{ 36 } On Always Telling the Truth

It's kind of sad when I can honestly say that the best thing I've written this month is an email to my brother. Did you read it? No?

Oh, that's because I left it up here for all of about two hours.

It wasn't scandalous or scathing. It was a humorous juxtapose of the different reactions I have to different situations, based on the silly pseudo-personalities my brother and I long ago decided live in my brain. But shortly after I put it up, I realized that without the brother/sister frame of reference, it really wouldn't have made any sense to the rest of you.

Since Day One of this blog, I have attempted to make every post about something having to do with writing. I have tried to keep all posts at least semi-relevant to either current things I am working on or my writing process. This is not a "lifestyle" blog. This is not my diary.

Obviously there's a "real life" tag over there on the right, but that's reserved for actual stories (and once a letter to my late uncle) based on real life, as well as things like this post, where I feel the need to tell you about something that affects my writing because it's based in real life.

Yes, yes: every once in awhile there will be a line or two that makes it in that seems a little TMI, but for the most part I try and keep it 99 so as to be interesting to random strangers and not bore or horrify them with my actual real life. That's also how you end up with posts like the last one.

And don't worry, I do have outlets for "those kinds of posts" with "those kinds of topics." They started a million years ago anonymously on MySpace (or was that two million years ago?) then finally graduated to uber-private and super-unlisted sites elsewhere.

In this day and age, it's too easy to find things based on real name alone. Once you know that, you can pretty much figure out what internet handle they use ("Sweet Charity," anyone?) and then crack into their soul.

But I figure, if there is some private aspect of my personal life I'm just dying to tell you about, I'll either tell you about it directly or spin it in to one of the amalgamations I discussed in the last post.

Above and beyond all else, though, I try and keep this blog fun to read while still maintaining the privacy and anonymity of my friends, family, and relationship partners. I mean, honestly: could you imagine if I poured my life out in every blog only to have some girl in your future read it and think, "Huh. I guess he is an asshole." That would just be mean.

In conclusion, my character Errol is still sitting in that damn sheriff's office in Lubbock and I feel really, really bad about that. However, that other character? The one that doesn't have a name yet but had that jerk for a boss?  She's been on some crazy adventures! Too bad I haven't written them in sequential order. There will be a new "Short/Long/Otherwise" soon. Promise.

Now stop slacking on your end and leave me a comment!

{ 35 } Art Imitating Life or You're So Vain

First, the writing is coming along. Not as fast or as furious as I wanted it to, but that's they way these things go. Plus, it doesn't help when there are two very different story with two very different sets of characters trying to fight their way out of you.

Sigh.

As I'm writing, my thoughts will often turn to you, my dear reader. Not the anonymous ones, but the people that I know personally and have read my stuff in the past and will, hopefully, read my stuff in the future.

If you were to ask me where my ideas come from, there's only one obvious answer: nowhere. Really. As I stated in Post { 31 } I Suck at Life, it's all about the Magical Sentence popping in to my head to get the process started. Then things fall in to place.

However, even though I might suck at life, I don't live in a vacuum (HA!), so often friends and acquaintances make their way in to my writing. It's the curse of knowing a writer.

When you read things, you might think to yourself, "Holy crap! That's me! She wrote me in to a story!" Then you'll be either happy or furious, depending on the character and how you think I interpreted you.

Well, hate to break it to you, but you're only half right.

To date, the only things I have written that were actually about someone in particular are the two obvious examples: "Billy" and "Sam." I don't think it gets much more obvious than that.

But the rest of the time, characters and conversations and situations are an amalgamation of all sorts of different crap, some of it real, some of it not. That's why you might think, "Huh. She wrote about my love of vintage Converse High Tops and the time I burned off my eyebrows lighting a cigarette on the stove, so I know it's me, but why did she say I'm a pig farmer in Vermont? Everyone knows I'm a federal judge!"

Because it's not you, silly. I obviously borrowed what I needed and dropped the rest. When I'm ready to write your biography, I'll let you know. (FYI: I don't know anyone that fits any of that description. I wish I did.)

Having said that, my writings aren't autobiographical either. I do have a habit of writing females whose names begin with "B," but that's about it. Yes, somethings are real (I actually did work for a perpetually hungover manager that would send me texts meant for his girlfriend and get mad at me for no reason), but again, the biggest relation I have to my characters is that they came out of my brain.

I suppose I really don't need to explain all of this to you, with you being the smart people I know you are. But my brain gets all stupid and panicky about this sort of thing. I guess that's the curse of being a writer that knows people.

{ 32 } The Truth Is Never Pretty

Hey there, Super Fans!

I've got a new find for you. I guess it's really not a "find" since I never lost it, but I have had it tucked away for a decade. It's another one of my "This Happened to Me" pieces, like "Billy."

A few distinct key differences: where "Billy" was raw and real and my soul laid bare, this piece is slightly more... embellished. For example, the main "me" character is way more shallow than I have ever been.

Next, "Billy" has an ending, a very concrete ending. This story ends with an adverb: "then." Why, you ask? Not entirely sure. Maybe it was due to laziness, maybe that I was all I had to say, or maybe because it's a story that doesn't end. Maybe it's still being written.

Also, in "Billy," the antagonist is dead and had been for awhile when I wrote it. In this piece, the antagonist is very much still alive. And that's why I waited to publish this piece. I wanted him to read it before I let all of you, because it's not exactly flattering. So, it only took a decade (original creation date is September 2005!), but he finally read it and I got the green light.

A quick bit of backstory: when I wrote this piece, I was surfacing back from one of the biggest meltdowns of my life. If you've ever seen me meltdown, you know that's saying a lot. There was so much hurt and anger and sadness and confusion going on, none of which was made better by the free-flowing alcohol and severe lack of responsibility. It took years and years for some of the hurt to heal. But it finally did, like it always does. I'm just glad (most) of us lived through it.

Enough of that. On with the show.

-----

SAM

Enter, page one, our first character: Sam Dumpy Mousekiwitz. From henceforth he shall be referred to as “Sam,” “Dumpy,” “Dumpy Mousekiwitz,” or “Mr. Mousekiwitz,” but never again as the name in full. Here is the last time you will see it in print in its entirety, so take in its full magnitude and remember it well: Sam Dumpy Mousekiwitz.

Of course, this was not the same Sam I had fallen in love with a year before. No, that was Sam the REAL ROCK STAR, self proclaimed. Never mind the fact that he could barely play guitar and sung no better than a sty full of sow. He did, however, possess that certain je ne sas quoi that only rock stars have, including the abilities to do copious amounts of drugs, drink like a fish, and throw temper-tantrums at the mere thought of not getting what they want.

I had initially fallen in love with him, as stated a year before, as a way to give in to my rebellious urges. Sam was the king of Robert Smith hair, a self-perpetuating alcoholic, and hotter than the ever-blazing fires of Hell. I wanted him bad, but alas, I was spoken for and he was only nineteen.
Regardless, he eventually aged and I eventually singled and, after a painful lust year, I finally acquired my prize.

In the beginning it seemed ideal: me, a punk rock princes with my gorgeous trophy rock star on my arm; him, a slobbering drunken mess with a fabulous older woman there to clean up after him. It was a match made in Hell and I relished every hardcore minute of it.

We spent the vast majority of our time together drunk and on his couch, surrounded by a never ending parade of other drunks. Sam still wasn't old enough to patronize the local bars, but I was more than happy to float through the days on our blurry oasis. The closeness of our persons and the constant state of intoxication, however, were beginning to cloud my judgment and make me overlook certain unavoidable, damaging traits that Sam was beginning to acquire.

For example, the sexy army pants he most commonly wore had been replaced by a heinous pair of orange (orange!) slacks from J. Crew (J. Crew!). What was happening?

Sam also had a black leather punk jacket, meticulously adorned with pins, paint, and patches. The delicious leather jacket was one of the things that helped define Sam as a rock star. Every shiny bit of metal that graced its surface was actually a medal, a badge proving he was worthy of stomping around town, throwing up on sidewalks, and screaming his particular brand of “music” into microphones. The jacket may have been a typical and traditional uniform, but it was also one of the very reasons I had initially been attracted to him, as ridiculous and petty as it may seem in hindsight. What can I say: I like shiny things.

However, more and more recently, the jacket was shoved to the back of the closet in favor of a disgusting red and black striped knit sweater, frayed at all edges from the constant picking, twisting, and tearing that Sam's busy hands would subject it to. It was hideous.

The change in clothing was nothing compared to the physical changes Sam was going through. His passion for drugs had waned and every night without an illicit substance coursing through his body became another inch around his waist. I didn't know it at the time, even though it is abundantly clear now, that this sickening, fat, terribly dressed thing I was dating was no longer Sam, but Dumpy Mousekiwitz.

Dumpy was Sam's alter ego. Or perhaps Dumpy was the dominate one. No matter: I did not like what I was seeing, and it was completely unacceptable for a woman of superior quality, me, to be dating this repulsive creature.

I had learned early on that the best way to improve my own social status was to date the best of the best: the ceaselessly attractive, the hardest partier, the most well-known. I am a social creature and defined by the societies I am surrounded by. It was a dog-eat-dog world and if I couldn't be the top of the food chain then I had no business eating. This was why Dumpy was so damaging to my reputation. I simply could not be seen with a sloppily dressed blob masquerading as a human.

Let's zoom back to page one for a moment, when you, the reader, first met Dumpy Mousekiwitz. Let me set up the scenario for you: I was sitting on the trashy couch in the trashy house Dumpy called home. The room was always in a perpetual state of disarray because of the copious amount of liquored-up children that were always crammed in between the walls. This is not a complaint, because I was a constant fixture in the room also. This was the place to come to see people and to be seen.

When Dumpy entered the room, everyone gave him an affectionate smile. I say affectionate, but I really knew they were more pity smiles. The others saw that the change had happened, too.

I hadn't seen Dumpy for a quarter of an hour or so. I figured he had probably been off telling the latest round of revolving-door roommates how happy he was to have them living on his couch. He stood in front of me and declared that we needed to take a shower because he was “all dried out”.
Dried out? He looked like he was retaining enough water to put out a forest fire, if squeezed the proper way. Plus, the very last thing I wanted to do was leave the party to, of all thing, take a shower.

Then-


-----

{ 31 } I Suck at Life

Two posts? In the same month? How is this even a thing?

Well, I'll tell you: I had way, WAY too much fun last night hanging out with people I've known forever, people I've met once, and people I've never met before. I mean, Wednesdays are usually fun in general, but every once in awhile, a Wednesday comes along that is super fun. Last night was one of those Wednesdays.

But I'm here to tell you about how awesome I am at having fun. No, I'm here to tell you how much I suck at life.

Since last night was so much fun (did I mention that?), I am a complete pile of uselessness today. I decided to at least pretend to be productive by doing something that requires very little movement. Hence, a new blog post. Aren't you lucky?

I actually went back and re-read every post on here, something I don't usually do. It depresses me how little progress I've made on my writing since I started this blog almost 7 years ago. Sheesh.

I promised to win 2009, have something published before 2010, and at least finish one damn writing project I started. None of those things happened. That makes me sad.

Let me tell you about my writing process. This is how the vast majority of my projects get started. I'll be driving down the road or trying to fall asleep or doing some other mindless task when, all of a sudden, BOOM! I'll get an amazing sentence in my head. I'll stop what I'm doing, jot down the sentence, and go back to my original activity (yes, it does get a little scary in the car). Then when I have real, actual time, I'll spin that one little sentence in to 10,000 or more words. This is how SSIBWO got started. This is how my YA book got started. It's not how HOS got started; that began with an image in my head, but same concept.

Do you how frustrating it is to have to wait for your brain to go all lolly-gaga before you can write? Not to mention if I don't have any paper. That actually happened the other night. I got the sentence, came up with character names and subplots, somehow managed to write the whole book in my head, even decided who was going to play whom in the movie adaptation, and I neglected to write anything down because I'm an idiot. Within the span of 30 minutes, I couldn't even remember the main character's name. Good work.

But here's the thing: if I could just remember that one damn sentence, I'm sure I would get the whole thing back. But I can't remember it. I know it was a semi-common phrase that would make my main character sound like a hippie if you added the word "man" to the end. Not helpful.

I do, however, have a plan.

As I have mentioned, I've been reading books like a crazy person, two to three at a time. I'm weird, I know. Anyway, most of the books have been amazing, but one I read was meh. It had an okay plot, but it lacked any distinct style or voice. I could have been written by a robot. For all I know, it was. No, I will not tell you who actually wrote it, because I don't feel that she's a bad writer, just an uninspired one. As we all know, there's only one writer I dislike enough to talk shit about (hint: she's the only one that has her own tag on the right).

Anyway, I decided to do what any writer would do when faced with the same situation: rewrite the book. Hack move? You betcha! Do I care? No. No I do not.

I'm not going to promise you I'll finish it, because we all know how shitty I am at keeping writing promises. But just know it's a thing I'm doing. I might not ever mention it again or I might actually complete it. That would be weird.

Until next time!

{ 30 } Updating Stuff

Not very exciting, I know.

Other than changing the background, the only other real change is the "tag cloud." See it over there on the right? Now you can view all post on a topic.

The one I think you'll like the most is "SHORT/LONG/OTHERWISE": clicking that will show you all the posts in which I've actually written something, rather than just blabbing away about whatever is going on in my tortured artist's soul.

Coming soon, I plan to add the full text of the article I wrote awhile back for Rooster magazine. I just have to find the damn thing. This is a constant problem for me.

As of late, I've been reading way too much. Like, uncomfortable levels of reading. Like, reading so much, it's a good thing I don't have friends because they might feel I've chosen books over them. And I'm not talking audio books either; since the beginning of the year, I've read six full books and I'm in the middle of two more. That's more than most people read in a year. And I've done it in under six weeks, on top of working full time, and, you know, living. Sheesh.

Also, as I pondered doing awhile back, I'm going to make audio recordings of all the stories and whatnot that are here. It's going to be a process, but it might be fun to read aloud the stuff I've written. Or maybe it will be just another laborious task that I start, which I hadn't, and never finish. Time will tell.

Finally, as I teased over on my Geeks Who Drink blog (the one I'm contractually obligated to write every week, recapping my misadventures in quizzing over at the Trail Head Tavern), I'm starting a new project. Another one. 'Cause, you know, I don't have enough partially finished projects to work on. So, keep an eye out for that.

I'm going to try and stop being so creatively lazy. No promises.

{ 28 } Reading Writers

Hey there, blog readers. This is the first thing I've written about anything since my letter to Uncle Gary in post 27. It's not that I haven't wanted to write, it's just that I've been in a funk. A "life sickness", if you will. I've been on a constant cycle of work-sleep-repeat with the occasional lost weekend or video game binge to break up the monotony.

I have a few points to hit, so let's jump right in, shall we?

First, my hometown of Black Forest has burned to the ground. Not all of it, mind you, but the vast majority. The house my family lovely constructed still stands. But the house we lived in before that, the one in which I met my then-best friend, where my bedroom had cloud wall paper and I wrote "I hate this place" on the inside of my closet door, the house my step-dad almost burned down himself by putting hot ashes in a plastic garbage can in the garage by the hay bale for my bunnies, where my brother and I buried our only time capsule, where I watched the first Gulf War play out on a 13 inch t.v., where I practiced singing "More Than Words" to get on Star Search, where my mom's best friends move in after we moved out is gone. The whole neighborhood. Gone.

I only bring this up because one, I'm sad about it and two, Mom would always remind us "It's not if, but when" in regards to the whole place going up in flames. Assuming the family was safe, what would we take? What would we save? I'm thankful my family and most of my friend's families no longer live there. Looking at all the things I own, I wouldn't be sad if most of it was lost. But my books! My writings! My pictures! Too much. What would I save now? What would you save?

Second, I finally have someone else to act as a sounding board for my ideas. His name is Ross and he's published. Boding = well. I'll keep you posted. Maybe my mush-brain can pump out something in totality for once.

Third, I have a friend named Marcus. He likes reading but doesn't like to read. Hell, if he made it this far, big-ups. I'm thinking about doing audio recordings of at least my writings so Marcus can enjoy them. Maybe I'll audio-tise all my blogs. Thoughts?

Finally, and to the point: I read a lot. If there's not a book in my hand, there's one on my iPod. When I read print, it's 100% true crime, usually Ann Rule. I can't help it: I love murder. And Ann Rule, being a former police woman, is my hero. A quick count of my true crime library has 13 titles, 11 of which are Ms. Rule. My audiobooks are mostly made up of fiction, usually zombie or apocalyptic. Currently I'm listening to A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.. (Interesting side note: a lot of my favorite titles, Wuthering Heights, To Kill A Mocking Bird were the only novels published by those authors. Same with A Canticle for Leibowitz. Will I love it?)

Anyway, I went to grab a new paperback to read and, to my surprise, I have no more true crime on my shelf!!! I only buy books at ARC and they have been devoid of true crime recently, so what do I read? I grabbed the closest thing: The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth. Why? No clue. It's the first fiction book (even though there are real elements) I've held in my hot little hands in quite awhile. I'm eating the book like cake. But here is my question to you: what the hell do I read next? Any suggestions from Reader Land?

I'll try to be more productive. Don't hold your breath.

{ 27 } "Farewell, hello, farewell, hello."

Hello dear readers. Sad news from Writer Land this week. My uncle, friend, and fellow Vonnegut-lover Gary Sellon passed away at the age of 62. He was one of my favorite people.

I was not able to go to the memorial. I really, really wanted to. Not just to pay my respects to my uncle (I can do that any day and time I want), but to be there for my family. Gary's passing has reminded me that life is short. It can end anytime, any place. Uncle Gary and Aunt Jody were visiting Mom in Vegas just before Gary got sick! As sad as it is, sometimes a death is the only way people that love each other can find the time to get together.

Alright, I'm not here to bum you out. I'm sure you have plenty of other factors in your life that can do a much better job.

Since I was not able to get to Iowa, I wrote a letter instead. I wanted Mom to read it, but she knew she would have started crying. So, she let the officiator, Pastor Jeni Bohls, read it.

When I wrote this letter, I directed towards my family but for Gary. Important fact to remember as you read it. It's rife with Vonnegut references, most of which, if you're not familiar with them, might seem a bit odd. But, as I said, it was written for Gary. If I had passed before him, and he had missed the opportunity to quote our mutually favorite author, I would have been spitting mad.

So here's what I wrote, posted for family that couldn't go, friends that didn't know Gary, and readers of my writings. I have annotated it in case you're interested in what the hell I was talking about. The first annotation is, of course, the title of this blog. You can read to annotations as you go, or view them all at the end of the letter.

As oxymoronic as it sounds, enjoy the eulogy.

* * * * *

Dear family,

Brecken here. I really wanted to join you today to honor and share in the memory of one of my favorite people: Uncle Gary. But, as you know and I know and I'm sure Gary would appreciate, life often gets in the way of living. This letter will have to serve as a tribute in my stead.

 

From early on, I thought my uncle was a cool guy. When I was little, for Christmases and birthdays, he would send me a sticker book and sheets of stickers. So, naturally, I thought Gary worked in a sticker factory! I was the envy of all my school friends. Mom never bothered to set me straight. Consequentially, I believed I had an uncle in the sticker business until a few years ago.

 

Then, when I was a teenager, Uncle Gary found out I liked Kurt Vonnegut. I had spent a summer tearing through book store shelves looking to fill the gaps in my aggregation. Who should come through? Gary. He gave me his entire Vonnegut collection, complete with titles that I had no access to, this being before the age of the internet. Again, I was the envy of my friends (the smart ones, at least).

 

I fancy myself an author, so I sometimes write articles, dissertations, what-have you. Whenever I would post something I had written on-line, Uncle Gary was the only person I knew for fact that would read it. It didn't matter if it was a review of a Fort Collins restaurant or a rant on how lax I'd been on actual writing, I knew Gary would see it. If I ever got discouraged or stuck, I'd just remind myself that I had at least one loyal fan.

 

While it's easy for me to get bogged down in self-pity, remembrance, and mourning for my uncle that I loved so much, my heart truly goes out to my cousins Ryan, Larkin, and Courtney and my aunt Jody. No matter how important to me he was, I know that Gary was infinitely more important to you.

 

Jayson and Amy, at first-blush, this family might seem a little wacky. And, in actuality, it is. I think I can speak for this whole weird-ass family, Gary included, when I say we are grateful that you joined us and brought a whole new generation of Beckers and Sellons.

 

Cole, Lily, Jaxon and Jacey, you had a wonderful grandpa that loved you very much. Kenadi, you're just going to have to trust us on this one. I know Gary was happy to spend as much time with you as was possible and I know you'll grow up to make him proud.

 

I'm going to miss my uncle Gary a lot. I know we didn't get to talk as much as adults as I would have liked, nor did I get to see him, or anyone of you, as much as I wanted to. We lost a really neat and special person this week. So it goes. I am very grateful that Gary was a part of my family and someone I'd consider a friend.

 

Gary always tried to live like everyday was just another day in Paradise. “If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.” Well, Gary, you have now been granted a one-way, all-expense paid trip to that Paradise. When you reach the end of the blue tunnel, know that Vonnegut is waiting for you there, microphone in-hand, to document your journey. Then you both can enjoy the dum-dums, shuffleboard, and beer.

 

In closing, I'll say to you, Uncle Gary, what Saint Peter said to Vonnegut on his last round-trip down the blue tunnel: “See you later, Alligator.”

 

Love,

Brecken

* * * * *

Annotations:

1) "Farewell, hello, farewell, hello." - These are the final words spoken by Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist in Slaughterhouse-Five, as he is assassinated. It is the message of the Tralfamadorians, the alien race that kidnapped Billy. Tralfamadorians believe that people only appear to die; they are still alive in the past, and death is only an "unpleasant moment". In the further words of the text: "All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them."

2) "Cole, Lily, Jaxon, Jacey... Kenadi" - These are my cousins's kids, so my first cousins once removed (yeah, that's a real thing). Kenadi is the newest of the brood, born 16 August, 2012.

3) "So it goes." - This is probably the most recognised Vonnegut quote, repeted in Slaughterhouse-Five 106 times. It is another saying of the Tralfamadorians. According to the text, "When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.'"  Per the Onion's AV Club, it's another way of saying, "Shit happens, and it's awful, but it's also okay. We deal with it because we have to."

4) “If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.” - This quote is originally attributed by Vonnegut to his "good uncle" Alex. But Vonnegut repeated it in A Man Without A Country. When you notice that you are happy, Vonnegut urges you to "exclaim or murmur or think at some point" that phrase. I believe that, while Gary might never have said it out loud, that phrase was constantly running through his mind.

5) "one-way, all-expense paid trip to that Paradise", "blue tunnel", "Vonnegut is waiting for you there, microphone in-hand, to document your journey." - These are allusions to God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian in which Vonnegut (ficticiously?) dies multiple times at the hands of Dr. K in order to interview the dead "on the hundred yards or so of vacant lot between the far end of the blue tunnel and the Pearly Gates".

6) "dum-dums, shuffleboard, and beer" - another allusion. This time to Happy Birthday, Wanda June, the only play written by Vonnegut. The Wanda June of the play is a little girl who was killed on her birthday by a drunk driver of an ice-cream truck. She goes to Heaven and she loves it: she feels that dying is a good thing and everyone that is in Heaven should be thankful to the one that sent them there. She says that they can't be mad because they're all too busy playing shuffleboard and the dead soldiers in Heaven "just love the shrapnel and the tanks and the bayonets and the dum dums that let them play shuffleboard all the time - and drink beer.". So there's that.

7) "See you later, Alligator.” - A direct line from God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian. The "last round-trip" refers to the fact that it shall be the last time that Vonnegut allows Dr. Kevorkian to kill him and revive him for a past-life interview. It is the final line in the introduction and I believe the best last thing I could have said to my uncle.

{ 24 } Apparently I'm a PC Fascist

I got the job at Rooster. Yet Simon, the hotter-than-burning-hot-fire editor, has not approved nor disapproved my submitted article ideas. Boo.

I am mad at my dad for not telling me my aunt Margaret died... in MAY. That's why I haven't called.

I miss my friend Annette who is on a kibbutz in Israel.

Andy, I stole four beers. Kill me.

(Thanks, Propagandhi, for the blog title. The kids don't stand a chance.)

{ 23 } Are You There Readers? It's Me, Writer.

As of late, I've been busy and sick. Mostly busy, which I'm sure lead to my dumb head cold. That and winter is quickly approaching.

Blarg.

I have not been writing as I should be. No, I found "Billy", considered it a small victory, and haven't progressed. I have, however:

• Read a ton of Ann Rule books,
• Built some Ikea furnature,
• Set up a FaceBook page for this blog.

Oh, what? You didn't notice? Maybe that's because you're a terrible friend. Find it on the FB or click the "Like" button on the right and you'll get the (infrequent) updates I post.

It helps me stay motivated when you're looking over my shoulder.

Don't be a jerk.

{ 22 } The Lost Has Now Been Found!

So, if you remember back to Post #14, I introduced a story called "Billy" that I had written for a massive online writing contest called Field Report. Well, shortly after I had submitted said story, the proprietors of FR suffered some family tragedy. Despite being hailed as the best thing for writers since the invention of the actual written word from every blog about wrting to MFing Time magazine, FR went down.

And guess what went down with it? That's right, "Billy". The best short story I've ever written... primarily because it's the only one I've actually finished, but also because it's damn good.

Anyway, alright, no problem, I should have the story backed upped on at least ten sources, right? Right?

Eh, not-so-much. I thought I did, but an extensive search of Jihad (the desktop) and Mustachio (the laptop) turned up nothing. I even emailed the only address I could find for one of the original starters of FR in a desperate hope that he had a back up of all stories submitted. No dice. The IRL Billy was dead and the story "Billy" was lost. A winner am I.

But then something awesome happened: the BF's laptop stopped working. Doesn't sound that good, right? Probably not in the usual sense, but the death of the Mac forced him to back up and move all the files from the old Mac to the new. And that's when the amazing BF stumbled across "Billy".

Before you get in to this story, I AM still working on SSIBWO. And I have a new article on Examiner. Read. And read.

Without further ado, I present to you "Billy" in its full, unadulterated, lost-on-the-interwebs-but-found-by-an-awesome-BF-by-total-mistake form. Remember that this is a true story and I lived every sad, honest minute of it. Enjoy, cry, whatever.

-----

BILLY

I am fourteen years old. I am still too young to know about the world, so I hold beliefs and prejudices that have no merit or reason. Of course, I wont know about this until later, when I am old enough to realize that life doesn't fit neatly into a little, narrow box.

I travel to Arizona to see my friend Erik who still lives in the town I left four years prior. While I was gone, I was trying my best to fit in to a place where everybody had known each other from birth. Erik, however, had remained and was flourishing in those very same types of relationships.

"Wait until you meet my friends," he boasts. "You'll love them." And I do: funny, artsy, creative. All the things I had lost in the move, none of the things my new friends were. One of Erik's friends sparks my attention the most: Billy.

Billy is like no one I had ever met. As witty and spunky as Erik and I are, Billy tops us. We shoot some short films, as we used to do before I left, and Billy plays every part assigned to him as if he were born for the role. My trip down Memory Lane is now tinged with a schoolgirl crush on a boy I hardly even know.

My last night in town, my world is rocked. For our Friday evening entertainment, we’re going to an all-ages night at a club; a gay club. I am staggered. In my young, small-minded views, being gay wasn’t right. How could these people that I admire so much think that it was okay?

“You can be straight, but you don’t have to be narrow,” Billy tells me. While I'm not really sure what to think, Billy currently holds sway over my juvenile heart. If Billy says it’s fine, then I’ll go along for the ride.

* * *

I am fifteen years old. Billy and I have been holding a long-distance friendship, talking at least once a week. I hear about his girlfriend, about his new apartment, about his cat that he named after one of the crossdressers from the club. It’s light and fun and innocent, until reality slaps me across the face.

“I broke up with my boyfriend this week,” Billy tells me. I’m puzzled.

“Don't you mean your girlfriend?” I must have misheard. I was sure Billy had a girlfriend. He had mentioned her on more then one occasion.

“Well, I broke up with her too.” Pause. “I’m bi-sexual.” I swallow hard. How could this be real? How could this person that I cared so much for be something that I thought was so wrong? I panicked.

“I’ll have to call you back,” fell out of my mouth. I had a hard reality to face: either this witty, beautiful, lively boy was really something disgusting and to be hated, or I was being ignorant and blind. Had I really been narrow-minded all this time for no reason? How could I love something I thought I hated?

* * *

I am sixteen years old. I return again to Arizona to visit Erik. While he is preoccupied with his girlfriend and his job, I take a day to spend with Billy.

His bi-sexual facade has ended: Billy is gay. All my illusions of us ever being together vanish as I read the “I Know What Boys Like!” sticker on the back of his car, visit his tiny studio apartment and glance at the naked man calendar on his wall, and accidentally stumble on to his collection of “adult pleasure” devices.

We sit under his black light as he makes me a tape of dance remixes. I have come to accept that Billy is still the same boy I fell in young love with two years prior, still charming and witty.

Except now, perhaps as a way for me to justify and embrace my new-found tolerance, instead of just calling him my friend Billy, my mind refers to him as “my gay friend Billy”. I don’t view it as negative. Actually, I don’t view it as anything. Simply, he’s gay, he’s my friend, and he’s Billy.

We drive around Phoenix in his car listening to The Violent Femmes. At every stop sign he slows just enough to say, “S-T-oh, I’ll read it later!” and off we go with a laugh. He tells me that he has begun working in a gay bathhouse passing out towels. I’d never heard of such a thing, so he explains the concept, casually describing the anonymous sex and drug use he enjoys there. He also tells me that he is HIV positive.

I am floored. Billy has yet again thrown me a curve ball. My mind races back to when he had first told me has was bi, then gay. Now this? I was right to be so fascinated by him, as every encounter we have ever had has forced me to grow up a little more. I was again faced with a choice: abandon him out of fear for the disease in his body that I knew very little about or continue to accept my friend.

* * *

I am nineteen years old. Erik calls me.

“Billy’s dead. I drove him back to his family in Montana to try and get better, but it didn’t help. The ass hole wasted a lot of my time and money just to come back to Arizona and OD. He had something I was supposed to give to you, some tapes of Disney theme songs in Swedish or something. I don’t know. I’m just glad it’s over.”

Speechless, I drop the phone. My gay friend Billy is now my dead gay friend Billy. I hadn’t spoken to him since I was last in Arizona, the night he had told me he had HIV. The night that I had learned that friendship saw no illness.

Trying to keep my voice from shaking, I press the phone back up to my ear. “Erik, why are you being so cold? Billy was our friend!”

“Not in the end,” he tells me. “His only friend was drugs. He used me and anybody else he could.”

“But, why didn’t you call me sooner? Maybe I could have helped, maybe I could have-"

Erik cuts me off. “No. We’re all better off without him. He just wasn’t the same.”

I crumble as I realize I did not get to tell Billy goodbye or how much he meant to me or how much he had opened my eyes. All that remained was the new title: my dead gay friend Billy.

* * *

I am twenty-nine years old. I have not been back to Arizona since the last night I saw Billy. I still have the mix tape he made for me in his apartment, but I can’t listen to it. The catchy, synthesized songs bring me to tears. I have spoken to Erik less times then I can count on one hand. Whenever I have, the subject inevitably turns to Billy, if only for a moment, and Erik reminds me that it’s better that he’s gone.

I never did get the audio tapes Billy willed to me. I don’t even have a picture to of him to see if the face I remember is really what he looked like.

All that is left is the memory I have of my dead gay friend Billy, the growth inspired by my gay friend Billy, the love and respect that I’ll always have for my friend Billy.

No matter what he became at the end, regardless of the title I will remember him by, he was and always will be one thing above the rest: my friend Billy.
---

{ 18 } I'm A (Kind Of) Paid Writer!

Run down:

- Working on HOS? Not lately.
- Working on that YA novel? Uh, it's been a few.
- Getting the self-published project off the ground? Not so much.
- Any New "Dave" episodes? No, but I think he's still a trucker...
- Are you doing ANYTHING worthy of your writer title?!? YES!

That's right, people. Meet you new Fort Collins Vegetarian Restaurant Examiner on examiner.com! I get to eat out and then write about it. It's like I died and went to meatless Heaven!

Here's my first article: FoCo's Snooze is good, but sleeping might be better

I am pretty much the coolest person you know. More updates to come! Now read the article and subscribe so I can stop fretting about not having any subscribers!

{ 17 } FOR REALS: No Chickens...

Blarg. I know I promised you an ISBN months ago; I did not lie. It's just that since I posted my original self-challenge, I've been working off what little ass I ever had. I've taken on four jobs now. Three of them are, albeit, the same in nature, but between them I'm gone Sunday through Friday with less then 48 hours to spend with the BF.

In my defense, I have not had time to set up my office. This is the office in which I have stored all the material that I was going to publish. My office is more of a storage unit, not only for my publishable items, but also for the cat and guinea pig boxes. That does not exactly inspire me.

I have been working on writing, though! My young adult novel (did I tell you I'm writing one?) is currently at 11,330 words.

I've written four scripts for a web series called Dave Becomes A Trucker. It's funny, funny shit, IMNSHO.

I'm also working on a novel called The Flowers Be Not Sad about the life of an unwilling drug user. No, it's not autobiographical, thankyouverymuch.

HOS is not dead, but I have not been working on it as much as I should. I have the internet in sporadic moments when I'm on the road and, sad to say, HOS still needs more research.

So here's the deal: when I get time, I will finish my office and gather my publishable work. THEN I shall provide you with the ISBN to my book.

Be prepared to wait, dear readers.

{ 16 } I Did Not Chicken Out

Wondering where my new self-published book is? Have no fear: it should be here soon.

Apparently the things I think should be "instant" are not.

If you see nothing here by 14 Dec., something has gone horribly wrong.

Priced to sell!

{ 15 } Fear Is The Mind-Killer

Damn it.

I got home from a three-day work excursion to Wyoming twelve hours ago. I had one mission on my mind: get something published.

To most, this probably sounds like a daunting task. Write something. Send out fifty manuscripts. Get fifty rejections. Blah, blah, blah. True, but that's the old way.

Enter the concepts of print on demand and vanity press. They've been around for quite some while, with the likes of Twain, Sinclair, and Thoreau all using them to their advantage. But in the age of The Series of Tubes, printing your own crap is really, really easy.

How easy? Underwear Gnomes could do it:
1) Write something;
2) Take five minutes to upload it;
3) Profit.

Ease aside, what the hell did I exactly intend to publish tonight, considering HOS is in my brain tornado and my young adult novel is about 30,000 words from seeing the light of day ( I DID hit 10,000 words Monday night, thankyouverymuch)?

I really don't want to say the word, but I believe you'll forgive me: poems.

I know, I know, I KNOW: everyone and their father is a poet (my daddy is: American Poetry Anthology, 1984, ISBN 0-88147-008-2. Poem is called Brecken. Go fig...) . So where am I hiding the high and mighty horse that I rode in on?

No where, actually. I know I have written a lot of crap. I figure for every quasi-good poem I wrote, ten more vile examples of juvenilia spilled from my pen. But about 50% of those quazi-good poems were actually great poems. I decided I was going to publish those.

So what the hell happened in the last twelve hours? Why have I not given you an ISBN of my own? Because I got scared. I got so scared, in fact, that I started playing a little game I made up called How Many Things Can I Do To Keep Me From Doing The One Thing I Need To Do? It's a very familiar game; I've played it for thirty years.

The premise of the evening was easy enough:
1) Go to my office and find the notebooks containing the poems I wanted published;
2) Take five minutes to upload them;
3) Profit.

Let me give you a little run down on what I did instead...

• Browsed Wordclay.com, Lulu.com, and Createspace.com for the best DIY publishing bang for my buck,
• Read a ton of really bad self-written blurbs for really bad books sold through said sites,
• Digested another chapter in Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" (no, I will not be seeing the movie; Peter Jackson be damned!),
  
• Drank a few beers,
• Read 100% of the archives at Wedinator.com,
• Made fun of the dogs,
• Cross referenced Wordclay and Lulu authors with Amazon,
• Thought about sleeping.

At this point, Step 3 of the Underwear Gnome's formula is non-existent.

But what the hell was I afraid of? This question is easier to answer then a moon/elephant quandary. Since I seem so fond of lists tonight, here's another, in no particular order:

• Sharing some of my misery from years ago,
• Being made fun of for said misery,
• Having to actually relive all that misery,
• Trying to pimp my for-profit book based on that misery.

For a brief moment, I thought about publishing it under an alias. Safe. Very safe. But what the hell good would that do? I mean, if you're book hunting, is your first thought, "Oh look! A self-published book of poetry from an author I've never heard of! I'll buy it!" If I was to profit, self promotion was my only way.

I got stuck. I got scared. I did nothing.

But you know what? I can't live in this constant state of apathy, fear, laziness, boredom. I am a goddamn writer. Writers write. And good writers publish their work. My BF constantly reminds me how amazing it would be to say, "I'm a published author" when people ask me what my job is.

So here is my promise to you, dear reader: before the close of 5 Dec. 2009, I will have published my poetry book, be it lame or not. If you want to buy it, I'll tell you where. Hurdle One is looming, and I swear I'm gonna jump.

I will leave you Dune freaks and you curiositors with the full Bene Gesserit litany:

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."

Good day, faithful readers.

{ 14 } Such A Tease!

Did you read post { 13 }, my write up of Twilight? Probably not. It looks long. I understand. It is pretty freaking good though, IMHO. I initially wrote it on my CrapTop, circa 1997, that has the ability to transfer things to floppy disc only. All well and good on my desk top, but the BF's has no floppy (and my desk top is still broken. Man, I'm lazy.). Actually, I don't think the BF has even seen a floppy drive in real life. Aw, the innocence of youth.

So what does that mean? It means that I had to retype the whole thing. That alone should make you want to read it. I did it all for you!

Moving on, a few months ago I found a website called Field Report. You basically write a short story about something that really happened to you, it goes up for peer review and comments, and the best story in each category wins a pile of cash. Right up my ally.

I wrote a short called Billy about my friend that passed away a few years ago. Mom read it and she says it all went down just like I wrote it. I have yet to have my friend Erik W. read it, though. He lived it too and is wanting my consult on a movie called Anything For Billy. Erik is the director of Flesh-Eating Ghouls from Outer Space. I kid you not.

Anyway, here's what I need from you: please, please, please go to Field Report, sign up (it's free!), read my story and "nudge" it. Then it has a better chance of getting reviewed by a larger audience. You can't actually give it a rating because it has to come up randomly. Still, nudges help! I was going to put the story here for you to read, but it really needs your support in the polls.

Show me some love, would ya?