I'm pumped?
-My
friends, as per usual, are all
over the emotional map. I wish life were easier for most
everyone. Trying to make it
that way seems my challenge.
-I'm not gonna see Jaque for 6+
months! He was asking if
the novel would be for sale in Australia while he was still down
there. Best-case scenario,
he'll only be 3 years early, I figure.
27 May 2001
[from
Albuquerque]
-Despite the worst bowling I've probably
done since freshman year in
high school (maybe not THAT bad, but darn close), this day turned
out pretty well. &
by this day I of course mean yesterday, since I do these updates
consistently around 3 or 4 in
the morning about now. Basically, we wound up spending 2-3
hours (after another disastrous
go at Monopoly) having a roundtable discussion about relationship
futures & children &
even a bit of death. Mostly relationships. The
"we" here being Jaque,
Schneider, Freez, Eliaii, & myself. Even though JP
& the Bumpkin don't give each
other enough credit, we managed to have quite a series of good
talks... very denteresting, if
nothing else.
-The moths are a bit too much like a Hitchcock
scene, especially at night near
lights. I guess, unlike the caterpillars, there's nothing to
prevent them from doing well.
Moths can fly to food, which the 'pillars really couldn't,
& this makes their odds of
success much better than the prior plague to hit
'Burque. But what happens when ALL the
MOTHS reproduce....?
-An interesting tidbit from a recent
inquiry into the latest US News
University rankings revealed that while I've always known that
Brandeis & UCSD are running
neck & neck (current tie at #31), the next 3 colleges after
those are NYU, Rochester, &
Georgia Tech. It's almost creepy.
Introspection, My Worst
Friend* (Current)
Ye Olde Archive (Past)
Tell me this is not the end...*
*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old
Frontiers",
by SWClayton.