11/29/08

Note the date. I finished the fucking first draft.

I can hardly believe it myself.

chugging along

So i had to lay off The Book for a couple of days last week, and when I picked up again, I read back over it some to get myself back into the groove. I found myself thinking it wasn't horrible. It's actually a book I'd enjoy reading.

Somehow, in the last couple of days, it has the patina of 'finished' on it, even though I still have to write most of chapter 8. I know each scene that needs to be written, though, so it's just a matter of doing the actual work and not going off into the ozone (which, let's face it, is a distinct possibility). I know I've said this before, but this feels different -- like I have nine actual chapters that more or less connect to each other.

I saw an interview with Susan Orlean the other day, in which she talked about having one of her books edited. The edit was to change the book's narrator to a different character, and Orlean referred to this as a 'minor edit.' I was, like: !!!!! If I had to change my book's narrator to a different character, I'd have to start completely over. Not minor!

If an editor ever really sees this thing, it sure will be interesting to see what they think of it.

best. ever.

i'll probably regret this

I'm coming out of the closet. I'm an atheist.

For too long, I've classified myself as agnostic or 'other,' when the truth is, I don't believe in any kind of 'higher being' at all, in any way, shape or form.

I'm coming out now because I'm getting really frustrated at what religion is doing to the world. In the name of various gods, people do the stupidest shit. Some Catholic priest in North Carolina is refusing to give communion to parishoners that voted for Barack, because Barack supports a woman's right to make decisions about what her own body can be used for. Not that I care about communion, but that's not really the point, is it? The guy is making a political statement, not a religious one.

Then we've got the whole population thing. I read an article about the crisis (is it me, or is everything a 'crisis' lately?) in food production. The problem is that the world's ability to produce food is growing more slowly than the population. The fact that the world's ability to produce food is GROWING should be cause to celebrate, but we can't get adequate birth control to the fastest-growing segments of the world, because religious people don't think it's a good idea. Not even on logical grounds, mind you. If there were logic involved, they'd look at the thing and realize that if we keep on the way we're going, by the time I croak, I won't have room to turn around on the subway. People themselves won't use birth control because their religion tells them not to. Meanwhile, teenagers are being left at hospitals in Nebraska. We can't take care of the humans we've already got, but religion wants you to make more.

I understand. Religion addresses the deepest fear of humanity: that when we die, that's it. No more. We're gone. It makes a kind of insane sense that people would make up stories about an afterlife, etc., to deal with that primal fear, but to live one's life in accordance with such a fairy tale is just crazy.

I'm not talking about ethics here, either. Ethics are separate from religion, which is something I find a lot of people don't really understand. Behaving in an ethical fashion isn't something I do because God Told Me To, or because I think I'll get some reward for it after I'm dead (I'm sorry, that just makes me laugh), it's something I do because it makes rational sense. It holds human society together. It makes life more enjoyable. It increases my respect and admiration for my fellow man. It gives me compass in a sometimes confusing world.

This doesn't have much to do with The Book, except that I've made one of the main characters somewhat religious. He practices some ancient rites from his country of origin that are slightly outrageous to modern sensibilities. I didn't plan it that way, it just came with the character. In Real Life, too, I find some religious people interesting. Most of the ones I like are completely appalled at the idea that their belief system would be relied upon to craft political policy. They understand what separation of church and state actually means.

So WTF is wrong with everybody else?

entropy happens

So I'm on my spankin' new laptop -- a Dell Latitude D410, which is almost too much computer for someone like me. Got a screaming deal on it on ebay. What would we do without ebay? Natch, I purchased the extended warranty for it from Square Trade, which, after reimbursing me the cost of my old laptop, is, in my opinion, the shit.

It turns out that I've got a Trojan virus on my desktop computer, which is actually a good thing. It has been re-starting itself unexpectedly, and I feared the motherboard was dying. I dunno how I got this Trojan thing, since I'm running Secret Service-level antivirus on both of my machines, but Oh Well. I'm disinfecting the mother as I write this.

Got a doctor's appointment in an hour or so, to find out what the deal was with my gallbladder.

My Real Job is picking up (recession? what recession?), so I've been writing on The Book in little fits and starts, which isn't ideal. It's all more or less down on paper, but the plot hasn't been thoroughly combed through yet to get out all the snags. I'd really like to have an uninterrupted week where I could do nothing but that.

Oddly, though, it seems to work fairly well (in the absence of any other method to compare, that is) for me to work on The Book for an hour, then do something else for an hour, then work on The Book for another hour, lather, rinse, repeat. My Real Job and The Book seem to compliment each other in that way, maybe because the Real Job uses a different part of my brain, the visual/graphic part. While I'm drawing, my logical/word brain is processing stuff on The Book, and while I'm writing, my visual/graphic brain is drawing for the Real Job. It's possible that, with only The Book the work on, I'd never get anything done on it.

It's kind of like my theory of Don't Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow, also known as Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain: when freighted with the responsibility of your survival, the thing you love the most becomes a hated chore. Take my advice, do your second most favorite thing for a living. It's like not looking into the face of the sun.

a new world

That's what it feels like this morning. Positively historic.

Obama's acceptance speech was phenomenal -- what a gift for oratory! I mean, the guy is up there with the greats. I think my favorite was the part about it not being his victory but our victory, and that we are all in this together. That we'll all have to make fundamental changes in the coming years to fix the mess we're in. That he's depending on US. That he'll listen to those who disagree with him harder than those that agree. That's balls, man. The guy's got stones.

Then there's the real marriage, the real woman. Stand Michelle Obama next to Cindy McCain. Freaky, isn't it? Stand those marriages next to one another. Talk about a positive role model, and about fucking time! Two people, two real, thinking, talking human beings, with obvious regard for each other. How long has it been since we've seen that in the White House?

The era of the Old Rich White Man is finished. When Barack Obama tells you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know he knows what the fuck he's talking about. You don't want to punch him in the silver spoon.

I remember a conversation I had with an early doubter (who probably is still a doubter, and good for them), along the 'empty suit' line; that Obama talked a great game, but was short on specifics. I still don't think it matters all that much, because the truth is, we run the place, and without an intelligent ethical compass at the helm, we devolve into -- well, what we've been for the last eight years. The president's job is not to do the bidding of his majority, it's to remind us, as we run the country, what this place is supposed to be all about -- a country where anyone -- ANYONE -- can enter the starting gate with the same odds as the other guy, and run the same track. Tax cut, schmax cut. Inspire me, damn it!

I imagine the spirit of Thomas Jefferson looking on, perhaps a little mystified at the turn of events, but curious and amazed at the courage of his little colony.

life, the universe, and everything

I had my gallbladder taken out on Tuesday last week, so I haven't been doing much since then. Also, the motherboard on my laptop is going out (but I spent the extra thirty bucks for the extended warranty, and they're going to reimburse me for the entire cost of the machine, woo hoo!), so basically, I've been sitting and/or lying on my ass, surfing ebay for a new computer and popping pain pills.

There's nothing like surgery to make you feel old, in case you were looking. The gallbladder in particular is good for this. Think "oy, my gallstones!" and you'll see what I mean.

I didn't have gallstones, I just had a lazy bastard of a gallbladder. However, when it came out, the surgeon said it had something called cholesterolosis. I can't find out much about this on the internet, I'll have to wait until I go to my follow-up appointment in a couple of weeks to grill the doc on what it all means.

I did write a rough draft of the last chapter of the book -- just finished it tonight. I wrote it as if the rest of the book didn't exist, because after the outlining exercise I did a few weeks ago, I figured I was in store for a complete re-write. I went ahead and wrote the last chapter because, frankly, I want to see how the damned thing ends. I've been carrying it around in my head now for a year, I just wanted to get it out on paper and out of my system. Interestingly enough, however, it seems to be pointing the way through my problems with some other parts of the book. I'm tempted to do the re-write backward -- i.e., maybe instead of going back to the beginning, I'll pick up chapter 8 next.