Wet rag

Ah, food and I'm starting to get back on track again. For the record, attempting to stave off hunger by whiskey does not work. When the meal finally comes your stomach is in no condition to actually take it down. Sure you're not hungry, but whenever you come off it you feel weak from lack of food and still not hungry enough to put something down your stomach. If you're really in a pinch, like you're really on and the voice is yelling and screaming in your head and there's barely white on the note paper in front of you, then yeah maybe... but don't keep it up for more than a day. After more than a day when you're not on a buzz (and even sometimes when you are) your body feels like a wet rag.

It's been getting hotter the past couple of days. Increased traffic jams from protests and the approach of summer has turned me into a swamp of shirt and boxers. Even the baby powder's not keeping my ass dry anymore, and I'm a bunch of rashes where clothing chafes. My shirt feels as if I've been on the treadmill in low all day. Coincidentally, the gym is the only place besides the bus where I'm in air conditioning. Not that I like air conditioning, I like to be dry. Those who like showers have the blessing of taking a quick cool in the rushing water. Those who fight the stickiness of being dirty, with the horror of having to scrape it off yourself while applying chemicals to your body like me (not to mention getting sprayed by water) are left with a constant dilemma: to wear a sweaty wet rag, or be a sweaty wet rag?

And in this case, alcohol is definitely not an answer.

The Human Condition

I just had a good long sleep using delta brainwave technology. After a good evening at my friend's house where I had FOOD. For those who don't know me in real life, I'm quite a thin person though I eat A LOT. My unusual thinness is thus generally attributed to: a) a fast metabolism; b) not eating properly. I like having a), but b) is somewhat deceptive, at least to me. As a semi-workaholic [I spend my free time, reading for my work, taking legal stimulants to keep on working, and in lots of exercise] food is simply something I don't think of on a regular basis. Since I mainly cook at home, this can become a big problem. By the time I'm conscious of that my body needs nutrition (when you're used to staying up for days on nothing but coffee, cigarettes, alcohol and willpower this can come pretty late) I barely have enough energy to make myself a cup of instant noodles, which as soon as I consume realize how empty my stomach is.

In this regard my bad mental habits don't help.

"Just a couple more sentences."

"Another chapter."

"Oh but you're doing so well right now, if you stop it might not come out good tomorrow."

Amongst other things I keep unconsciously saying to myself. Next thing I know it I wake up on the keyboard, and the writing is a disorganized mess. Good ideas; just don't know what order they go into. To illustrate the point, I have on my desk the remain of a pack of anti-acids that I've been chewing on (in semi-spearmint flavor!) to keep the stomach at bay.

Either I'm dedicated, or crazy.

Dread, unlimited.

Remember that loading screen in Baldur's Gate II: "Your characters don't need to eat. You Do! We don't want to lose any dedicated gamers."

I need a sign like that, for writers.

Attempting a Highspeed education

As if right now it might just be impossible. Perhaps my reading speed is not up to it, nor my writing stamina able to cope with it. As to the workout schedule, that is achieved. So let this be my goal for the end of the year.

Read 2 books a day. One nonfiction, one fiction. [I can do about a half]
Write 6 hours a day.
Exercise 3 hours a day.

Wonder Boys by Micheal Chabon

Tried to watch the movie for Wonder Boys (based on the book by Micheal Chabon). There's just so much alternating of the original story I can take when it comes to adapting a book into film, and after the part Trip calls Walter at 8 am to tell him that he's in love with his wife I had it. I switched it off, feeling so glad that I read the book.

I wonder how many books turn into bad movies. What a shame that is. Wonder Boys might be a passable movie, but if anyone got turned off by it and didn't bother with the book that would be a damn shame. Then again, you can't translate a book with such a cleverness with language, references, turns of phrases, description and wit onto a screen.

I must say though that on the whole the novel had more good points than bad. It's a novel that's good, pushing great, but didn't quite get there. That is the best kind of novel for the learning writer to learn from, in my opinion. I learned a lot from this book.

It's good writing, good craft. There's so many nuggets of gold in there for an aspiring writing, and I have a feeling that this being the difficult novel, and the novel before the The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay (Pulitzer) it taught him somethings. As one in our trio reading group aptly said, "The writing is like Hollywood special effects. You're like 'wow, wow, wow' and then it's over, and you're thinking 'that's it? what about the story?" The dazzle of his prose got in the way of the execution of the story and character. You've got to 'kill your darlings' and here his cleverness with words were his.

I love first person narratives, and this one managed to stay in the same POV the entire novel. However, the writing bordered on the style of the the third person too much (the 'special effects'). While clever, the fact of it being 'too clever' at inappropriate places distracted from the situation of the story. I realized what the first person narrative needed most of all: a strong voice. That's essentially what I liked about all the books I read that's written in the first person (for an interesting experience try reading Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City written in second person) from Catcher in the Rye to Henry Miller's Tropics.

I also appreciated the novel not having a standard plot. The characters essentially don't change throughout the entire book. Grady does towards the end, which could qualify it as a maturation plot for both Grady and James Leer, but it's just the barest of changes. This is not bad. Yet a novel without a standard plot is a difficult feat to pull off, and I admire the writer for managing it, especially in a first novel. From what I understood, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh had been Chabon's master's thesis.

We disused universality in our group. One in our group got all the Jewish references, which myself and the other had no clue about. Another referent would be the pot-smoking aspects. If you've never spoked weed, hung around weed-smokers for a long time, had good friends (or spouses) who smoked reefer, then certain parts of the book would definitely get to you. As Grady compounded the problems in his life (and his denial) by smoking and avoiding conflict, each 'shove it under the carpet' scene set up the next. The way these series of effects were connected were masterfully done, but they felt like connecting the dots instead of a resonance. The essence of standard plot are stories which resonate with the unconscious (either that, or we've just been listening to them over and over again from childhood) of a majority of people, and this one perhaps a more niche group.

There are a few other points, but I gleaned one valuable lesson here. The book appeared very autobiographical. All books are, but I got the sense that this book had excellent technical execution also as if it had been a creative writing project that an A+ student wanted to write. 'Write what you know' and all other maxims met. Yet the voice didn't seem to fit or didn't come in at the right time. I saw a writer beginning to understand his craft and style. Perhaps every beginning writer must do this: write an intensely autobiographical novel, just to understand both his voice, his passion, his honesty, and the distinction of that and the story-teller's craft. Every if he/she doesn't show it to anybody, it needs to be written.

So I go to write mine... keeping in mind to kill my darlings.