Pluto And Her Hash Pipe

"I can't help my feelings I'll go out of my mind" (insert jammin', head-whipping guitars) "Oh--Come on and kick me"

Don't be a chicken, check out Hash Pipe in the player by Weezer. I don't actually have a hash pipe, but this song makes me feel like a total bad ass so there.

Recently someone who will remain nameless kind of broke-up with me. Since this person can no longer ground me, and I can no longer storm off to my room and slam the door (or to be more accurate-- use all my strength to forcefully close the door causing it to make a giant "whooshing" sound before stopping it just short of the door jamb, then fuming silently) we sometimes take a break. (Picture Ross from friends yelling, "WE'RE ON A BREAK")

So anyway, we've been seeing other people, you know... (awkward) and this morning we're having breakfast, trying-out being just friends. I think it's for the best really. When this mystery person told me she "no longer had any expectations regarding me what so ever" I replied (silently of course) "Finally we're on the same page -- whew!"

I've actually decided I'm not a horrible, bad, selfish person, but rather, like Pluto, am the same as I've always been, out there orbiting, doing my thing, just as I've done for millennia, but have simply been reclassified. That's right -- I'm Pluto. That's my new mantra for dealing with this unidentified person (whose name both begins and ends with an "M").

So today will be spent making nice, then spending time with my 94 year old grandma, running errands and hanging out visiting-- generally being a very nice and good person all day long, in other words, subverting some of my (apparently) more dominant characteristics. That's why I need me some Hash Pipe to begin the day with. Rock on dudes. Be Plutonic.

Genre-bending, or "Oh- It's A Puggle!"

Ok, just finished reading "Twilight" after overcoming my usual resistance to reading anything too popular. (I know, this has to be some embarrassingly revealing character flaw on my part, but if everyone else on earth loves it, I automatically resist.) Another thing that put me off it initially was that it has vampires in it. They think they're so great. "Ooo-- Look at me with my high cheekbones and cool hair and immortality..."

Anyway, I got over it and picked it up because my novel was having an identity crisis. When you start sending letters around to agents trying to get someone to pick you up, one of the first things they want to know is "what have you got?" They want to know what "genre" the story is-- Where would you find it at Barnes and Noble?

This is more confusing that it sounds. Everyone I talk to really wants to be classified as "literary" (artful writing, multi-layered themes, you know, "good", capital "W" writing), but that can be too broad, and it's kind of bad form to call yourself literary. It's like if you were a painter and when asked what kind of paintings you do you answered, "masterpieces."

Dirt Nap strives to be literary (who doesn't?), but it has funny parts, action, a couple different mysteries to be solved, family conflict, life and death struggles, and ghosts-- oh, and some sex/romance. So, in a perfect world, "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get creeped-out, you'll be on the edge of your seat, you'll 'so have been there sister', you'll go 'awe....', and even get a little turned on!"

What the hell is this thing? Who is the audience? (and I did find out you can't say "everyone with any taste at all." That's another of those bad form things.) Well, much to by surprise, people who like "Twilight" (soon to be a movie) would definitely like "Dirt Nap", and YA (young adult) is the hottest genre around right now. So I guess I'm going with "paranormal YA" with maybe a little pug and beagle in there somewhere... or not.

(John Lee) Sonny Boy Williamson - Stop Breaking Down

What does being in full on revision mode have to do with "Stop Breaking Down"? This first version of the song was done in the mid thirties by Sonny Boy Williamson. Even if you don't share my love of rock, you'll probably appreciate this cool old blues tune.

In the seventies, Mick and the Stones set it to what I'd call a slow rolling gallop. Another transformation.

Then along comes Jack White who turns it into this shorter, more visceral for sure, higher octane version.

This is what I'm trying to do with my story, what everyone tries to do when they revise -- tighten, tighten,tighten , and go for as much impact and punch as possible. "But these are all different versions of the same song by three different bands..." you say. Yes, and I'm a different writer than when I began this project almost two years ago. I'm even a different writer than when I got it all back from iDisk eating it six months ago. Awesomeizing people.

Check out all three versions of "Stop Breaking Down" if for no other reason than to follow the evolution. The wierd flood of video posts, some semi-repetitive is due to what I'm calling "youtube-orreah". Tried to post these all in the past, they never showed up, thought they were history, then they all posted today. Go figure.

The Black Keys Are Coming To The State Fair!

This is a video they made from a european tour and is set to one of my favorite songs.
Actually, if Simon Cowell happened into my bathroom while i was in the shower and this was on, he'd probably sign me. although i'd have to be wheeled onto stage in a little portable shower stall...

The Black Keys a two man group from, and apparently determined to stay, in Akron Ohio. It's nice to find a really talented band that seem just like cool regular people too. Another cool video they have is "Set you free". (weird and funny, what a combo)

Check out where Dan, (the light haired guy and guitarist / singer) looks at the camera and smiles. That got him added to my bullpen of imaginary boyfriends.

Check them out in the player, and as always, support the artists you like by buying their music etc.

Pork and Beans

Ok, this is a semi-gratuitous "Pork and Beans"posting. (Click the link, embedding disabled-- boo) What does this video have to do with following your creative bliss? The line, "I'm 'a do the things that i wanna do, I don't got a thing to prove to you" pretty much say it all.

There has been a ton of chatter lately in the blogisphere about work worth doing v.s. "worthy" work. Over on Nathan Bransford's blog the question, "If an all knowing seer of some kind told you you would never be published, ever, would you still write?" elicited something like 180+ comments running the gamut from "of course!" to, "No freakin' way!"

To me there is no question that creative activities are enjoyable and probably enhance one's life, but at the same time, when i feel myself getting sucked down a non productive rabbit hole (like my stamp obsession of s few years ago), I slam on the breaks.

What's your take? If someone told you, with certainty, you'd never be published, or sell one more painting, or whatever it is you do, would you continue, or go in another direction where you could pursue "success"?

Gypsies, Tramps And Theives

Watched "The Pied Piper Of Hutzovina" last night and it was pretty cool. (click the link to see a trailer) Little gypsy kids jamming out in the streets in their underwear, this guy's creative quest to combine gypsy music with punk, and the film maker's unrequited love all made for a captivating hour and a half.

I hate to admit it, but band guys have always kind of appealed to me. There is something about the whole creative bad boy thing... you know what I'm talking about. You may not admit it but you know ladies... Come on now. Even this funny looking Czech dude was looking kind of interesting by the end of the movie. (Ok, you want embarrassing? I saw Rainn Wilson (Dwight -- wierd looking dorky guy from "The Office") drumming to "Back in Black" on Leno and even he started to look cool.)

Thank God the universe plunked down nice, mellow, stable Dan squarely in my path or who knows what kind of trouble I could have gotten into by now....

Although I still harbor fantasies about becoming a "band chick" someday, (hey, if Amy Tan can be in a band so can I) I'm only collecting imaginary cool boyfriends. Dan has nothing to worry about. Musicians are lovingly rendered however, in my writing. That part is fun.

"And Then Her Head Exploded..."

That's what I'm calling my autobiography should it ever be written.
Is it just me or does that bear look horrified?

In high school we used to be assigned these timed writings at the start of every class. I'd just be getting going and the teacher would call "time," so I'd end every fragmented story with, "and then, somewhere in a far corner of the world, someone completely unrelated to this story detonated a nuclear bomb, obliterating all life on Earth, save insects." Sorry Mrs. Recher. What a pain I must have been!

"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro was recommended to me by a number of people, mostly older women friends and my mom, who'd never read any science fiction before apparently because it totally floored them. Mr. Ishiguro is a very talented and prominent author who's won many awards, but the only thing that kept me turning the pages of this predictable, (to anyone who's been a Ray Bradbury fan or a reader of other weird tales) story of clone existential angst, were the chapter endings.

"Everything was fine and going according to plan, when Ruth and Tommy split up and it all got confused."

"Of course I'll never know for sure, but I think she did understand. And even if she didn't, what occurs to me now is that she probably knew all along, that I'd become Tommy's carer, and that we'd "give it a try", just as she'd told us to in the car that day."

"--and that's why I was knocked so off balance by what he came out with the day we walked around the field."

Every time I came across one of these, at the end of another chapter in which my main thought was, "I totally see where this is going," my reaction was, "Crap, I have to keep going now!"
That's one of the things I'm working on in my revision of Dirt Nap. (Well, not making people grudging plow forward, but--you know, chapter endings...) The world doesn't blow up, and hopefully my head won't any time soon either. But what do you think of these? (Feel free to leave anonymous comments. Feel free to tell the truth.)

"She repeated the phrase over and over and let her head nod to the beat and made her fingers tap and flick the air, trying to use as much brain as possible. Maybe she could override whatever part was creating that thing on the seat, which was now starting to pluck at the sleeve of her jacket."

"He didn't think Dave was a threat to anyone but himself at this point, not yet. Someday soon the memory would break the surface though, and it would be his job to help pick up the pieces."

Would you turn the page? Have any chapter ending ideas of your own? Ala world explosions?