I guess it’s been a few weeks. A lot has happened, but I still find it difficult to regularly update my journal. I’ve been finding it hard to get anything done lately. I’m hoping to turn that around this week, but I can’t really predict or control my work output. At least it isn’t 100 degrees anymore - it’s actually a little cold and rainy today, which might make it easier for me to stay inside at the computer.

Summer Rain came to a halt about a week ago, but I’m slowly picking it up again. Book two has been impossible in places, mostly because of dialogue I can’t write. I tried to get back on Rumored to Exist for a bit, but now I’ve realized that I absolutely need to finish this thing this summer, or it will stagnate forever. So yesterday, I took a bunch of notes and tried to divide up the work as much as possible, so I’ll be able to clean up everything unrelated to this pain-in-the ass dialogue that’s giving me such a bad case of writer’s block.

(The dialogue has to do with a very brief relationship with a woman. I can’t write for her well, and it makes me think I should somehow change her or drop the whole thing. It’s very easy for me to write for some people, but with her, it’s almost impossible. It’ll happen, sooner or later.)

I bought a DVD player. I haven’t been playing with it non-stop, so it’s not the cause of my problems. It’s fun, though. I have about 13 movies and I’ve got about 10 more on the way. It’s pretty incredible, especially on the movies with a bunch of extra stuff, but I’m somewhat disappointed with the selection of movies currently available. I hope more cool stuff comes out eventually.

It seems like there’s much more to tell, but I really need to get back to work…

It’s still hot here. It is amazing how many times I had to deal with much worse heat than this in my past: the factory jobs, the Indiana summers, my top-floor, no AC apartment in Seattle during the August crawl of 90 degree weather. I’m a complete wimp now. Either I’m getting old, or I have no sense of perception.

I “finished” book 1 of Summer Rain. I “say that” because there are still pieces I don’t like and I’m sure I’ve made some bonehead spelling errors in there. But I’ve messed with these 15 chapters so much, that I don’t want to touch them anymore. The next 15 chapters are watching their intestines spit out of a gaping hole in their abdomen while I’m giving the first 15 a pedicure. I need to go where the real work is needed. And I need to finish this book, and go on to the next.

(If you want to critique or read the book, email me. I can always use another opinion.)

I want to finish Summer Rain, but I want to spend the summer doing it. I enjoy working on this little opus (little - it’s 1200 pages) and it’s a very dear part of my history. Many others from that era need to read the book, to rememberthe times we had together and to see Bloomington in 1992 again. But I know it would never sell, and it’s a first book. So I need to get it done and go on to something which will wow the agents and the publishers and satisfy a greater cross-section of fans. I don’t mean selling out or anything. But Rumored to Exist, the second half-done book in the queue, has satistfied many more fans who think it is genius and funny. I think when it is done, and its sister book is halfway done, some publisher will think it’s the next big deal and get it out there for people to see. I’m not 100% confident, but it’s a decent view to hold when trying to figure out what to work on and how to ration my time.

If anybody ever asked (nobody has, as I’m never on Charlie Rose or NPR or whatever) what my favorite year was, I would say 1992. Everything went wrong that year. I lost a scholarship. I lost my car. I lost three girlfriends and two other women who were mind-numbingly incredible sexual partners, but not girlfriends. I lost a walkman that was like my only child. I lost my first CD player. Me and Ray Miller lost all of our money to a crack dealer in a bad part of Chicago. I lost my mind, many times. But it was my first real year of living. For all of the lows, the highs were incredible. Every one of those problems I mentioned had a flipside that was unsurpassable. I had a scholarship, a car, three girlfriends, two other women into mind-numbingly incredible sex, etc. And I wrote about this whole thing in Summer Rain, or at least the summer part of it. It’s hard to explain, but 1992 was sort of my default year.

And I’ve babbled about 1992 a lot in my writing, and in here. So I’ll stop. It’s still hot as hell. I was going to stay up and work on SR for a few more hours, but maybe sleep is a better option.

It has been hotter than hell here. And the top floors of old buildings aren’t conducive to rapid cooling or anything. I shouldn’t bitch, because it’s starting to cool off now, and I’m sure things will be peachy. Nothing like last summer in Seattle, where I had to get drunk every night just to get any sleep.

I saw Phantom Menace twice over the extended holiday weekend, and you’re probably expecting me to say that I loved it and I have been waiting since I was a kid, or that it was completely stupid and that George Lucas should shove Jar Jar Binks up his ass, along with his fucking ewok-esque charaters obviously added to the movie to market to 8 year old kids. Well, it’s a little of both, and it’s the biggest and most disproportionate list of pros and cons that I could even list for a movie. Let me try:

Pro

The joy of watching a new Star Wars film. the fact that i had all of the toys when i was a kid. the music. the sound. the design of some of the new cities. a lot of the lightsaber dueling. the characters that were in the other 3 movies that appear in this one. the way ewan macgregor sounds and moves very much like a young alec guiness. the silver SR-71-looking ship. a lot of the pod race. saying pulp fiction lines during samuel l jackson’s parts. the part where yoda makes a “mmmmmm” sound and it almost sounds like he’s going to imitate homer simpson. natalie portman, when she doesn’t have on all the makeup. there’s probably more, but i’ll stop here.

Con

The entire movie is marketed toward eight-year old boys. Jar Jar Binks. Anakin Skywalker. The killer droids. The pacing. The length. The somewhat cryptic governmental subplot. Anakin Skywalker flying in space and destroying the space station, allegedly by accident. Darth Maul’s total lack of personality. (Darth Vader was a prick, but at least he talked to you during the duel.) The utter predictability of certain plot points. Almost every animated creature. The lack of more personal combat, instead of huge combat scenarios. (A bunch of one CGI character against a bunch of another - who cares?) Natalie Portman with all of that shit on her face, acting like she just overdosed on quaaludes. Anakin Skywalker.

Okay, enough about that.

I am still writing, working on Summer Rain. I shouldn’t say that, because I didn’t do anything over the weekend. But I’m very close to finishing the first 15 chapters and putting them out there for review. If you’re interested and you can give me some feedback, let me know and I can set you up.

I finished HST’s Rum Diary, and it really hit the spot. I’m now reading Slaughterhouse Five, or at least I pulled it down from the shelves, and the next time I get a chance to read, that’s what I’ll pick up. I saw the movie on Bravo the other night, and it got me interested in it again. My third book, which I’ll work on when I finish Rumored to Exist (which I’ll work on when I finish Summer Rain) is about time travel, and involves part of a premise from SH5, although I didn’t realize it until later. Writing a time travel book is a bitch, because you need to come up with your own entire set of rules and stick to it. And everyone will tell you that your set of rules is wrong, because there’s no perfect set. But here’s a little trade secret: IT’S FICTION! If you don’t like my set of time travel rules (and most SciFi types won’t), then go fuck yourself. Write your own book, and make everyone at your Harlan Ellison fan club proud.

I’m buying a DVD player. I already have three movies: Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I have the player picked out and everything, but I have a temporary financial logjam involving a couple of check deposits in transit. I could order it now, but I should do the right thing and let everything settle, just in case something stupid happens and I don’t really have the money. (Sounds dumb, but a few weeks ago I mailed a deposit, and forgot to put a stamp on it. Fucked everything by about two weeks.)

Tired. Hot. Got a chapter to fix before bedtime. Sweet dreams.