The Blog from the Land of Carroll

2011-05-05T10:15:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday, I think I promised I would finish the first draft. Friday, I got final papers from one of my composition classes, which I graded over the weekend just in time to get the second round of final papers from my other class. I finished grading those yesterday. So it's been a few days. But I can write now that I actually finished the draft.

The feeling I have now, being a few days removed, is much like the one I had on that last day. I'm not excited about the accomplishment. It hardly feels like an accomplishment. I don't know exactly what I've done. Was it worth taking off from work to do this? Was it worth not applying for that lectureship? I don't know. I need a little more perspective.

I'm taking a couple weeks off from writing. There are a couple projects I'm mulling over -- something old versus something new. But I plan to take another look at the draft a couple months from now. Until then, I've got a friend of mine willing to read it and give me some feedback. That'll help.

So, I guess I'm done with this blog for a little while. Maybe I'll return to it in a few weeks with something different. Or maybe I'll just leave it alone. Maybe I'll print it out, box it up and turn it into a book. (I had an idea . . . . That's what I am. An "Ideaman. Creator. Innovator. Cerebrator -- Fink! . . . . The guy's a phony." [The Hudsucker Proxy]) We'll see if I can turn an idea into something more, something solid. Something that will do more than just collect dust in my filing cabinet.

Who knows . . . . Until then, I'll keep you posted. But it'll take a while.

2011-04-28T10:17:00.003-04:00

"[T]he writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the word. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true. If he does not, the work is not worth even what it might otherwise have been." -- John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel

I abandoned this pretense months ago. For a few days, it did feel like I was embarking on something important. But what became important after a while was not giving up. To continue facing my mediocrity day after day. Flinching but still fighting. And I have succeeded in that. Today . . . it must be the day. The last day. The End.

Funny, but I've already written The End -- the last page of the draft. I did that on Tuesday. Now I must go back and fill in a few missing pieces. I should be able to knit this last chapter together and be done with it.

As you may see, I'm not in a celebratory mood. Perhaps with some time, this effort will be turned into something worthwhile. But I know that if that is to be the case, I still have a lot of work left to be done. But that is for another time. Today, I can consider this marathon over (maybe . . . hopefully). Then, I can chill out, get some rest, before I start stretching again, preparing for another run at it.

2011-04-26T10:16:00.002-04:00

You gotta be open to the blessings. That's what I'm reminding myself these days. We miss so many of them by being close-minded or self-centered or jealous or vain or whatever. The blessings are a little peek at the divine, a preview of coming attractions. It's good to know that even when we don't feel that we're moving forward, something -- Something -- is coming our way. Godspeed, indeed.

But that just happened.

What is left to happen in the draft is not much. I should finish it this week. Very anti-climactic but that's how I work. Avoid conflict at any cost. Actually, I was working on the last section and I had the thought: "Perhaps the story should start here." I don't mean that the whole first draft has been a waste. I only mean that it should start with the end and work its way back. Basically, this has been the structure of the story anyway. The story, in a sense, would be the Investigator/Narrator's way of informing Jim how he fits into the whole scheme of things. I've been concerned lately about the whole concept of the narrator. About whose story this really is. I haven't come to any conclusions to that yet, but making it Jim's story, in a sense, would be an option. Certainly, it's the narrator's story. But he and Jim have much in common. Some. It seems they should share this thing.

But all that can be worked out in the second draft. Now, to finish this first one and be satisfied with my efforts.

2011-04-22T11:31:00.002-04:00

Went to bed relatively early last night (before midnight) but got up late this morning (after ten). I was surprised. I haven't both gone to bed early and woken up late in a long time. What can this portend?

The story creeps along at highway speed, but I'm getting there, having decided on the strategy for this last part. I just need to get it done. And I will.

2011-04-21T14:02:00.002-04:00

"I sit here in a kind of a stupor and call it thought." -- Steinbeck (Journal of a Novel).

Reads a lot like what I'm doing lately. This last chapter has been a dawdle. Actually some nice interaction, but who knows if it's the right kind for these characters. It's hard to tell sometimes and I'm always second-guessing myself. But I actually picked up some momentum Tuesday. I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hear the creak of a closing door.

Innocence. That's how it should end. With an innocent conversation between a relatively young couple. I've mentioned before that the structure of the story has been backwards. I start with the crime and then work my way backwards. And in so doing, I've completely forgotten where it was this story even began. I've gone to another beginning. The lofty goals have been discarded...perhaps to be collected again in some way, but those preconceptions didn't really last long. The story has taken its own shape. Hopefully, the second part of this process -- where I get to do a little more shaping -- will take place in the not too distant future.

Only two weeks left in the semester. If I can get these final pages written and my students final papers graded in that time, I think that would be a good start to the summer. That's when this all began, anyway. So I better get to it.

(But just a brief explanation for why I'm getting to it a little late in the day. I needed to get a haircut today and run some errands. I thought I'd go ahead and get that out of the way this morning because I've been meaning to get a haircut for the past several weeks, but I keep forgetting. I hope that is satisfactory.)

2011-04-19T10:03:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was not a good day. I'll leave it at that.

Today, however, is another day. Today, Emma and Jim encounter the barn in Bethlehem. And then what . . . ? I don't really know. I've got less than fifteen pages to wrap this thing up. I hardly think that I've even begun. I was hoping that something would happen between those first days of outlining the concept and these last few days -- and things have happened, the narrative has developed and changed somewhat -- but the ending is still a mystery. Well, the very end is not, but this part of it is. And perhaps it doesn't need to be anything spectacular. Just a little thing. No grand finale after all. The climax has already happened anyway. This is all falling action. Denouement. Perhaps the car will just run out of gas. That could happen. But no . . . . But --

2011-04-15T10:46:00.002-04:00

Wanted to write until noon yesterday, but plans changed. I only lost about half an hour, but when you're considering that I only wrote for half a day, that half hour was quite significant. Just one last dodge into the Chinese restaurant and I'll be ready to move on . . . as I already did yesterday.

Here's the crux of the story coming up. I am beginning to think that less is more. I think the reader must know already why this part will be important in an allegorical way, but I want to eschew allegory now. I want it to be about the characters. And, so far in this chapter, the characters have had their say. I like it that way. So I'll be a listener for now and let them tell the story.

2011-04-14T10:30:00.002-04:00

I know I should have given you some warning. After 48 hours, I'm sure you thought I'd gone missing or something . . . . No, I was just grading essays. So it's been a week since I wrote last, but I'm getting back to it.

In the interim, I went to Peachtree City to eat lunch with my grandmother at a chinese restaurant called Chopsticks. The best lunch portion I've had at a restaurant -- not too much food, not too little food. Like Goldilocks would say, "It was just right." Of course, like any good, bad or other chinese restaurant, fortune cookies were brought out with the bill. I kept my fortune and my grandmother's, too. Now I have some inspiration to finish that last bit of the chinese restaurant section. Then, today should see me moving to different territory.

In the journal entry I read for today, Steinbeck writes about the fear that "always comes near the end of a book -- the fear that you have not accomplished what you started to do." I guess that accounts for why so many people get antsy towards the end of things: the self-doubt that plagues us, even when we are coming to the end of something we've been working hard for, like graduation. I know for me, when I graduated from high school, I didn't think I had a clue about anything. I certainly didn't feel ready to go out on my own (relatively speaking) and enter college. I don't know what you are supposed to accomplish in high school, but I didn't feel, at the time, that I had accomplished anything. I don't even remember setting out to accomplish anything. But that's another topic for another book (one that I wrote as my graduate thesis. Maybe I'll return to that some day soon, but for now) I'll get started on today's work.

By the way, I'm only writing for half a day again. I've got somewhere to be later this afternoon.

2011-04-05T10:09:00.002-04:00

A storm came through last night, but this morning it's all clear. The cold weather of the past week seems to have lifted. "Nothing but blue skies from now on." Actually, here's a song lyric I wrote many years ago that I was never able to do anything with . . . yet: "The rain is over, but the sky's still blue." Not so promising anymore, is it?

I had a thought about recasting this Chinese restaurant scene -- that I should make it a family outing. Emma's first meal with the Purcell family. It would change the tenor of the dinner (what a rhyme). Much less, or much more footsy between Emma and Jim -- I don't know which. But the more I write on this project, the more it has become about family. Parents and children, etc. I'll go on with this draft the way it is, but there's something to consider during revisions.

I'll leave you today with another quotation from yours truly: "Gimme a quarter, I tella your fortune."

2011-04-01T14:16:00.002-04:00

Another cold, dreary, windy day that follows a cold, dreary, windy night. Have you ever had a day that just didn't go right? It's irritating and frustrating, made worse when you've got weeks of anticipation built up. The old joke goes like this: "If you want to make God laugh, make a plan." There must have been much guffawing last night. I'll leave it at that.

Doing some afternoon work today to pair with yesterday's morning stuff. The fortune cookies have arrived and are about to be opened. Why have I delayed this moment so much. Perhaps there's something important in these fortunes that I've been hiding from myself. Certainly, it seems like there should be now. Steinbeck writes of "speed" in the entry I read today. Both he and I are coming to the end of our drafts, but I seem to be slowing things down. I realize that I was supposed to end my drafting process today. Another April Fool's Joke on me. I've got a little over half of this last chapter to go. I guess the end of this semester becomes the new stopping point. There's really no urgency, though. I've accepted that I will finish when I finish, but that kind of attitude can be dangerous so close to the end. It's happened before . . . . What is it about endings -- long looked for endings -- that make things that much more difficult? And not just endings to creative endeavors. You want to avoid them at all costs, even if there's a reward at the end for all your efforts. I guess it's good to be on a journey. "The finish line is so lonely." (That's a line from a song I've had in mind for many years. Sounds like a good place to end for the day.)

2011-03-31T10:42:00.002-04:00

Just a half-a-day's work today (and I'm getting to it late already). I still haven't gotten Jim and Emma to their fortunes. That should come today. It's been a dreary week. Overcast all day and rain at night. There have been two -- I counted -- breaks in the clouds for a modicum of sunshine to travel through, but that is quickly swallowed up, shut off.

Why do I write of the weather? I guess there's nothing much else to write about today. I'm in a little bit of a hurry, as you might have noticed. I've got lunch plans at noon and evening plans as well. Yesterday, I didn't have class because of Honor's Day. The whole school gets an afternoon reprieve for Honor's Day. That doesn't seem right. Only the honor students should get a day -- or an afternoon -- off. The rest of the students should have class knowing that. That's sounds mean, but I lump myself in with "the rest." I wasn't an honor student in college. I made the Dean's List many times, but that's not a great honor these days. Just your name in the paper. Who reads newspapers anymore? Certainly, I never got an afternoon off. Well, I got one yesterday for doing absolutely nothing. And today's afternoon, I won't be writing, but I don't exactly have it off. I'll be on . . . the road. How do you like that? A little word play to start the day. Seems like the perfect place to say good-bye for now.

2011-03-29T10:37:00.002-04:00

Do your eyes ever get cold? It feels like they are just dry, but no amount of tears will do. You can close them and feel the heat from your eyelids scouring the cold surface of your eye ball. That's what I'm feeling right now. It's cold here in Carrollton. Has been for the past few days. Some dreary weather. Rain only gives way to overcast skies, promising more rain. And it's Spring so I can't go back to wearing long-sleeve shirts. Last night I went to watch the Cowtown Trio play at Alley Cat and I had to wear a cardigan over my short-sleeve shirt. I hadn't worn a cardigan in a couple years. I was glad to have an occasion, actually. And now the cardigan stinks of the ever-present cigarette smoke that haunts the Alley Cat day and night. (I had a double-dose of the Cat yesterday -- eating dinner there and returning for music later that night.) Perhaps that smoke is also partly to blame for my irritated eyes. Looking at this computer screen doesn't help, either. But the show must go on. And onto this week's writing. Jim and Emma haven't finished their meal at the Chinese restaurant, but I'm thinking the bill and the fortune cookies will be delivered soon, and then . . . .

2011-03-25T10:38:00.002-04:00

I woke up early this morning -- 8:30 -- but I had some things to do (like go get donuts, print out some paperwork, and e-mail students). Now that's behind me.

What's also behind me is the writing I did yesterday. I felt good about it. Interaction between Jim and Emma filling out. I don't know how important all this is to the ending of the story. This is the final chapter, after all. And the great reveal will come shortly, but I don't think it's a waste to watch Jim and Emma get to know each other. Oddly enough, this occurs at the end of the draft. That's the way it's been designed -- to work backwards. I've been reconsidering that strategy lately. I'll have to think about it more as I revise. I certainly know that the revision process will not follow the drafting process. At least this out-of-sync sequencing will give me an idea of how the story might work with a different order. But that's far ahead of me at this point. For now, I must return to Jim and Emma, sitting on the same side of the table at a Chinese restaurant.

I just had a funny idea, but I won't share it with you here. I'll have to see if it works out first.

2011-03-24T10:45:00.002-04:00

Shhhh.... I'm coasting into work about a half hour late. Don't tell anybody.

So I've started listening to music over the past couple of months to finish my afternoon writing. Just the last thirty minutes. I feel like it's a reward or something -- like that donut I got at the end of every week in elementary school for being on my best behavior. But that's another story. Yes, when the music is on it's a little distracting at times, but it can also ease my mind and actually help me to know that I'm sorta closing up shop for the day. It signals that I should find a good stopping place so that I can pick things up next time. It usually helps to finish things in the middle of things so I can jump right into the narrative next time without having to think to much about setting up a scene or something. Thing, thing, thing . . . . It must be time to get going.

2011-03-22T14:03:00.002-04:00

A wise woman once wrote, "Don't dwell on the day that's already passed. Use what you have [left]." So I will endeavor to get some writing done this afternoon. I got to bed late last night and woke up late this morning. That makes sense.

Over the weekend, the US (and other allies) instituted a no-fly zone over northern Libya. There has been much talk about Moammar Gadhafi recently, whether the US (and others) would strike at his compound Al Azziziyah. I have been reading about such an air strike in Nelson DeMille's book The Lion's Game. I've been reading the book because I asked my dad to recommend a writer that he liked and DeMille is who he came up with. The Federal Task Force agent and first-person narrator, John Corey, is a character I've been "studying" to continue fleshing out my FBI agent narrator. The book is about a guy who exacts revenge against the US for the air strike on Al Azziziyah back in the 1980s. Who knows what consequences this no-fly zone will have on the US in days, months, years to come. (Perhaps another DeMille book.) There have already been some major political grumblings here at home . . . .

2011-03-22T11:52:00.000-04:00

Lunchtime already? More to follow . . . .

2011-03-18T10:30:00.001-04:00

Apparently, not much writing gets done in thirty minutes. Yesterday was a botch. Today isn't so promising either. But I will try for the morning.

2011-03-17T11:24:00.002-04:00

I forgot to set my alarm last night. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I've got some NCAA tournament action to watch this afternoon. While eating breakfast, I realized that the Dawgs are playing Friday night instead of tonight. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I've got practice with My Friend Phillip Friday night. I'm hoping we're done by ten so I can catch the majority of the game. What NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXT?!?

So I'll try to squeeze some writing in today. Tuesday went well, I got three pages in a half-day's work. I wonder what I can get done in half-an-hour....

2011-03-15T14:12:00.002-04:00

Starting chapter 9 today, the last chapter of the first draft. I'm getting a late start, though. I went out last night (a rarity on Monday nights) to listen to a friend's band, Casper and the Cookies, play. They're from Athens, GA. It's indie-rock power pop, I guess. The band was tight. They're on their way to Austin for SXSW. Good for them. As for me, I got to bed a little later than I intended so here I am at two o'clock in the afternoon just getting started.

I take a deep breathe and begin.

2011-03-10T10:14:00.004-05:00

One more half-day ought to do it. I should have chapter 8 down by lunch. I'm meeting some friends for lunch in town, then tonight, I'm getting together with a couple of guys to practice some music: my friend Phillip, who is in town and Chris, a guy I've been playing music with for some time now. We're gonna muddle through a couple of my friend Phillip's songs and maybe a couple of mine. We'll see how it goes.

I did my taxes yesterday. A sense of accomplishment. And I should have some money coming my way. No surprise since I only worked for half the year last year. But it will be a nice buffer against bankruptcy.

2011-03-08T14:05:00.002-05:00

A good afternoon of writing yesterday. I could hope to finish this chapter today, but again, getting only an afternoon of writing done, I should be realistic.

I did not sleep so well last night, though. No crise de nerfs that Steinbeck writes about in his Journal, but some thinking -- perhaps nervous thinking, in a way, but the good kind of nervous. Anxious. Eager, even. But I won't open that pandora's box for you quite yet and jinx it.

I do not dream much these days. I read of Steinbeck having dreams about finishing his book. My friend Phillip dreams elaborate dreams all the time. What dreams I do remember are often so pedestrian that they are not worth mentioning. For example, I dreamt that I was texting someone a while back. How dull a dream is that? I'm not worried that I don't dream much. It doesn't bother me. I don't think that I'm missing out. A fitful night of lucid dreaming just doesn't seem quite appealing to me. As I've mentioned many times before, I like to get my full nine hours of sleep. That's hasn't been going so well lately. Yesterday, before and after writing, I took naps. I woke up around 5:30 from the last one to Pardon the Interruption and Mike Wilbon saying, "Nobody who gets nine hours of sleep is successful." Perhaps getting nine hours of sleep with no significant dreaming makes me unfit for what society calls success. I always thought it was a vital part of what made me the person I am. But I wonder sometimes about this success. I wonder if I am some derelict, not even worthy of the Darwinian struggle for success. I am not delusional. I cannot say that I'm winning like Charlie Sheen. It would be nice, though, for this thing called success and my approach to life to intersect at some point.

2011-03-07T11:16:00.003-05:00

I got my hair cut this morning. My barber was the lady I think I mentioned in an earlier entry. The one that has asked about my book a couple of times. Well, I brought a book with me to read as I waited, Ron Rash's Serena, and she asked me about it. Was it a mystery? Thriller? Suspense? I said, I couldn't quite tell. I finished the first part of the book, and I can't quite tell where it's going. Some romance, sure. Some intrigue, no doubt. Some backstory, ok:

I taught one of Rash's previous novels, The World Made Straight, in a composition course two years ago as part of UWG's shared text program (which means it was selected by a "committee" and assigned to every in-coming freshman taking English Comp.). So we taught the book in class and the author came to campus to give a reading. I was able to meet Rash during a small, informal talk about writing with a few students. He seemed like a down-to-earth kind of guy, which his books suggest. At one point during his reading (or during the discussion) he mentioned he was finishing a new novel, Serena. So I had it on my radar. When it came out in hardback, I made a point to read the first few pages and I was stunned. There was a marked difference in the writing between The World Made Straight and Serena. There was something of a shining brilliance to the first few pages that I hadn't seen in the previous novel. (Perhaps it had something to do with sunlight and a knife fight.) I was eager to read the rest of it, but I'm not a hardback kind of guy. I like paperbacks. They travel better and look better on my shelf with the rest of my paperbacks. So I waited for the book to come out in paperback, which it did last year. I bought it and I've been reading it the last month or so, just a few pages at night before I go to bed. So it's a slow read. And the brilliance of the first few pages doesn't last (which is not a criticism. Sometimes you just have to get on with the nuts and bolts of the story.)

The lady at the barber shop has mentioned reading James Patterson and the author responsible for the True Blood series. (I write that as if she must be held responsible, as if True Blood were a crime of culture, but I haven't read any of the books or seen the television show.) I told her as I was leaving that I'd let her know how the book turned out. She said she might like to read it. Ha! A recommendation. A reader likes to give recommendations. Perhaps I can turn her on to a new kind of writing.

So I'll be working this afternoon. I basically finished the story part of this chapter. Now to bring it back the over-arching story back into focus.

2011-03-04T10:29:00.004-05:00

Writing went well yesterday morning. (Grading, on the other hand . . . . ) I'm nearing the end of this story within a story part of this chapter. I can see it. A couple of pages left. And I've got my conclusion. I've got the arc of the story. I feel somewhat good about it.

I promised to write with a particular audience in mind yesterday -- my friend Phillip. I don't quite know how to do that yet. I started off with him in mind, but I can't say that I wrote any differently. I've got 200+ pages of experience not writing with that kind of specificity. It's a hard habit to break, I guess. Perhaps for the second draft, I can start with it and keep it going. Perhaps.

And now to work again for the morning, then some grading this afternoon. I should be finished with the first reading and maybe even put some final grades on these papers before my Spring Break starts.

2011-03-03T09:48:00.001-05:00

I didn't see you Tuesday -- my regularly scheduled appointment. I got student papers Monday. I planned on working some Tuesday morning, but then I got a call the night before from Matt of the Cowtown String Band inviting me to practice Tuesday night for an up-coming gig. I didn't think I could fit in all the grading and the writing and the playing. And I woke up later than usual, which threw the delicate balance out of whack. Quack, quack, quack. If it looks like laziness and sounds like laziness, then it's laziness. So be it.

So I'll be working on the draft this morning and grading in the afternoon. The last three papers I graded last night were so horrible. Why -- I ask a hypothetical student -- do you waste your time writing a paper if you aren't going to write it right? They -- the final three of last night -- didn't bother to quote hardly anything from the text (like they are supposed to -- like I told them to do -- like we practiced in class, etc. etc.). I don't get it.

But now to my writing. Let me remind myself before I get started to be thinking of my audience -- my friend Phillip. I'll be telling him the story today. To the top of the high-dive we go!

2011-02-25T15:39:00.003-05:00

Some internet connectivity problem has delayed this entry, but here goes:

Never drink a spritzer (or a splitzer for that matter) with a Pabst. These two drinks do not like each other and will not play well together when put in a confined space (like your stomach). I went to Plates last night to get a little practice in with the Cowtown String Band before Saturday when they play the Lowell Opry House again. I was asked to join them on a few songs. Mostly singing, but I'll be playing my song "Everything's Gone (Except the Embers)" -- off my project The House of Summer Nights -- with them. I wound up staying for the first and second set to simulate what it will be like Saturday evening. I was told by a friend of mine that I should try a spritzer (which is a combination of wine and Sprite). This sounded to me like a girlie drink so I didn't order one, but a friend of mine (that happens to be a girl) was at the bar last night and after the guy she was with attempted to order the spritzer and was refused by the female bartender, she ordered the drink for me (us -- we all had a taste). Well, I guess I didn't get a true spritzer because the bartender made the drink with seltzer water, not Sprite. So the wine was sparkling but it still tasted like wine, and I don't like wine. So that seemed to be a bust.

Later on that night, some random guy I've never seen before asked if I was a teacher at the college and I said, "Yes." He asked if he could buy me a drink and I said, "OK. I'll have a Pabst." The guy seemed like a full-blooded heterosexual -- probably with one of the many students I saw at the bar that night -- so I didn't think anything of it. Certainly, there was no strange, interpersonal exchange, but I didn't realize that PBR and spritzer were mortal enemies. I guess I had some class (gas?) warfare going on in my stomach the rest of the night. Which made it somewhat uncomfortable to sing and play guitar later. And to sleep later that night. Lesson learned.

So I didn't do any writing this morning. We'll see what happens this afternoon.

But I did want to stop a moment to mention something about audience. With past writing projects, I have spent little time really considering the audience for the piece. I've had a general idea of my audience: me or someone like me or people in my age-group generally. But recently, as I've been writing and reading Steinbeck's Journal, it kinda hit me that perhaps I've given audience -- a clear conception of my audience -- short shrift. I think I need to be more cognizant of an audience for the rest of this project and for future creative endeavors. And by that, I think I need to have a specific audience in mind -- a specific person or specific people. Steinbeck had his editor and friend in mind (and also his sons) when drafting East of Eden. Recently I read that the author Richard Ford writes for his wife primarily when drafting a novel. I think I need to have someone specific like that to write to. I think that might help me fine-tune my voice. Certainly, speaking to someone changes how we talk, what we say. Until now, I just didn't understand how specific one should be when considering audience. You learn something new everyday . . . if you're lucky.

My friend Phillip has been reading chapters of the draft so I guess he's my true audience for the project right now. I'll try to keep him in mind as I finish up the last two chapters and as I conceive the revising and editing process. So that's my audience for the moment. If the draft passes his inspection, then I can begin to think about a wider one. I wonder if this will change the writing. How much or if at all? That's an inarticulate question, but I don't think he'd mind. More on this later, perhaps.

2011-02-24T10:34:00.002-05:00

"My brain feels fat." -- Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel

Whew. Just got back from Waffle House. I haven't eaten there in a long time and boy can I feel the difference. I had barely finished my waffle (as part of the All-Star Breakfast) when I began to feel full, but I had eggs and sausage and toast and hash browns to eat. I did my best on the rest. I don't think I'll need to eat lunch today. I don't think I'll need to eat Waffle House again for a long, long time, either.

So the devil did make his appearance Tuesday. He's gone up the ladder to talk with Jimmy about jumping. He's gonna coach him up. He's gonna make him an offer Jim can't refuse. Well . . . .

2011-02-22T10:46:00.002-05:00

I just got spammed . . . by a friend of mine who couldn't sleep one night so I guess she thought it'd be fun to post comments on my blog. Thanks. I hadn't had a comment in some time. After the high of being contacted by that writer, it's been quite a come-down. But that's not the reason why I (we) write these things, really. Maybe . . . maybe not.

Now that I have Jimmy on the high dive the pseudo-religio-philosophical discourse may commence. I haven't quite found my devil yet, but he may appear any day now. I think the reader would like him to show up as soon as possible. This portion of the story is slim on dialogue. Jimmy, like Ford, like the narrator, is a solitary soul. Next time -- damn it -- I'm gonna write a story about a very gregarious person. But that may be a while. I've already got a hankering for a script to work on next.

I've been sick -- sort of (I think it's allergies) -- over the past week. Congestion. Sore throat. Cough. So I'm laboring a little bit today. I will have you know that I will be sucking on a lozenge as I write this morning. And I'm off to it.

2011-02-18T11:26:00.002-05:00

This is Jason Kesler, coming to you live from my office at UWG.

I'm having my car looked at (brake light out, check engine light on). The repair shop is down the street from the college so I walked up to my office to wait. I thought I might get some work done on the draft but so far I've been catching up with some of the other instructors. That's Friday at UWG. Not alot of sholarship going on. Everbody wants out.

Had a good day of writing yesterday. Moved the story along, flashed back to a formative moment in Jim's younger years. I'll work on that memory a little more today. And then I'll see if I can't get him up that ladder to the high dive.

2011-02-17T10:51:00.003-05:00

Well, that took a while.

I (finally) bought some tickets for a concert (Earth Day Birthday with the Jayhawks as opening act) this morning (because I forgot to do it last night). (How many parentheticals can I place in one sentence? Haven't I mentioned my tendency to overuse certain kinds of punctuation? Forget the comma -- that's kid stuff. I'm well beyond the dash at this point. And from the looks of things, I'll be breaking the parenthesis barrier in no time. But back to my story.) You have to jump through all these hoops just to buy tickets on-line anyway, and now they -- those anonymous, nefarious ne'er-do-wells -- have added one more. I had to verify my credit card. Never having done this before, I was sent to my bank's website to enter the pertinent information, but an error message kept coming back. So I had to drop the tickets and call my back to figure out what this verification was all about. And when you call your back, they have to put you on hold -- twice. And then I had to enter my information to verify my account and set the password I would need when I went back to the TicketMaster website, but the password I wanted to use was rejected. So I added some numbers -- rejected, and a symbol or two -- rejected. So I started all over again, throwing in letters, symbols, numbers at random (well, not really, but it started out that way. It's good to make a pattern). And finally I came up with a password that the service would accept. Of course, I won't remember it the next time I'm buying tickets, but next time next time. Anyway, I wrote it down and used it to buy my tickets. The End.

So I'm a little late getting to the draft. And I missed most of the morning Tuesday because a friend of mine called to tell me that his ex-wife had gotten engaged. That's tough. It's tough enough for me to see ex-girlfriends hanging out with other guys. I remember, though, when I found out my first love was getting married. That was tough. I remember just falling backwards on my bed and lying there for a while. And then, the next day, I drove to Athens. This was planned already, but it felt weird because she was still living there at the time. She's married and has kids now. Great!

The draft, though. I spent most of Tuesday reworking the story to include some details that might be symbolically useful later. But I guess it's time to get ole Jim up that latter and on the board. We'll see if he gets there.

2011-02-15T10:35:00.003-05:00

So, I'm at it a little late this morning. Slept ok, but woke up around six o'clock and rooted around for about an hour before I went back to sleep. Had a thought for some dialogue to go in the story this weekend and sitting here, writing this entry has helped me to remember it.

My dad -- who was in the hospital over the weekend for a heart cath. (?) -- told me about some short, short story (flash fiction) segment on NPR that I should look into. 600 words or less. Maybe I can excerpt some of the narrative. There's that opening page that could be promising as flash fiction. Hmmmmm . . . .

Was struggling with some sinusitis the weekend, but today I feel fine. Let's get to it, then.

2011-02-11T11:00:00.005-05:00

Writing went well yesterday. The short story has begun -- "Hijinks at Local High Dive." There are some interesting connections being made seemingly by themselves with Emma and Jim and water. I like where this is going so far.

Doing some more writing today then going to Atlanta for some more music -- Mark Olson at Smith's. Olson is one of the founding members of my favorite band growing up, the Jayhawks. This is an intimate acoustic performance. The Jayhawks disbanded a few years ago, but they've gotten back together recently and will release a new album in the next couple of months so I hope they will all be back here soon.

Oh, by the way, no spam yet.

2011-02-10T10:24:00.003-05:00

A little dusting of snow last night. Not much to blog about except the University cancelled morning classes. For what? I ask. I've enjoyed our snow events this year. We've packed in at least six years of snow into this one winter so far. People complain about it, but I say enjoy it while it lasts. It won't be back for a while, I bet.

So I was able to tunnel out this morning to get a sausage biscuit . . . and then a bath. Reading Steinbeck's journal entry for the day got me thinking about handy work -- a particular kind of handy work. I loved watching girls braid hair back when I was in high school. There'd be two girls sitting in the same row, one behind the other, and during a movie or something, one girl would start braiding the other girl's hair, and then, once the braid was completed she'd go to combing it out with her fingers. And then they'd likely switch seats and it would happen all over again. That's my kind of pornography. (I hope I don't start getting spammed by porno sites now.) But anyway, I couldn't look away. I was mesmerized. My eyelids went droopy and I felt like sleeping, but I couldn't close my eyes or it would be all over. I was drugged. It was a narcotic to me. I walked by a salon the other evening and saw a woman getting her hair worked on. Maybe that's what got this in my mind.

Well, for today's work: I'm going to start the short story today -- the one that fits into chapter 8. I just need to wrap up the frame for it. I'm glad I can get some use out of this story I've had in mind for quite a while. Maybe ever since college. Think Salinger's "Down at the Dinghy" but in the other direction: "Up on a High Dive."

Let the spamming begin.

2011-02-08T10:00:00.002-05:00

I think I woke up three times last night. More personal problems that I won't get into. I'll only confirm what you must already suspect: women (or girls). I can't decide. Why can't people just treat each other like people? Why must my expectations be so out of line with society's constructs. Is it too much to ask of a woman (girl) to meet me in the middle -- somewhere between me and her? Do I have to be the one to chase after her? I'm not set up for that kind of pursuit. I want a give and take -- equal effort. Or perhaps the novelty has worn off, that I've worn out my welcome -- that happens from time to time -- that there is no follow-through. It's hard to know what to do, to keep hopeful in these transactions between me and women (girls, etc.). And so I wake up at night and worry, wonder, wait, etc.

Now, to the book. Friday was a bust because I forgot to upload some notes for my classes. I had to race over to the school in the morning to do that. I was already not going to write in the afternoon because I was headed back up to Canton to join my brother at a concert in Atlanta. I had to leave earlier to miss the Friday traffic hell that converges on I-75 at three o'clock and doesn't seem to let up until ten at night. So I got nothing done. Therefore, it's been a few days since my last day of drafting. We'll see how I get into it. Jim in the natatorium locker room. Not where I'd expect to find him. He's certainly out of place there. But I'm sure he'll quickly change and get out to the pool where he'll see Emma for the first time.

2011-02-03T10:03:00.002-05:00

Deciding to writing the letter that Jim writes in Chapter Seven was a good idea. Now, I have a good image of the character. His personality just opened up. I had written (in this blog) that his character was the most like me, and that still applies I guess, with some exaggeration of course, some caricaturization. And the letter turned out to be a love letter. Very extravagant. "Hard, very hard, close work" as Steinbeck would describe it. Every word was at stake. That's how I like to write, puzzling over the efficacy of every word, but I've tried not to do that while drafting. The point of the first draft is just to get the story down. I can puzzle over the language later. So I didn't quite finish the letter. That's what I'll do today and start on chapter 8, a continuation of chapter seven, with a short story idea that I had many years ago dropped in. Jim goes for a swim (yeah, I know) in the rec pool, where he sees Emma taking pictures of a model boat. He wants to talk to her, but he's nervous, just like when he wanted to jump off the high dive at the rec pool when he was a kid, but he was too nervous . . . .

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll finish the letter this morning and see what I get to this afternoon.

2011-02-01T10:15:00.003-05:00

"I'm gonna write you a letter / I'm gonna write you a book / I wanna see your reaction / I wanna see how it looks." Guster ("Amsterdam")

My brother got us tickets to the show in Atlanta (at the Tabernacle) this Friday. I thought the lyric was appropriate for today's writing assignment: a letter. Jim writes letters -- letters to the editor, letters to the city, letters to anonymous women, letters to no one. I wanted to go back into chapter seven, in the middle of the chapter, the night before the day in the life, and have Jim write the city of Athens a letter. Why? I don't quite know yet. We'll see. I thought I might have a better idea of how this would go, having the weekend to think about it, but nothing has come to mind. So a little epistle ex tempore.

2011-01-28T10:01:00.002-05:00

I would have liked to have gotten this chapter finished today (the last day of writing this month), but with only one day left, I don't think it will happen. It's possible that I'll make it to the end today. I just have to get Jim to the pool at the Ramsay Center. That's possible. But I also want to go back and describe a letter he writes the night before, after the basketball game, to the city of Athens. He's a latter-day Ben Franklin, writing letters to the editor of the local paper. Letters about what? About living in a society. "We live in a society, people," George Costanza was fond of saying -- yelling -- on Seinfeld. Perhaps something like that. I don't think I'll get to the letter today. I might need to ruminate on its contents over the weekend to have something worth writing, worth including. Anyway, the end of this chapter is in sight. On to chapter 8 next week at some point.

2011-01-27T14:05:00.003-05:00

Had a dentist's appointment this morning and I figured, since my morning was ruined that I'd get my hair cut as well. The dentist -- or rather his evil henchmen, the hygienists -- have not been good to me the past few visits, including this one. Last time, up in Atlanta, the hygienist used some new-fangled -- I use the word fangled for effect -- torture technique to clean my teeth. My gums got hacked in the process, and I've been rehabilitating them ever since.

This morning, no new-fangling, just the time-honored torture of probing and scraping. I was in the chair for nearly an hour and a half while the hygienist, with no Zen-like calm or patience, attempted to remove every little thing out of my mouth except my tongue and teeth (and she almost got a couple of those as souvenirs). It was my first time at the office in Carrollton for quite some time so I assumed she was being thorough to impress upon me (or her boss) that she was serious about her work. I don't know. There were a few moments when I felt I had been lost to the care of a obsessed maniac.

But I escaped to the barber shop, where I was told by John the barber that he knew a guy who had been writing a book for 25 years . . . and he still wasn't finished. The guy is reportedly an eccentric -- a barstool safety technician/philosopher -- who can tell a good story. It seems like he's had a lot of practice. I am reminded of a character in Dickens's David Copperfield, Mr. Dick, who forever continues to work on the same manuscript. Is it good sense to pursue a story for 25 years? I don't know if I would have it in me. This first nine months is working me over quite good.

Round #128 -- ding, ding, ding.

2011-01-25T10:06:00.004-05:00

No, I didn't do any writing over the weekend. Just a bad couple of weeks stacked together. Had the rug pulled out from under me. A personal matter not for public consumption. But I am feeling better today because --

After many weeks of waking up in the middle of the night (or early in the morning), I've finally gotten a full nine hours of sleep. I didn't wake up once (that I remember). Here's how it happened. The night before, I woke up about seven o'clock, but I was determined not to get out of bed that early so I laid there for about forty-five minutes until I drifted back to sleep, waking up a little after nine. I think that helped prepare me for this past night's sleep. I told my brain, "I ain't gettin' up before nine so you better just keep on sleepin'." What also helped was that it is overcast this morning and drizzling. No electric blue morning light creeping passed my window shade. I might have gotten one other night of nine since daylight saving's time, but that's it. Maybe I've turned a corner.

Jim finally gets to eat today. I'm wondering if he should bump into somebody . . . .

2011-01-21T09:42:00.003-05:00

Tired. Not feeling well. Probably won't be writing (much) today. But I will endeavor to give it a try Saturday, as Steinbeck would insist upon it. Hopefully, I'll be feeling better, better, better.

2011-01-20T10:03:00.002-05:00

Had class yesterday after a two week lay-off: the snow last week and MLK Day Monday. A dull day of review, but I was able to galvanize some interest at the end with my cluster exercise. That does it all the time. I think the students like to see the mind in action. I think they think there's some secret mantra one can repeat to oneself and a magical idea will come to mind. No, you have to work at it, trial and error, just like anything else. There is no magic word or magic potion, although I do feel like I've pulled a rabbit out of a hat at the end of the exercise when something's come of it. And a student actually commented that the clustering was "fun."

Took Jim to work Tuesday and left him there with Ms. Richmond (the crabby magazine designer) and Archie (another graduate assistant). I added a reference to "two-spacers" -- people who put two empty spaces after a period. I had read an article about two-spacers the other day, and it seemed appropriate to mention them since Jim and Archie are copy-editors.

Today, Jim goes to lunch . . . I think for pizza, but it could be back to the Mayflower for an egg sandwich.

2011-01-18T10:45:00.003-05:00

Back to drafting today. Last weekend (including Friday) was rough, and I didn't work on my draft. I did some writing but of another sort. Then I left Carrollton early Friday afternoon to drive up to my friend Phillip's place in Jefferson. We went to see the Cowtown String Band play at Hendershots (coffee, bar, etc.) in Athens that night. Saw a lot of Carrollton transplants, expats. That was good, but Saturday and Sunday were blahhhhhhhhh. One too many renditions of "Sad Songs (Say So Much)."

Monday -- MLK Day -- I had no classes so I did some laundry and went to the store.

Today, it's back to writing. I was able to finish the long expository passage I was working on Thursday so I hope the writing will go well today. Jim goes to work at The Georgia Review where he's a research assistant, basically a copy-editor. I'm basing this section off of the time I was an intern (unpaid) at a little publishing company in Athens the summer after I graduated. The place was (and still is) called Hill Street Press, but these days it doesn't do much but publish crossword puzzle books and some cook books. Back then, the Press had all sorts of titles. I mainly worked on fiction manuscripts. And I worked there with a high school friend, Josh, who will make an appearance in the draft today.

Jim is the character modeled after me. I don't mind revealing that. I don't think this is necessarily significant, but there you have it.

When I first started to conceive this story, I wrote a few pages (that I have now lost) on the idea that began with this section. It's interesting now to be back here again. The idea has obviously blossomed since then and grown into something quite different than I expected. It became the Great American Novel in my mind for some time, but now it's settling back down to something more manageable.

2011-01-13T10:16:00.005-05:00

Another Snow Day yesterday. No school. No nothing, really. Someone asked me what I had been doing with myself these past few days and I couldn't make much account of them. No reading at all. I wanted a book -- I had the very book in mind (The Devil in the White City) -- but I didn't grab it in time and now I have nothing. I have plenty, of course, but I was in a particular mood. So no reading, some writing (I did Tuesday) -- a very little sum -- some walking, some photography, some ice chucking. The ice chucking was fun. The piece that covered my car's roof came off all at once. It was heavy so I broke it up and threw it away from the parking lot where it won't hurt anybody.

Today, I look to get back on the horse, get thrown off, and get back on again. Today is a real working day. Here's hoping I can get at least 3 pages and get back on track (if not quite on schedule). Here's hoping I finish with this introductory passage for Jim and I can get to the story.

2011-01-11T14:06:00.002-05:00

Snow!!! It snowed in Carrollton. It snowed quite a lot. It snowed more than the misremembered "Blizzard of 1993." (I have forgotten much of that, except for a vision of an embankment of snow, but everybody else -- friends, news anchors, weathermen -- seem to have remembered it for me.) So I didn't have class Monday and there's a chance that class will be cancelled again Wednesday. I also missed out on a dentist's appointment this morning. I took a walk outside -- the snow and ice was twice frozen -- to take some pictures around town. The walk was more treacherous this morning than it had been the afternoon before. The town is slowly thawing now, but it's supposed to freeze again tonight and not get above freezing until perhaps Friday. It's quite a mess, but I think I'm going to walk up to the Square to get an early dinner. There are a few restaurants open.

As for this afternoon, I'm going to try to write some. I picked up my pace Friday, amassing about three pages. I was hoping to get back to my 3+ rate today, but . . . well, oh well . . . .

2011-01-07T10:33:00.002-05:00

Got about two pages yesterday. I kept writing passages that I wound up taking out (and saving for perhaps another place in the chapter). I felt "the flow," but it was difficult to harness. I'll try again today.

Met up with another friend of mine this week who has been reading the blog, it seems. He lives in Vancouver and has been a person I've bounced story ideas off of before. He was funneling me material on Mexico when I was writing el Gringo. Now that that project is permanently on hold, I'll have to find him something else to research for me. We had lunch at Corner Cafe a couple days ago, and he brought up the entry I wrote a month or so ago about eating there alone. I've stayed away from Corner these past few weeks, not wanting to get caught eating alone there again. The last two times I've gone, I've met up with someone. So there!

By the way, I finished reading Portis's True Grit (and I watched the movie, too). It was a little story, I thought, which was good, refreshing. I'm thinking that I should write a little story sometime. Just a story, and nothing more. It's difficult watching a film version of a book you just read so kids, don't try that at home. The Coen Brothers have a way with language. Their characters' dialogue is musical at times, whimsical, odd, off-kilter, etc. But they can't tell a story in film. A book, even one as little as True Grit, is still much more dense than a movie. (Matt Damon and Josh Brolin should have switched characters in the movie. That was another thing I missed. The Coen Brothers are also known for using striking character actors as supporting and bit players. Their True Grit seemed to be lacking that element. Perhaps that's not their fault, though, but their casting director/agent/whatever.

2011-01-06T10:06:00.002-05:00

After an extended Christmas Break, I'm back. Steinbeck would not approve of my taking 2 weeks off, but it had to be done. The past few years, the Christmas season has flown by so fast. I'm running around, buying gifts at the last minute. I thought this year would be different since I'm not "working." But I still found myself that last week in a rush. And then I had a birthday to celebrate the day after Christmas. And then I had college bowl games to watch the week before the new year. And then I had a syllabus to construct for the two classes I'm teaching this semester. And then, yesterday, I actually had class. One meets in Newnan and the other in Carrollton. Both on Monday/Wednesday.

So here's my new schedule for now: teach on Monday and Wednesday and write on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We'll see how that goes. To keep the weekly page-count consistent, I'll need to write a little more each day. That's sort of the plan, I guess. We'll see how it goes. Today, I doubt I'll reach four pages. But I'm just getting back into things. No pressure. I hope to be finished with the first draft by the end of February, certainly no later than late March. That will give me a few months away from it before I return to it this summer.

I left off last month as the final main character, Jim, was walking home from a basketball game. I'll continue there just to get to know him better.

(I've been gone so long, I can't find my place in Steinbeck's Journal. And I really need to trim my fingernails. They are clicking and skidding off the keys of my computer keyboard.)

2010-12-17T10:52:00.004-05:00

It's all for me blog, me jolly, jolly blog. . . . Too much tobacco smoke and late-night hollering has got me throat a little raw today, and at this time of year, there's always a risk of catching a cold, but I've had my orange juice for breakfast so I think I'm fortified for the day ahead.

A friend is reading the first three chapters for me. He thought the second chapter was interesting; I was a little surprised. He pointed out some things I had forgotten about. It's still a mess, this story, but perhaps, after the first draft is written, I will look back at it and see that it is a manageable mess.

200+ pages and I continue today with a couple more. I hope to have at least nine pages by the end of the day . . . and maybe another Christmas gift for wrapping. Here's hoping.

2010-12-16T10:24:00.002-05:00

The writing comes free and easy after a long weekend. I reached my quota not long into the afternoon session. Not to say that it's any good, but it's a start. Just getting to the gym for Jim (that's a little awkward). Hmmmm . . . . I've got an idea. But later.

Well, I guess I'll get started.

2010-12-15T10:10:00.002-05:00

Finished the sixth chapter last week, which concludes the second section of the book. Now on to the third, which will feature Jim Purcell -- that's his name for now -- as the main character. So I have three more chapters to go to finish the first draft. I hope to have it done by the end of February, but I'll be teaching again -- part-time -- starting next month so my timetable might have to change.

I went to Nashville -- or thereabouts -- this weekend to sit in on the mixing of my friend Phillip's album Therapy. I listened to a lot of music (over and over again) and read a lot. (I'm almost finished with True Grit -- just in time to watch the movie.) And we got snow on Sunday. It was good to get out of town, but now I'm back (and I have to finish my Christmas shopping, too.)

Now to introduce Jim. We first met him in chapter 4, talking to the Investigator about Emma. For this chapter, we find him at a UGA basketball game. This is before he has met Emma. We'll see that moment starting in chapter 8 (and continuing in chapter 9). But for now, we're just going to focus on Jim. He's the one with the "complete" family: both parents, a sister, and a dog. The traditional family. Will he be willing to break with tradition? Or will it be broken for him? We'll see . . . .

2010-12-08T10:03:00.004-05:00

Investigator and Nora Henry have met. Shocking! Now for the explanation. It's possible that I can finish the chapter today . . . and perhaps even probable depending on how their conversation goes. If there is a conversation . . . . It may -- no, it may not. Talk it out. That's what this narrative needs. She eases into it, asking about his life; he asks about hers. Then the conversation returns to Emma and . . . .

I notice that I like to use ellipses a lot. It used to be dashes; now it's ellipses. What does that say about my mind? There's a certain uncertainty about an ellipsis. A dash is much more confident. A dash signifies that, yes, this may be extraneous information or I may be moving too quickly -- jumping, cutting, slashing, hacking -- but at least I'm getting somewhere. An ellipsis is like the electronic beeping of a heart monitor for a patient who is not well. It's interesting how punctuation can create a mood. The Psychology of Punctuation. That sounds like something.

2010-12-07T10:06:00.006-05:00

I continue to fight the good fight with my sleep schedule, but I seem to get further and further away from winning. It's ridiculous really. Something tells me this is my mother coming out in me. She's had trouble sleeping off and on for many years now. She'll wake up at odd moments in the night and not be able to get back to sleep. That is not precisely what is happening here. I just can't seem to stretch my sleep past seven or seven-thirty anymore. I blame the time change, but it's not like I'm not familiar with daylight savings time. My current schedule also probably has some influence. I have the luxury to take a nap in the middle of the day since I'm working at home. So I'm not as tenacious about getting back to sleep as I normally would be if I were working a "real" job.

By the way, I had to say good-bye to my Timex alarm clock last night. I went to set the alarm as I normally do before bedding down for the night and I noticed that the digital display was blank. This has happened many times before. All I had to do was give it a good whack and it would come back to life. But last night, nothing would bring it back. The battery inside was corroded, a fact I had known for some time -- at least a couple of years. I hadn't changed the battery . . . in forever. I can't remember ever changing the battery. Maybe once in college. But that's how long I've had this alarm clock -- since college. It served me well, and it deserves to rest now in peace.

The Investigator should get to the Henry house today where a surprise awaits. I was hoping to get him there yesterday but needed to do some little research and I was called away to babysit for an hour after 3 o'clock and didn't get back to it. I did do a solid day of writing, though. It still might be possible to finish the chapter by tomorrow. Possible but not probable.

2010-12-06T10:02:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately, it looks like a short work week. I'm going with my friend Phillip to Nashville Thursday to chaperone the mixing and mastering of his newest recording. I doubt I will have anything to add to the process. I'll probably be doing more reading than anything else.

So it will be a stretch to finish the chapter this week as I had hoped. I'm about a two-thirds of the way finished. I could adjust my page-count per day to fit my week into three days. We'll see how it goes today. I slept well but woke up at 7:30, again. Why am I fighting the season, the artificial time change? I should just go to sleep earlier to catch my full 9. That would be the logical next step, but I have night-time routine that I enjoy, ending with an episode of The Daily Show that airs at 11 o'clock. Oh, the sacrifices!!!!!

The material that ends this 6th chapter should be interesting enough to propel me forward. This is where the rubber meets the road, as it were. This is the turning point of the story. It is probably not so odd that I've shifted my perspective on the story as a whole while I was writing this chapter. This is where it becomes a solidified thing. I think. There's always the last section to explore.

2010-12-03T13:59:00.002-05:00

Took the morning off -- not really a freebie, since I paid for it in advance by working Wednesday morning. I should be able to make the 24-page mark by the end of the weekend and finish the work week on a good note. The chapter is reshaping itself as I gear up for today's work so I'll make some notes on that and see how I should continue. Revising this chapter using a little more of the Investigator's imagination, I should be able to carve out even more of the expository sections. I envision the Investigator imagining Emma going to work with her step-dad for one of those take your daughter to work days that schools have these days. Mischief ensues, etc. And perhaps another little piece with an early love interest.

I remember going to see my dad try a case in Atlanta. This was back when I was probably eight or ten or twelve years old. I had been watching Perry Mason episodes, and I wanted to see my dad in action just like that. Of course, a real court proceeding is not action-packed, not very exciting. I spent most of the day drawing in a donated legal pad to defend me against the boredom and the tedium of the actual practice of the law. I think I sketched the judge presiding over the matter, with the American flag in the background. That's what I remember. That experience ruined me for the law. I wonder if I would have pursued it in college if I hadn't gone to the courthouse that day. My brother followed my father into the law, and I don't remember him ever going to court with my dad.

2010-12-02T10:07:00.003-05:00

I curbed the exposition yesterday morning, which I felt needed to be done. Now, on with the show. Investigator thinks about what Emma is capable of. What her family life -- especially her relationship with her step-father -- might have done to her. And then the chapter will close with the Investigator going to Emma's home for the big reveal, which should lead quite nicely into the last three chapters on Jim Purcell. I think I finally know what the story is about, how it all comes together. I'm happy to find that it is not what I expected it to be. It's good to know that I am off the hook a little. But it's right not to have to hang all my unspoken philosophies up for all the world to read (well, all those who actually read the draft, anyway, which will only be a handful, I'm sure.) But I think, with this change of theme, I could turn this into something a wider audience could appreciate.

Last night I went over to a friend's (Trey and Jessie) house to play some music. I hadn't played music with someone else in a while. And it was good to introduce a new song. You never know how it's going to be received or how you will think of it after it is released. I thought it was a little thing to begin with and I think it still is. Nothing wrong with that. It can always be bulked up by adding the transcendent outro that I seem to specialize in these days. Every song has the big finish -- as the PTI program calls it. Well . . . . Oh well.

Then, across the street, another friend of mine (Dusty) was having a birthday get-together. So we went over there to hang out for a little while. Spilled beer on my britches. Had a good laugh around a good fire. Then went home. I still smell like smoke.

2010-12-01T10:11:00.002-05:00

I decided to get a little work done today (Wednesday) which I have been taking off for the past few weeks. With Thanksgiving interrupting last week's work, I feel like I'm getting behind. And this chapter seems to drag anyway. A lot of exposition. That's my fault. It'll have to be fixed at some point, but I'm not at that point yet. So I'll mess around with it this morning and see how I feel at lunch. I might do a little Christmas shopping this afternoon.

2010-11-30T10:26:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, as I got into the Richard Henry section, a thought about restructuring the chapter -- actually pre-structuring the chapter (bringing it back to how I envisioned it at the beginning) -- came to me. (That sentence needs restructuring . . . .) These second thoughts, second guessings are issues I didn't think I'd be dealing with so much in the drafting, although it is in the drafting that one would be contemplating positioning the narrative. They just seem to be more prevalent than I hoped. It seems that for each chapter, I want to move things around, take the story from a different perspective. I guess the charting of the narrative, the pre-writing I did back in June really was of little use. It helped the characters develop, but they've been developing all along. Any writing at all would have helped them develop. I certainly think the pre-writing helped get me off to a good start, but that good start has long gone. And now I am quite a bit uncertain about the terrain. Moving forward is not always the best option. But I think I am too far ahead not to move forward. The goal is to keep moving. And forward seems to me to be the only option, if not the best. So I make notes on what could/should be done in editing/revising and I move on. (And it is not helping that Steinbeck writes how his book is going as planned.)

Moving on today means continuing with Richard Henry. Today he goes from drunk to a dunked. He gets religion. But how can the Investigator know this? I thought of a newspaper clipping. A charitable donation. Or something . . . .

2010-11-29T10:10:00.002-05:00

Well, a new week. With Thanksgiving and all, I didn't manage as many pages as I would have liked, but every body needs a break sometime. I'm about halfway through the chapter so here's hoping the second half works out better . . . or at least smoother.

Remember when I thought I had gotten back on my regular sleeping schedule? I wrote too soon. Or maybe this morning was just a hiccup, a last gasp, etc.

Today, a little interaction with Emma and then on to her step-father.

2010-11-26T10:04:00.004-05:00

Ha! Back on schedule. Got my full nine last night. Feeling like all is well with the world today.

I'm going to work a little this morning then watch some college football this afternoon. Where am I? Today, I think we will explore Emma's step-father, Richard Henry. I think we will find him to be a very frightening person.

Yesterday, whilst celebrating Thanksgiving with my family, my sister mentioned that a friend of hers had said to her (about my writing a book), "Thank God you come from a good family." I guess intimating that there are no family secrets for me to spill in my book. I suppose not, but I did acknowledge that the book was about family. Not necessarily my family, but that may come in later with Jim -- who comes from a "good family" too. And I am reminded of a poster for Rebel Without a Cause featuring James Dean and Natalie Wood and the caption: "And they came from good families." Or "homes" or something. A former student of mine found it at a garage sale. I had used it as a text in a previous composition course. Now if only I could work a chickie run into the story . . . . "What's a chickie run?"

2010-11-23T10:03:00.002-05:00

I'm still not up to speed yet. I didn't reach my 3+ page limit yesterday, but I got some good work done. I think this chapter is just going to go slow. I'm really off-script at the moment anyway, so I'm developing the story as I go along now.

And the overall theme of the book has changed. It's something I've noticed over the past few weeks. It's more about parents and children than anything else -- the choices parents make that effect and influence the development of their children. That is what I think it means when the "sins of the father are visited on the son." That's what the story is turning into. Which is nice in a way. It allows me to down-shift off my previous big-picture plan and focus more on the characters as people -- brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers -- and less on their symbolic value. This happened to me once before on another writing project, a script I wrote for a Screenwriting class I took in graduate school. I think I've mentioned it in earlier entries. Getting into the story and into the characters gives you more perspective, bringing the story out of the clouds and onto more solid ground.

I might have mentioned that I planned to get that script out sometime this year and look at it again. Well, I've gotten it out and I've looked at it, but I only gave it a cursory look. I don't know if I should look back just now but continue to push ahead with projects. I've been working on that short script on the weekends and it's coming along. I like where it's going. I want to keep at it and have something to toy with next year.

Phone rings. My niece, Avery, is in town for a few days. My mom tells me that she and my sister Jennifer, along with my nephew Carter, will be eating lunch at Chick-fil-a. Perhaps I'll join them. But if I do, then I need to get to work.

2010-11-22T10:00:00.002-05:00

Still waking up an hour early. When I was younger, I'd refuse to get out of bed when I woke up early, but now I am less patient. I have things to do, that's true, but there are always things to do.

I needed some breakfast supplies so I made a little toast and then I went to the store. I picked up some milk and also a box of clementines. 'Tis the season. Of course, clementines would be the only kind of fruit I really enjoy -- they're bio-engineered or something to be sweeter than most fruits are allowed to be in nature. They're squishy and full of juice. I eat them one segment at a time which makes them seem more like candy. I like to play a game with them. I try to peel them using one slow and sometimes elaborate motion. Sometimes I win.

Last week, I only got nine pages written. It's like a missed a whole day. Mostly I was trying to work out the course of the chapter, having to stop and turn around a couple of times. I think I know where I'm going now, but there are still some logistical issues that I'll be confronting as I move along. There's so much to work in here. About Emma and her parents and the Investigator and his past.

2010-11-19T10:40:00.002-05:00

The last week and a half of unfulfilled sleeping caught up with me yesterday. I haven't adjusted to Daylight Savings Time yet so I've been getting up an hour earlier than I want to. Later in the day, I've been able to fit a nap in, but naps are not the same as getting a full nine hours of sleep. After lunch yesterday, I was gassed, but my mid-day nap didn't work -- I couldn't get to sleep. So I lazed around like a zombie for much of the early afternoon, then I was able to catch some Zs around two, when I should have gone back to work. Well, I did wake up with some time to spare later and got some stuff done, but certainly not as much as I wanted.

Today, I continue with rolling out the revelation. There's really no way to stall much longer -- otherwise, I'll eat up the space for this chapter, and I'm coming to the realization that I'm going to need a lot more space, much more than I thought as I was developing the chapter. I've got an ending for the chapter, but there will be a lot going on to get there. But I think I can break off the reveal into chunks. We'll see.

Perhaps there's a real reason why Richard -- Emma's stepdad -- is such a [jerk] after all. If the idea I just had works out . . . .

2010-11-18T10:18:00.002-05:00

I ran up against it yesterday. How the Investigator should reveal what he knows and when. The narrative started to unravel and I thought I must delay this revelation. And I finally came to the decision that I think that's right for now. Focus on getting to know Emma and what she's gone through with the hint of things to come. How uncommon is the last name Newell? I've never encountered anyone with that name. Is it even a real last name? I'm sure. I'll look it up. Otherwise, how long can the Investigator keep his past out of his mind and focus on the present case, which means he's focusing on Emma's past? I think this conjecture about her past will take up most of the chapter (as I planned) so I'm not delaying the big reveal too long, in narrative time. He once knew a girl named Newell . . . . So what? But when it all breaks loose, I don't know what I'm going to do, how I'm going to handle it. That may be the biggest moment in the story, and not just this far. I've already conceived of issues that will need to be explained. Can this one chapter hold all of it? What about Jim?

So I'm worried where this is going. It feels like chapter two all over again. I'll try to focus on the immediate developments at hand and muddle through it as best I can. (It's always good to end an entry on rhyme.)

2010-11-17T10:02:00.002-05:00

Went into Atlanta yesterday for a dental check-up. All is . . . well . . . okay. When I got back into town, I had lunch at Empire Grille, which now seems to have been taken over and run by a bunch of twenty-somethings. Nothing wrong with that; there just seems to be no adult supervision, yet it runs smoothly. Actually, one of my students from my first semester teaching seems to be managing the place. He was not much for school, but I do remember him once saying that he wanted to be a chef. Not much cheffing going on at the Empire, but at least he's working in his field.

After lunch, I got my hair cut at Little Gem's Barber Shop. I've been getting hair cuts there since I was a teenager. It's not the kind of place where you ask for any particular kind of style. I usually just ask for a trim. I got my hair cut by a lady who works there, who's cut my hair before, who saw me at Alley Cat's a little while ago when she was picking up lunch, who has asked me before what I'm doing, but doesn't seem to remember so we had the conversation again. She likes mysteries; my story is sort of a mystery . . . . I guess barber shop conversations go in one ear and out the other. And perhaps it's difficult to recognize people when you're always looking at the back of their heads. Oh well, I'll give her a pass.

Emma sommore today. Still feeling her out during the brief interrogation scene. I'm wondering when it will be time for the big reveal. And if I should let Emma in on it or not. I'm not sure yet.

2010-11-15T10:08:00.003-05:00

I guess I could have celebrated my one hundredth post in the last entry instead of being so brusque -- as I am told I can be from time to time. So, Happy Hundredth!

Today, I start chapter 6, the final one that features Emma as a main character, although she's had to compete with Jim and Ford so far. Now's her chance to come alive, but it's not to be. She's too tight-lipped. The Investigator will have to fill in the blanks.

I finished The Painted Veil over the weekend. It was not the book I was hoping it would be. Certainly, the ending is quite different from what I expected having watched the movie a few years ago. Different is not always bad, but the change took the theme of the book in another direction -- really off the tracks and I don't think Maugham ever really got the story back. The final lines were delivered abruptly. I think he realized he'd lost the story. Or the point of the story. Oh well. If I could only be so lucky as to have a point to lose. But I think I do, and the story is still developing even now. I was eating breakfast, thinking forward to when I begin to treat Jim as a main character and I had an idea about him and the Investigator. We'll see if it takes or not.

Finally, I get to start reading True Grit. I hope to have it finished before the movie -- the remake by the Coen Brothers -- comes out. I think it's slated for mid-December.

2010-11-12T11:02:00.002-05:00

Finished work on chapter 5 yesterday. I plan on working on the short script today. What else do you wanna know?

2010-11-11T10:01:00.002-05:00

Worked on the short script just a little yesterday. Spent much of the day at the University. I was going to get my car serviced so I thought I would walk over to the school and do some paperwork for my spring courses. Turns out I didn't need to do the paperwork after all, but I was stuck on campus for a while so I went down to the Writing Center to annoy everyone working there, one person at a time. I even annoyed a student or two, probably.

I also submitted two short poems to something called Accents Publishing. I read that they -- it -- was looking for poems that were 50 words or less. I had a couple of poems that I had written -- dashed off really, but there was a certain method to them -- for a graduate course in modern American poetry. Whether they are "good" or not, or even "acceptable," I cannot say. There was this other poem that I wrote a few years ago describing the death of President Lincoln. It's short as well -- only four lines -- but it had too many words. I wish I could find a home for it. I think it's interesting at least. A colleague read a draft of the poem a few years ago and got in her mind that it was about a wrestling match. More like wrastlin'. That was unexpected, but cool.

So today I plan on finishing the developing of chapter 5. The last third of the chapter to go.

Go!

2010-11-09T10:25:00.003-05:00

More developing. I read through the first 1/3 of the chapter and was able to add about a page. I'll try for the same amount today.

A few thoughts on Tanner's Beach, perhaps. The beach is a bunch of sand left at the edge of a man-made pond or lake (there is no good word for it) just out here in Carroll County. People can swim a short distance out into the lake -- it's roped off. That's where the paddle boats take over. There's a walking trail around the body of water and some cabins to rent. As I mentioned in the last entry, my family actually stayed in one of the cabins when we first moved to Carrollton. My dad had gotten a job at Southwire, but we hadn't found a home yet. We lived there a couple weeks. I don't remember any of it. I was a one year old at the time. There's also a ratty old putt-putt golf course on the property. It hasn't changed a bit since I was little. Still the same wooden windmill on #4. Probably still the same family of wasps living in the windmill. Still the same turf for the grass, I'm guessing. Still the same waterlogged holes. Still the same balls, putters, etc. I do like playing putt-putt -- the geometry, the angles -- so even a bare-bones course can still be fun.

I'm pretty good with a putter. When I used to play golf, the only thing I was any good at was putting on the greens. Getting to the greens was a hard slog, but once I was there, I could nail a fifteen-footer. Or something. I gave up golf when I was about thirteen. I was playing with my brother, my dad, and my Uncle Ron. We were playing 18 holes and after the front 9, I decided I didn't want to play anymore so I went back to the car and sat there for a while. This also reminds me of the time I wanted to be a lawyer like my dad and I went to watch him in court one summer day . . . but that's another entry for another day.

2010-11-08T10:30:00.002-05:00

Whoa! Strange little entry in Steinbeck's journal I read today. Or maybe it's me. My mind it buzzing more than a little. I'll try to settle down before I get to work.

Work: I basically finished Chapter 5 last Friday, but I wasn't happy with how it ended. Or -- I was happy with it, but it wasn't nearly as developed as I thought it would be . . . the ending, that is. So today, I'm going to sift back through the chapter to see where I can develop a little. Very similar to how I ended Chapter 4, I know -- and I was unhappy with that process -- but I'm going to do it anyway.

Otherwise, I didn't get to do any writing on the short script this weekend. Got caught up in some high school reunion madness. Not really madness, though. (Who needs coffee? Or maybe it's the piece of coffee cake I had for breakfast. But I don't think so. I think it -- this jittery feeling -- is a byproduct of a silly thing I just did, but I won't get into that now.) The class got together for the Central/Carrollton football game -- a game we haven't won in probably 20 years. But I remember when Central won the state championship when I was in middle school. Glory days. Well, the score was 41-0 at the end of halftime so I left after seeing the bands play. (I played snare drum in the high school marching band when I was in school. The band was about half the size it is now.) Later, went to Plates/Uncorked/Whatever. Then, Saturday, we met up at Tanner's Beach. What a place. Maybe I'll devote an entry to it one day. (My family lived there for a few weeks when we first moved here. I was one; we stayed in a cabin on the "beach.") We had barbecue for lunch. It was cold and windy. The reunion turned out not as good as expected. We all wished that more people would have shown up. Here's looking at the 20th.

Saturday night, I went to the Lowell Opry House to listen to the Cowtown String Band. I had heard of the Opry there but had never been. It's a barn outfitted for sound. They -- whoever runs the place -- have done a good job with it, except for the monitors perched above the stage. Maybe that was a bad idea, especially when you ask special guests to come up on stage -- older ladies who like to emote and gesticulate in front of the stage. But that was later. Cowtown blew the crowd away -- which was a mix of Carrolltowners and Lowellanders. The towners tended to be younger and the landers older. But one and all were impressed I think. Next stop, Nashville. I worked on a song Sunday. With the string band in my head still. It's something I've had in mind for a while, but I think I have the structure down now. And the title. It's always good to nail down the title. Now, I know what I'm talking about.

That's it for now. Until tomorrow.

2010-11-04T10:05:00.003-04:00

Back from the beyond . . . beyond Carrollton city limits, that is. I went up to Canton, GA to go to my niece's preschool for breakfast. Donuts and drawing. Then I drove back home and took a nap. And that was just about it. Watched a movie last night, Please Give. It had some effecting moments, but it reminded me of those stories you read in middle school about the poor kid who just wants to have that pair of new red shoes. I don't exactly know the name of the story I'm referencing -- or if there is one -- but it all just seems rather desperate and dull. Of course, stories back in middle school didn't have curse words and marital infidelity.

This morning, I woke up, took a shower, and now I've got a slight ringing in my left ear. Water probably sloshing around in there. It's dissipating as I write this entry, but a ring in the ear is worse two on the hand . . . or something. It's distracting. I might lay down for a few minutes to see if I can ease it out.

So I've got Emma talking about the billboards with Ford. I wasn't quite happy with what I got Tuesday, so I'll reread a little and see if I can't punch it up a little. Then on to the Christmas lights of Bethlehem! Another thing I should investigate in the coming weeks.

2010-11-02T10:04:00.002-04:00

Writing went well yesterday. Seems to every Monday. It's good to have a weekend break. But now back at it.

I got up about half an hour earlier than my alarm was set, which I'm actually ok with. I'd rather wake up on my own than with an alarm. But waking was weird this morning. There must be some construction going on nearby because I thought I was waking up to a war zone full of machine gun fire, tanks rolling in and planes flying overhead. I wondered, who would be stupid enough to invade Carrollton. Then I remembered that it was election day. I thought perhaps my country was at war -- with itself. The crazy Tea Party people were finally using their Second Amendment remedy. They were terrorizing anyone not willing to vote Republican. But I was gonna go out there and test my skill anyway. I thought about my swiss army knife. At the very least I had some nail clippers . . . I finally decided to peek out my bedroom window. I lifted the shade and saw a overcast, grey morning, but nothing more threatening than that. So I had breakfast, went to vote, and now I'm back to do a little writing.

Ford and Emma are taking a drive today, a drive in the middle of the night that will take them down Hwy 316 and to the billboards, the only things lit up in the darkened countryside. Emma will tell us a little more about herself -- what she hates. And that will prepare us for the next chapter.

2010-11-01T10:17:00.002-04:00

It's getting cooler even here in Carrollton. I've started wearing my long pajama pants and a t-shirt to bed, but I haven't yet turned on the heat. That should wait for a couple more weeks at least. My toes do get a little cold, though.

Didn't do much Friday after all. A friend called around three and we chatted for a while. But it's a new week and time to refocus.

I did write another page on my short script, Receiving and Delivery. Still not sure what it is yet, if anything, but I'll pursue it a little while longer to see if it develops.

Nothing else to do but go to work then.

2010-10-29T14:21:00.002-04:00

A few things to note:

1. It is rather late in the day to be posting a blog entry.

a. I was out late last night listening to the Cowtown String Band again at Plates (Uncorked) -- whatever.

b. I decided to stay out a little later than usual because I was celebrating reaching the halfway point of the first draft of the novel. I'm halfway through chapter 5, which puts me about halfway through the whole thing, seeing as I've planned for 9 chapters in all.

2. Earlier in the evening, I went to eat (alone) at Cor(o)ner Cafe in Carrollton. (They've got their front windows decorated for Halloween, hence the additional o in the name.) I sat down at a table for two, the smallest denomination of seating available at most any kind of restaurant. I had ordered my food and was about to commence eating when my waitress said the owner -- a guy I am familiar and friendly with -- had said my name and shook his head. She could figure out why he had done that so she told me, thinking I might shed some light on the subject. Initially, I had nothing to offer, but later I realized that he was probably commenting, in a non-complementary way, on my solitude. Eating out alone is generally frowned upon I would assume in most cultures. In America, where the wait staff works for tips, there is a practical reason. And I do sympathize with the poor waiter/waitress who must assist me whenever I eat out alone. I'm sure they aren't too happy to see me occupy a table that could seat at least another if not more. So I try not to make myself too much of a nuisance by asking for timely refills or complaining about undercooked food or an overly long wait for food. I even at times order dessert when prompted just to pad the bill a little bit. I even try to clean my table before I leave so as not to give the waiter/waitress any additional work. So I understand why eating by myself might cause some grief for waiters and waitresses, but why is it a problem for anyone else? Would restaurant owners rather I not frequent their establishments? Do they not make money off me whether I'm eating alone or with others? And what about the other diners that see a person eating alone and feel the need to correct this obvious error in judgment? Why do they feel uncomfortable seeing me eating by myself? And why should they make me feel their discomfort by asking me to join their table? This is what happened to me last night. A guy who I don't think I know walked up to me and asked if I wanted to join him and his friend at their table and talk about evolution. What? I thought. Why? I declined the offer, and thankfully, he walked away without any further entreaty. Must a single man be shamed for the indecency of eating alone? Do you not know that I -- and all the other single people out there -- feel awkward enough eating out alone as it is?

So many questions. Reminds me of the narrator of the story I should even now be working on. I'll get to that.

But before I go, fortunately, I heard one of my favorite words uttered at Plates last night. Balderdash. I once had an idea for a movie about two "balderdashing" heros -- some wacky vaudevillains -- who find themselves not on the Titanic, but in the film called Titanic -- and hilarity ensues. If it was a successful movie, I thought there could be a whole franchise based on other terribly overblown Hollywood blockbusters. Therefore, I have fond associations with the word balderdash. So the night wasn't a complete disaster. The End.

2010-10-27T10:40:00.002-04:00

Bad weather, but better sleep. Didn't get much done yesterday afternoon. I couldn't take a nap during my lunch break, then I had to go up to the school to see about some part-time teaching in the Spring. When I got back, I was worthless. I eventually took a nap during the three o'clock hour. Ahhh . . . .

So at work again this morning. Should get to my halfway mark today. We'll see if that's all type or not.

2010-10-26T10:28:00.002-04:00

Another night of incomplete sleep. I'm officially in the trough of another sleep cycle. Steinbeck also, in the Memorial Day entry.

I finished the section where Emma and Ford first meet. It ended abruptly, but I think it works. Now on to the fire alarm. I think. There may be some filler I need to add here before I get there. The two as a couple. Going out. That's where I left it yesterday. Perhaps just the Investigator and Ford talking. A nice little interlude. This might take me up to the halfway mark of the draft . . . . Or how I conceive the draft at this moment anyway. I'm not in a celebratory mood, though. Perhaps tomorrow.

2010-10-25T11:12:00.002-04:00

Well, I woke up early this morning and lost out on some valuable sleep. It must be Monday. (I'll surely take a nap at some point in the day so don't worry.)

Ahhh, but because I was up early, I saw the lightening and heard the thunder of a coming rainstorm. I remembered that I had left my driver's side window cracked. I gathered up some clothes and galloped down to the car to raise the window just as the steady rains started to fall. Good for me. I'll open up the windows today and let the fresh air circulate.

I read another chapter in Al' America. It's a book about the influence of Arabic/Islamic culture on the United States. I've been reading it off and on for the past two months. I've got one chapter left. It hasn't been as interesting as I thought. It's basically a one-trick pony kind of book. Some of the material on music was good, and the chapter on Emerson and Sufi poetry was informative, but otherwise, he seems to be more intrigued by the slightest or superfluous adoption of Arabic/Islamic culture than the subject allows. He tries to make these connections which are trivial at best most of the time, like the chapter I read this morning connecting Angelina Jolie, tattooing and calligraphy. At times, it reads like a game of six degrees of separation. Yes, we all know someone who is someone, but what really does that prove?

And now to the narrative. I hope to finish this section I've been working on since last week -- how Ford met Emma. Ford has gone into this rather long description of the event. There's a reason for his long-windedity. (I can't believe spell-check didn't catch that, but I guess a hyphenated word trips the circuitry.) Anyway, the first meeting and then on to the more important part of the chapter, the fire. But that won't go today.

Oh, I've been sitting here long enough to remember what I would have forgotten for today: I wrote a page of a proposed short film script yesterday. Right now it's called Receiving and Delivery. It's about a guy who works nights in the Receiving Department of a university. Using black and white and color film as a motif. I plan to play with the idea of sending and receiving messages, but I really haven't thought about it too much. I'm just going for a ten to fifteen paged script. Who knows what will happen. But this is a weekend kinda thing. Nothing to get me too distracted from the task at hand.

Finally, I got an old script of mine out of the filing cabinet. It was titled Discord, but that's a stupid title. The idea has morphed just slightly, actually moving backwards in time to an earlier version that I wanted to pursue but thought too fanciful. I'd like to work on that a little, but that was before R&D showed up. That's an interesting connection I just made. I'll have to keep that one in mind for later....

2010-10-22T11:46:00.002-04:00

Another late start today. Went out to Plates (ugh) to listen to the Cowtown String Band. Their previous Thursday night venue, Millers, is closing. The crowd at Plates' bar, known as Uncorked (seriously), is a bit too Greek for me -- in that collegiate fraternity/sorority sense. You know you're in the wrong place at the wrong time when "Sweet Home Alabama" is asked for. Thankfully, the Cowtowners resisted such entreaties and won over the crowd with their string bean versions of the theme from the Dukes of Hazard, as well as Dolly Parton's "Jolene" sung by the able Amber Griffin. I didn't stay for the whole thing. I got back during the one o'clock hour.

I worked the afternoon shift yesterday with much success. Nothing like one-line dialogue exchanges to pad your page-count. Looks like that afternoon shift again for me today.

Finally, what did I forget for yesterday's entry? I can't remember and so that featured segment of the blog comes to a most satisfactory end.

2010-10-21T11:51:00.002-04:00

Writing went well again Tuesday, but I got involved with a late-night conversation that night and decided to take Wednesday off. Then I woke up early this morning for no apparent reason, and I'm just now getting to it.

Thing I forgot for Tuesday's entry: Following. It's the first full-lenth feature by Chris Nolan. I finally made a Netflix account this month and that has allowed me to watch some movies I haven't been able to find around here. Following was a no-brainer. Chris Nolan (the Nolan brothers, really) is/are my favorite filmmakers right now. Besides Following, some of Chris Nolan's other films include, Memento, The Prestige, and most recently, Inception. His brother Jonathan wrote the short story that Memento is based on and he was also involved with writing the script for The Prestige. Following is a good low budget, black-and-white film with the characteristic intelligent writing and directing that the Nolans are becoming known for. Check it out.

2010-10-19T10:18:00.003-04:00

I don't know if I've mentioned my five-minute mind before. Here's how it works -- or doesn't work. Let me take you back to yesterday's entry. I wrote about visiting my friend Phillip in Jefferson and recording for the weekend. Then I started a new paragraph to explain that I was having a hard time getting started on writing that morning. That about sums up the entry. So I finally published it and got started on the day's writing. About five minutes after I exited the blog, I realized there was a connection between visiting my friend in Jefferson and not having a good start to the day. My friend Phillip is a night owl; his day typically doesn't start until after noon, and he usually doesn't go to sleep until four in the morning. So, the past weekend, we didn't start working on his songs until two in the afternoon, and we went well into the night -- after midnight -- which threw me off my regular sleep schedule. Naturally, by Monday morning, I had not recovered from the "Jefferson Life" (as Phillip calls it). All this goes to show that it takes me five minutes to make mental connections.

You might argue that I was off my game Monday, but this happens all the time for me. It takes me five minutes to remember peoples' names (not everybody's name; just those people that I don't know very well). Or I'll forget to pass on a message or forget to say something during a conversation, and then remember it five minutes later. That's how my mind works. I guess this kind of thing fits into the absent-minded professor syndrome, which is probably why I was able to impersonate a professor at the university level for the past five years. I have some corduroy jackets that help, too.

What will I forget to mention in today's entry? I guess you'll have to wait and read about it tomorrow.

That being said, I had a good day of writing yesterday after all. It seems that every chapter starts out this way. I tend to have good first days and even some good first weeks, then a decline. I wonder why that is then I think it's the work of it. I've been taking a break between each chapter. Sometimes this is just a day or two, but I guess that's enough to recharge the engines. Technically, I didn't take a break after chapter 4 -- I "worked" all last week on it -- but going to Jefferson and "working" on the recordings got my mind off drafting for a while. Treating writing as a job may be counter-productive. I'm getting the "work" done, but is it good work? Too soon to tell. Thankfully.

2010-10-18T11:02:00.004-04:00

Back from a weekend of recording backing vocals and a little guitar with my friend Phillip. He's working on his album called Therapy. It's piano pop extraordinaire.

But back here in C-town, I'm finding it hard to get going this morning. Went to the store to pick up some breakfast items. Checked into my social media. Now, just getting to the blog. Today, I'll be starting on Chapter 5. Last week's fishing expedition (for more material to complete Chapter 4) went ok. But I always feel like I take a step back when I don't follow my instincts. Chapter 5 features Ford's story of his relationship with Emma. So Ford gets apprehended, as it were, but the Investigator doesn't think he could pull off the explosions on his own. He thinks Ford had help and he suspects that Emma was involved. So I've got to negotiate that turn of events quickly here so I don't make this a chapter about Ford getting caught. I want to keep him a secondary figure in this chapter, just like I did with Jim in the previous chapter. But that can be difficult, even more so when he's been a main character already. We'll see how it goes.

2010-10-14T10:55:00.002-04:00

One more day on Chapter 4. This weekend, I'll be going up to Jefferson, GA to help my friend Phillip on some recordings he's been working on. Some background vocals, perhaps some rhythm guitar.

The past couple of weeks, I've been thinking of a new script. Something I might try after I've finished with this draft. About a schlubby, newspaper man who's lost his job and uses the excuse that he's writing a book as a way to make his unemployment seem important. But it's all for show. It's something like my life as seen through a fun house mirror. I've got a loose outline of the story already. We'll see.

Next week, more with Emma, but from Ford's point of view.

2010-10-13T10:10:00.002-04:00

Went to the dentist yesterday, hoping for the best, fearing the worst, but of course, got something in the middle. Well . . . nothing at all really but a prescription mouth wash and another appointment in a month. We're taking a wait and see attitude. OK. I can do that. Hopefully the mouth wash and extra care will clear things up by then.

So back to writing today. Still working on filling out the chapter. Found a couple of places to add more interaction between Investigator and Jim. But there conflict here is not to shift the focus from Emma to Jim. I want to make sure that I don't spill the beans about Jim in this chapter, in this section, devoted to Emma. Jim will have to wait until the last section. But I'm getting some good material to store away for when I need it. I've added a few more pages to the length. Maybe over the next couple of days, I can add a couple pages each. That will satisfy for now.

2010-10-11T14:16:00.002-04:00

Some catching up to do.

I seem to have gotten my internet connection issue fixed. I was supposedly running 6-meg on a 3-meg system. I don't understand why or what, but my network was rebuilt and seems to be running fine, as this entry should attest. We'll see how long this keeps up.

I spent the rest of last week reading back through the chapter, trying to beef it up a little. I did some editing and found a place to sketch out some of the interaction between the Investigator and Jim as he's describing Emma. I'll continue to work on that this afternoon.

What happened to this morning? I've also been dealing with -- I hope -- some minor dental issues for a little while. I was hoping they would get better, but over the weekend, I decided I needed to go in for a check-up -- not a cleaning. That's where this trouble started, if the diagnosis is left up to me. The technician used some new-fangled torture device on me the last time I went in for a cleaning. My gums were sore afterward and they haven't felt the same since. Last night I woke up early and got to thinking about all the things that could be wrong. What could happen if I don't get checked out . . . . What could happen if I do . . . . So I tossed and turned much of the night after that. I decided to deactivate my alarm and let myself sleep a little later. I made a dentist appointment for tomorrow. More to come.

Finally, I went to the Carrollton Gun and Knife Show Sunday afternoon before heading over to my nephews 2-year-old birthday party. (No, I didn't by him anything there.) Picked up on a few details that I will add to the first chapter. I didn't stay very long. I had other things to do.

So, now that all of that is out of the way, I will continue this afternoon with filling out the fourth chapter. I'm okay if it doesn't reach the proposed page length. I just gotta let it be what it wants to be. But I'll work on it for the rest of the week and see what more I can get out of it at this stage.

What more can you ask for?

2010-10-06T10:37:00.003-04:00

I'm officially having trouble with my modem. I had similar problems earlier this year, and I got a new modem. I hope it's the same deal. Although, that would be a bit disappointing. Can't we make anything anymore that works longer than six months? So I'll be trying to figure this out, which may mean that I'll have to miss a day or two on the blog. But I shall return!

2010-10-05T10:40:00.002-04:00

Yesterday afternoon was a bust. I continued to have internet connectivity problems so I shut my computer down during my lunch break. When I restarted it, it was not performing at optimal levels. It was a little sluggish. I guess I ought to start deleting some files that I don't need. Do a little weeding. I took the opportunity to walk up to the Square and order Charles Portis's True Grit. The Coen brothers are remaking the film, sticking closer to the characterizations in the book. I saw the trailer last week. I'm looking forward to it. Otherwise, I had stumbled upon Portis's Gringos as I was doing some research for my as yet unfinished script. I haven't actually read any of his material other than the little they allow on-line, but True Grit should be in by Friday. I've ordered a lot of books lately. It's nice to be able to read whatever you want whenever you want. When I'm teaching, student papers and class material always get in the way. It feels like 1999 all over again. Taking this break may turn out not to be "worth" it, but it's been good so far.

This morning, things seem fine (with the computer and all). So I've got a faux newspaper article to write today and perhaps wind up the action in this chapter. Then, I can go back and work in some of the interview with the Investigator and Jim.

It's a little distracting, though. My apartment smells like a school cafeteria on meatloaf day. The lady downstairs must be cooking up something awful . . . like meatloaf, perhaps.

2010-10-04T10:07:00.003-04:00

My modem is having a difficult time staying awake this morning. And I had a rough time sleeping last night so there. While I was up, lying in bed, I thought about this second section -- the Emma section -- and put the sequence in my mind. What has to happen for the Investigator to know who to question, and when. Now that that is settled, I realize that I'm writing this section in reverse, which is how much of the first section went, but in terms of what we learn about Emma, it's actually chronological. The Investigator questions Emma first (which will be the 6th chapter), trying to find out more information about Ford's whereabouts. Eventually, he is able to track Ford down (without much help from Emma), and during one of their Q & A sessions, they talk about Emma -- the Investigator has begun to suspect that she was an accomplice. It is during that discussion that the Investigator learns of Jim, whose description of Emma comprises chapter six. Well, so there's that. This sequence of events doesn't change much of anything about the chapter except for one little detail that I'll go in and take out today.

Otherwise, I've got the rest of the softball incident to describe. And maybe I'll begin bulking up the proceedings with a little more back and forth between the Investigator and Jim. It is clear that the Investigator ought to be a character anyway. So why not start now?

Why not indeed.

2010-10-01T10:39:00.002-04:00

Yesterday's entry is in part what the story is about. That's the goal anyway. I hope that doesn't ruin things for you.

Otherwise, I'm about halfway through chapter 4, yet I'm coming to the end of my notes for that chapter. This is a problem I have not encountered so far. I've already been thinking about ways to extend this part of the story. And I can always go back and beef up some parts. And then there's the approach, the story within a story aspect, that I could play up. So that will be for next week. Today, I have one more scene (from the notes) to describe. This is Emma's softball game. It'll go into her team, an eclectic mix, and Jim watching from a hill above the intramural fields. Ending with a sense that their relationship is not going to last. As if the rest of the material hasn't been telling them that already. And perhaps a little foreshadowing of Ford's entrance into Emma's life.

2010-09-30T10:27:00.002-04:00

I was asked recently how my faith informed my outlook on life. I answered by stating my outlook on life could be better understood by reading Steinbeck's East of Eden, which ends with exhortation, timshel ("thou mayest"). God encourages us to choose. But not to necessarily choose right from wrong. Life is not some multiple choice test. God is not quizzing us, looking that we choose the right answer. At best, I think our choice is between better and worse, not right and wrong. I personally try to make choices that don't hurt others or me. But who's to know that what might seem to be the "better" choice hasn't caused someone heartache and pain down the road. Someone that I don't even know. It's impossible to know. It is said that God can turn even the worst actions into something great (or something like that) so aren't "bad" decisions also part of God's "plan" and if so, are those decisions "wrong"? I don't know. I don't presume to know God's will. The point is that we each have our own choices to make. The choices themselves are not important (or maybe they are). What is important is that we take responsibility for those choices.

Again, just read East of Eden.

2010-09-28T10:09:00.003-04:00

Back to work after much fanfare.

Sunday, the band played up at the Cat. National Era -- that's us -- opened for The Small Ponds, featuring Caitlin Carey formerly of Whiskeytown, a band for which Chris Laney (the bassist in our band) played bass for a while. So Chris had a shindig planned at his house for the afternoon. Some barbecue, some music. Then we headed up to the Alley Cat for the night. The band wasn't half bad. We played good. There was talk of more shows, perhaps some recording. Ah well . . . And it was interesting to see the Small Ponds play both a stripped down acoustic show and a live rock show. Somehow Sunday was supposed to be their day off, but they wound up doing double duty. Sorry, and thanks.

Then Monday, a got together with my aunt and my sister in Stone Mountain to discuss some future endeavors that would perhaps save me from having to get a "real" job next year, but the situation is still up in the air and probably will be for a while. More on that whenever there's more to share.

Today, I get back to work. More of Emma, the artist, from Jim's perspective. I'll have to see how this chapter develops, perhaps I'll have to go back and add some exchanges with the Investigator. I've enjoyed the writing for this chapter so far, but it's felt like it's come too easy yet.

I guess that's it for now . . . unless you want to check the comment I got on an entry a couple weeks ago. I think it's the only entry that has received any comments so it should be easy to find. And I'll leave it at that.

2010-09-23T10:25:00.002-04:00

Writing on the new chapter went well yesterday. I got my 3+ pages and it felt good. Jim and Emma in an intimate moment. I even had some time to go up to the school, which I haven't done all semester, to poke around, see if there might not be any part-time teaching for next semester. By then, I might need a little cash flow.

Today, more of Emma's thoughtlessness (?) -- that's not what I called it in the draft -- carelessness, perhaps. She "thinks" through emotion. A walk through downtown Athens and out the other side. With a stray cat following behind.

2010-09-22T09:49:00.002-04:00

Fall officially starts today, but I'm already warming up for a little bit of work today. I was planning on cutting the AC today, but I think I'm gonna need it.

I feel good about starting the next phase of the narrative today. Yesterday felt wrong, but today I'm ready. Steinbeck writes about a "bug" he was contending with in the Journal entry I was just reading. Perhaps I had a bug of my own for the past few days, but now, and with a little bravado, "I think I will kick the shit out of him."

I know I've mentioned Emma already. She's the main character for the second section. She's a student at the university, studying art. She's younger than Ford (and Jim). Early twenties instead of mid-twenties. That age difference makes her a little more naive, a little more innocent. It appears. But anyway, we get Emma's story from Jim at first (her boyfriend at first), then from Ford's perspective -- yes, he gets apprehended at some point and choses to talk with the Investigator about her. Emma herself won't talk to the Investigator. But he knows a secret that gives him an angle on her character. That's much later, though -- at the end of this section. For now, I'll focus on Emma and Jim. If they were a Hollywood couple, I guess they'd be known as Jimma. It's time to bring Jimma to life.

2010-09-21T11:34:00.002-04:00

Not feeling the writing today. I know how to begin; I just don't feel it. I know this is a false dilemma for any mode of employment. I would get fired if I decide one day -- I don't feel like teaching today (although I do know that happens from time to time. They're called "mental health" days). So maybe I'm taking a mental health day today.

As I was stewing this morning, I got a call from a friend and we chatted it up for awhile, making it official that I was not going to get any work done at least this morning. It was a good talk. But it just sort of solidified our place in the universe -- a very small place. You might say "insignificant." Would I say that? Not really. But I had a good night's sleep.

I think I've mentioned here before that my sleep schedule may be a large part of what makes me me. True story: I was feeling a little down a few days ago -- at night actually. I wasn't feeling up to doing much of anything, even sleeping. But eventually, I got to bed and soon I was asleep. I woke up the next day -- after a good nine hours -- and I felt refreshed. All I needed to do was press the reset button and my mood improved. But I've noticed that about myself for some time. Feelings of sadness, sullenness -- writ large: Depression -- seem to creep up on my at night. Not every night, but at night my defenses perhaps are down, my energy level is low. I'm sure it's a biological thing, an ancestral, pre-historic feeling that people would get after twilight had officially failed. They would say a prayer to a star out there in the dark distance, and then find some safe place to sleep, hoping that the light would return when they woke up. And it did. And it still does.

2010-09-20T10:58:00.002-04:00

Not working on the novel project today. I will be looking for The Pastures of Heaven, one of Steinbeck's early novels. It's mentioned in Columbine by one of the boys in his journal. Murderous psychopaths really know how to misappropriate literature.

Then I'm going to get the script out for a little while. Just viewed a trailer for the up-coming The Tourist with Johnny Depp. The concept is reminiscent of my script -- a somewhat naive American travels to a foreign country and gets caught up in romance, intrigue. When I last left the script (last month) I was trying to track down a little bit more information on this Mayan god that this city in Sinaloa is supposedly named after -- the final destination for Miller (well, almost . . . ). Just a day's dawdling and then back to the narrative tomorrow. Emma Newell's section.

2010-09-17T10:04:00.002-04:00

I mentioned a while back that sometimes I have trouble using past and passed. I took heart recently reading Steinbeck's Journal that he also is unsure at times. I just thought I'd share that before I go on.

Reading Columbine. It's terrible, but I can't look away. It's like a car crash. Rubbernecking, you might say. I was hoping for a little more about the kid's journal writing. Although he quotes often from their journals, he doesn't treat the journals separately. It's all part of the narrative. So I was flipping around, looking at different stages of the narrative and wound up reading the last part first. Then I went back after writing to read the beginning. Not quite the beginning. I started on page 32 when things really get going. The book is sequenced out of order anyway, so it really doesn't matter where you start. It's very depressing, but for my story, it is worth reading to gauge some of my character development. I am reminded of the film Elephant, directed by Gus Van Sant. The film is loosely based on the events leading up to the school shooting. I watched it a few years ago. I might check it out again.

Should finish ch 3 today. That will mark the end of Ford's section. Hmmmm . . . . It will be interesting to focus on a different character. To see where she goes.

2010-09-16T10:29:00.002-04:00

Well, the book Columbine, got to the library yesterday afternoon. I'm going to take a good look at it this morning before I go back and fill in some of the empty spaces in ch 3. I basically came to the end of the journal yesterday. So doing mostly fill-in stuff today and tomorrow. There will be a framing device, from the narrator, at the beginning and end to finish as well.

2010-09-15T10:15:00.003-04:00

Picked up where I left off yesterday. I had to rein myself in or I would have gotten close to finishing the chapter yesterday. So the journal entries are coming along, but I would like to get a chance to take a look at Columbine by Dave Cullen before I close up this section. It's supposed to use pieces of Klebold's and Harris's journals to come to terms with the violence. Ford is not a thrill kill character, but I'm interested to see if I find any parallels. I requested the book from the local library and they've been trying to get it sent to them for the past couple of weeks. I was told that it should be available this evening. We'll see.

For now, I'll just keep working on entries.

Went to the Braves game. Didn't get a win. Didn't get a cap. But had a good time, nonetheless. Nonetheless . . . what a word! Triple word score -- no Scrabble skills necessary.

2010-09-14T10:01:00.003-04:00

Back to work. I played a set with some fellows at the Alley Cat here in Carrollton on Sunday. With all the loading and unloading, it was well after midnight by the time I got in. So I decided to take Monday off to recharge. I'll be working the rest of the week. Again, my goal is to finish this chapter by then. We'll see. Today, I'll be working on entries that detail events from Chapter One, but from Ford's perspective.

Later, I'm planning on going to Atlanta for a Braves game -- my first of the year during one of their last home stands. They're actually having a good year this year, their first since I started becoming a real fan, which was after their long string of post-season appearances. It's fitting that I would start liking baseball after all the hoopla and hubbub. I couldn't connect with them unless I was starting on the ground floor. Well, better late than never. I'm thinking about buying a new Braves cap. The one I wear now was a give-away a few years ago. It's faded and creased and wrinkled. It's lost what little shape it had to begin with. And certainly, I'll have a hotdog . . . and hopefully a good time.

2010-09-10T11:40:00.002-04:00

Out a little later than usual last night listening to the Cowtown String Band. Was out front of Miller's chatting it up when a couple of hotdog vendors strolled down the sidewalk. I got a hotdog with my name written in mustard on it. Yum. And then there was a hotdog documentary on History Channel this morning. I've seen most of it before so I didn't watch.

So I'll probably eat some lunch soon, take a nap and come back in the afternoon for some work. The journal entries are coming along. Rev tries to help Ford deal with Emma's pregnancy, but only reminds him that he has no family to fall back on. Ford has his idea. What's left of the chapter will follow Ford putting the pieces into place. It's possible that I'll have this chapter finished next week. That would help me gain some ground on my timeline. It would actually be good to gain some ground.

2010-09-09T10:05:00.002-04:00

I've got some things bubbling up in my mind right now. Don't really have much to relate. I ran into a friend as I went walking up to the Square and back yesterday evening. She wanted me to explain my book a little. I've gotten my response memorized, almost word-for-word. On the surface, it's a mystery. The narrator is a detective investigating a crime. He has three suspects. Really, the story is about the interaction of these three suspects. There are three triangles I'm exploring with the narrative. Etc. Enough of that. I can't honestly say the book is about anything yet. It does change suddenly, unexpectedly. But I guess suddenly takes care of the unexpectedly by itself. What happens suddenly that is not unexpected? A good question to draw out my narrator.

2010-09-07T10:28:00.003-04:00

A late start this morning. I had to run to the store to pick up some dish washing detergent (and some donuts). I ran out of detergent last week and then started running out of clean bowls and utensils this weekend. And then Labor Day hit me. I guess I could have hand-washed a few things, but I didn't think it was right to work on Labor Day.

Which also explains my absence on the blog. So I took off Labor Day, but now I'm back to work. Ford's journal still progressing well. I'll continue with that the rest of the week. Today comes the entry -- in the journal -- where Ford brings up the billboards. (They are the religious kind; the ones where God is trying to tell us something. "Don't make me come down there. -- God") Emma objects to them. It's the first time in the narrative that they will have been mentioned -- the it. I wonder if this will sit well with me -- if it will feel right. It's not too late to change what it is, but this is the point toward which the story has been building. I guess I won't know until I get there.

2010-09-03T10:17:00.002-04:00

"[I]f you can know a man's plans, you you know more about him than you can in any other way." Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel.

I suppose that's perhaps the only benefit of this blog. The planning of this novel should at least come to something, considering that the novel itself probably won't.

Ford's journal is a bit like this. Ford will be describing his plans for the coming catastrophe. But will it end up like the episode in high school? You don't really know what happened, I understand. It didn't turn out the way he wanted it to. He found out something about himself that he didn't like . . . which is important, I think, but not right now.

Ford's journal writing went well yesterday . . . perhaps a little too well. I got six full pages. But that's not surprising, given the stream-of-consciousness style and slightly tighter margins. But at this rate, I'll be finished with this chapter by the end of next week, certainly the middle of the month. Who knows. But the breaking of the narrative has been nice, if just for a day. We'll see how it goes today. Ford curses in "church," talks of fatherhood with a Methodist minister, etc.

2010-09-02T09:50:00.003-04:00

Back at work on the novel. I had a couple of good days working on the script. I got the third act started. And as I reread some of the sections, I thought it read pretty well. One of these days . . .

I also sent the story off to be read, critiqued. I don't have my hopes up for that one, but again, it was good reading.

I took the day off Wednesday, like last week. I bought a couple books. One, The English Major, was recommended by my friend Phillip who read the first chapter (of my draft). This has no relevance to my story, but who knows . . . it might somehow. The other book is The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham. I saw the movie version of the story a few years ago, starring Edward Norton, and thought it was a very compelling story (on the screen anyway). I haven't read any Maugham before so maybe he'll be a new author to delve into. It's funny. I always thought his first initial was M. I've read his name many times but never did I see a W there. I guess all the other Ms in his name influenced how I saw the W -- it somersaulted in my brain and turned into an M. Very strange. Indeed.

So I begin the third chapter today. This chapter will come primarily from Ford's journal. A little explanatory note to begin things and then directly into the journal. I like the movement of the piece -- Ford at a distance, Ford coming into focus, and now Ford in his own words. And a new voice to write in.