I’ve decided that if I ready Henry Miller’s Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, many of the short-term wrongs will be righted in my life. I’ve been looking for something to make me think about writing and somehow think about where I’m at right now. It’s hard to explain beyond that, but I’ve read the first 30 or 40 pages of Sexus today, and it makes a lot of sense to me. Miller starts as a person who has written but who doesn’t write, but is told that he should. It’s in the context of a torrid love affair, and it makes him analyze what writing is, and why he should or shouldn’t proceed. It’s a good dialogue for me to ponder at this point. Plus, reading someone else’s prose for a while usually helps mine. So we’ll see - I might give up by page 47.

I got the three books as a present for being in Bill Perry’s wedding. That was the summer of 1994, and I read them over the last half of that year. I got started on Miller with Tropic of Capricorn at the beginning of ‘94, around my birthday. It was when I was starting my transformation from whatever I was to writer. I guess it’s good to get back into his stuff, because I feel another major transformation will be required to get all of Seattle out of my sytem and really become a full-time writer.

I’ve been dealing with a strange depression, which partially has to do with me never leaving the house. I guess I had that when I was in Seattle, but I was so burrowed into my apartment, it felt good to stay in all day surrounded with my books. Part of the depression also probably has to do with not having a car. Because in Seattle, when I never left my house, I would make the 3am run to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee and then drive for 20 minutes or an hour, just for the sake of driving. Now that I am a pedestrian and deathfully afraid of getting lost or mugged or both when I do anything other than walk to the McDonald’s or Radio Shack down the street, it has begun burrowing away at me.

I have been busy - two clients, the book, the trip story, the journals, reading, and assorted cleaning/straightening/organizing which I never seem to get done. But it’s not like when you go to work for 8 hours, and then sit at home for x hours. I guess I’m just whining and babbling about all of this, but it is really starting to take a toll on me. I’ve been waiting for that magic transition period to end so everything is correct and I can do what I planned on doing before I left, which was write full-time and spend the rest of the remaining time enjoying myself. Right now, I’m not writing or enjoying myself, and that’s the problem.

I feel better today than I did yesterday, but I still feel like I was hit by a car. I’m hoping that 12 hours of sleep will knock more of this out of me. Until then, I’ve got a ton of mail to answer and I should do some more reading.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, and my medium-term memory is completely gone, but I’ve taken on a second tech writing client. It’s a sort of whirlwind project, writing a manual in the next two weeks. I’m still getting started with the software and everything, but the framework of the thing is zipping along. The reason I mention this is that with two clients, I have virtually no time to think about other stuff. It’s good that Summer Rain is currently resting, as I will be very busy for the next few weeks.

I’m at a state where everything I touch breaks. This happens here and there, but it has been fairly constant since I arrived here. I’m still waiting for this to go away so I can… so I can something. so I can complete my sentences. This journal project is useless at this point. I can’t compose my thoughts when I have to pre-guess what I’m typing over a delay that ranges from five seconds to five minutes per character. I can’t compose my thoughts, period. My paper journal has gone completely south - I’m lucky to update it weekly, and then it is a maze of confusion, wondering if I’ve added some certain daily activities event in the story. And my writing on the trip piece of shit has been mostly “I was x” “I did y” “I drove more” kind of shit.

I honestly need to stop writing, period, until the desire to write comes back. I need to do nothing but sleep and play nintendo for weeks, months, years, until my journals and my other work become creative again. But I can’t do that. I have work that needs to be completed, and I know that if I stop writing, I will just beat myself up for not writing until I return. And if I stop, I will feel that I have absolutely no purpose in life, and I will spend the remainder of my savings on some idiotic hobby to give myself purpose. And I can’t do that.

So maybe I need to do some exercises. Write something different. Read some books about writing. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out eventually.

I have completed a draft of the last third of Summer Rain. It took a lot of stalling for me to type that sentence, at least wouthout qualifying it somehow (“mostly completed”,“shitty draft”,etc.) I’m not happy with the writing in the third part of the book - it’s very repetitive, simple, and I don’t think it has as much significance. But the third part of the book has never been written entirely. While the first chapters have been written and rewritten a million times, there were holes in the ending that were left in a skeletal state ever since I started this disaster back in 1995. Maybe with time and further refinements, I will be more comfortable with book 3 and its problems. Maybe I will have to completely rewrite it, or at least add some new plot elements and scale back the stuff that seems to drag on forever.

I should mention that Summer Rain in its entirety is available for review and comment to discriminating readers. I say that because the whole thing is 237,000 words long and I can’t throw it on a public web site and let the world read it if I ever try to publish the thing. But if you want to read it and let me know what you think, drop me a line and I can give you a password to download everything.

Work is beginning to pile up. I have two freelance tech writing clients, and a couple of other leads. Summer Rain can sit and ferment for a bit, but I’ve still got this damned trip travelogue thing. I think it’s 4 or 5 days into the 14 total, but it’s still going slow. At least I got the pictures scanned, thanks to Marie, so I can plug those in once I get the thing on the web. Soon, soon.

I just read an excellent bio on Bukowski - I would tell you the author and title, but I already put it away and I don’t want to get up. It’s the new one that just came out in hardcover - I found it at Tower, so it shouldn’t be that obscure. It’s the best bio of him I’ve seen, considering all of the half-ass attempts made. It’s the first third-party Bukowski book I’ve seen that was longer than a pamphlet, and it’s very well written. The problem with Buk is that his stories and poems were about 90% accurate, and the other 10% has been very elusive. Everyone has speculated on details of his life like finances, and it’s good to see a realistic account of this stuff.

I just started a 12M download and typing is not an option anymore. I guess it’s time to go do some other work.

I still can’t believe the weather here. My new ‘office’ is a folding table set up by one of the windows in our living room. So immediately to the right of my monitor is a western view of Washington Heights. With a good set of binocs or a climb up the fire escape to the roof, you can see over to Jersey. But the sunny sky and the stretch of buildings below my 6th story window beats the gloom of Seattle. And with all of my books in my new bookshelves, all of the CDs in alphabetical order, and my stereo right behind me, I’ve got everything I need to write (except a Coke machine with an infinite supply.)

I’ve been blowing through the travel story lately. It’s up to about 12,000 words, and on the fourth of 14 days. I hope to HTMLize it and add some links to pictures. I’ve also been slaving on Summer Rain. Still stuck on the annoying romance scenes, but I got one of the three worst ones passably finished.

I finished rereading On the Road, by the way. I started it before the trip, to get chaged up and ready. I only got 100 pages into it before I left, and I only had a couple of chances to stop and read during hte trip. But I finished the other day, and it’s as good as ever. I manage to reread it every year or so, usually when I’m on the road myself. It’s always cool to visit some place like LA or New York for the first time, and then turn past the pages you’ve read ten times and realize you’ve been in the same places as Kerouac. While his prose wasn’t what I’m aiming for, that book is a real inspiration for Summer Rain in many ways. Maybe someday I’ll sit down and write a paper about it.

Speaking of writing, I’ve got work to do…

I’ve been working on Summer Rain. I hesitate to say that I’m working on it full time, but I have no other productive items going (except for a pay gig, which is part-time.) I am making progress towards wrapping up the final third, but it’s going slow on a couple of chapters. I try to keep a regular schedule, wordcount-wise, but this one chapter is just killing me. I worked all day on it, and I must’ve written like 1500 words. Sometimes I would write less than 100 words an hour, and I wasn’t off playing Pac-man or whatever - I was seriously sitting at the computer for 60 full minutes, struggling with how to develop this motherfucking chapter. It’s because this deals with sex, and the character doesn’t get any for most of the book, and I am not a romance author or whatever, so it’s all uphill. I’ll get through it, hopefully. But the book is getting better, and I’m excited about it, and I hope I can show it to a few people sometime soon.

I’m also still working on the travel thing about the WA->NY trip. It’s getting done, but it’s also going slow. There are only so many ways you can describe driving through the desert. But I got the pictures back - 5 rolls - and they look great. Maybe I will scan a few and post them also.

Today’s weather was beautiful - 70’s, sunny. I went for a walk for about an hour, which got me in the mood for Summer Rain. I’m hoping for many more days like this.

I am going to get back to writing this travel stuff, before I need to crash. Feel free to email me and bug me about it - maybe it will help me finish faster.