Day Five

• 8am: Woke up. Sunshine said hello. I was nonresponsive.
• 9am: Got to Book Expo. Population has doubled. I remain nonresponsive...but fortunately, also, non-anxious.
• 9:30am: Non-anxious allows me to finally get an autograph. Well, 3 autographs.
• 9:45am: Meet my manager. He's been my manager for six months. This is our first face-to-face conversation.
• 10:30am: Meet a potential publicist...who is located in Atlanta. Stop laughing.
• 2pm: Feet hurt. Not the fault of shoes (which are great). Just the fault of walking around in a crowd for many hours.
• 3pm: Head back to hotel room for long shower. Watch documentary about David McCullough on HBO.

Day Four

• 9am: Woke up. Apparently is a habit.
• 11am: Meeting. Great view of LA.
• 1pm: Arrive at Book Expo America. 10,000 booths. 100,000 people. 1 Josh. Yipes.
• 2pm: Attend ForeWord Magazine awards. Accept Independent Publisher of the Year Award for Kunati.
• 5pm: Start to head back to hotel
• 7pm: Arrive at hotel

We won!

Day Three

• 9am: Woke up. Seemed to be the thing to do.
• 12pm: First meeting had. Appetite nonexistent.
• 2pm: Arrive at Fox Studios. Self-tour. Huge lot. Easily lost.
• 3pm: Another meeting. Appetite coming back.
• 4pm: Another meeting. Appetite healthy.
• 8pm: R.E.M. playing 2500 feet from my hotel room.

Day Two

• 9am: Wake up
• 9:30am: Eat continental breakfast (large croissant, tiny cup of orange juice)
• 11:30am: Head to the Apple Pan for Best Hamburger in Los Angeles (so say we all)
• 12:30pm: Feeling panicky again. Head back to hotel room.
• 1:00pm: Alternate research for tomorrow's meetings and breathing exercises to combat panic disorder
• 4:00pm: Drive to Kinkos to give the bookmarks another try
• 6:00pm: Bookmarks are made!
• 7:00pm: Continue research, feeling better
• 8:00pm: Watch Knocked Up, laugh
• 11:00pm: Go to bed
• 1:00am: Toss
• 3:00am: Turn
• 5:00am: Call doctor's office in Atlanta. Pick up anti-anxiety prescription at Walgreens
• 6:00am: Write blog, try again to nap

Day One

• 10am: Arrive at airport.
• 12pm: Gate changed from C21 to D2
• 12-12:15pm: Ran with a hundred other people from C21 to D2
• 12:16pm: Boarded plane
• 12:30pm: Take off
• 12:35pm: Panic attack begins. Not surprised. Tremendous stress plus lack of sleep are the usual ingredients, and I've had both for weeks.
• 5:35pmEST/2:35pmPST: Panic attack ends. Ironically, I depicted a panic attack in a recent chapter of my novel. How amusing.
• 3:35pm: Arrive at hotel with rental car (which is a Kia the size of my apartment)
• 4-7pm: Nap
• 7pm: Drive out to Van Nuys to hang out with my producer, Kristy Hamer. She is babysitting her fiance's little daughter. This helps take the edge off my anxiety - but Kristy always helps take the edge off. Thank you, Kristy.
• 11pm: Go to Kinkos to print bookmarks for my novel. Files are corrupted. Will try again tomorrow.
• 12am: Hotel, sweet, hotel.

Recount

So I just saw the HBO film Recount, and I want to cry.

I don't have much else to say. It's foolish, I suppose, to wonder how the country - and the world - would have been different had Al Gore been inaugurated on January 20, 2001 instead of George W. Bush. We can never really know.

The movie artfully depicts those hyper-tense days in November and December of 2000 when all eyes were on Katharine Harris and the Florida Supreme Court and all conversations contained the word "chad." In the end, ironically enough, democracy failed (i.e. the popular vote) and republicanism (i.e. the Electoral College) prevailed, but the Founding Fathers created a republic, not a democracy, so can we really complain?

Now I'm off to L.A. I'll try to recap each day, when I can. In the meantime, have a good!

Nerves

I can't sleep.

On Tuesday I'm flying out to Los Angeles for Book Expo America. I've blabbed about it here before, so I won't reiterate. I tend to handle stress fairly well. That said...

I can't sleep.

The Book Expo America website has uploaded a floor map. I have been studying this map the way I studied the map of my college before freshman year. I have been studying this map because I think I may be a little nutty.

Because I can't sleep.

To pass the time, I also have been reading some of Joe Hill's short stories. He is a brilliant 21st century fantasist, writing very much in the vein of horrific magic realism (a la Kelly Link or Jonathan Carroll). One story in particular that I enjoyed was called "Pop Art." It is about the friendship a young tough develops with a boy named Art...who happens to be inflatable. If that kind of experimental imaginative fiction strikes your fancy, I heartily recommend you check out Joe Hill. His novel Heart-Shaped Box was more of a traditional ghost story (which, honestly, I originally picked up more because who Joe Hill's father is). I really liked that too...but his short stories are even cooler.

It's 6:50am right now. At 1pm I am going to Kohl's with my stepmother. She seems to think that I should wear something other than a t-shirt and jeans to Book Expo America. Who am I to disagree? I'm nutty.

My book has a mark!

<<-- The front of the bookmark The back of the bookmark -->>















(Sorry Dad - Noah was right)


(Word count: 37, 849)

Gilbert!

Here's my pal John Russo stealing the scene in As the World Turns.

He's right. She is a bitch.

(Word count: 37,208)

The best laid plans...

Here's how I write:

I come up with an idea. Don't ask me how. Please. Then I let the idea soak in its juices for about a year. Sometimes less, sometimes more. By now I have the makings of a plot, some major characters, a theme to hang my hat on, etc.

In the case of something long, like a novel, the next step is the trickiest. I outline. I don't mean outline as in roman numerals, though. For me, an outline is more of a series of waypoints. In other words, I know my characters need to go here, here, here, and here for the story to work. For a screenplay, that breaks down into act breaks (thank you, Syd Field) and those act breaks subsequently break down into beats (thank you, Stanslavski).

For a novel, I've come up with a method even more anal retentive. I plan out the novel to run 30 chapters, 3000 wds. a chapter (approximately). That comes out to 90,000 wds. total, which is a goodly number for a contemporary novel. In the case of Nuclear Winter Wonderland, I divided it up into 3 equal parts: Chapters 1 through 10 set up the conflict, Chapters 11 through 20 ratchet up the conflict, and Chapters 21 through 30 defuse the conflict. Or, more simply: Adam (my protagonist) has a problem which he fails to solve and then he succeeds.

For my current novel, Galileo's Aim, I decided to break it up in 5ths, rather than 3rds. There were a number of reasons for this, but probably the best one was the fact that it's easier to worry about having to write six chapters a month than ten. Yeah, I'm lazy.

The problems arise, of course, in the writing. What may have seemed like a great idea in the planning stage may turn out to be inorganic and contrived in the actual writing. I hit a snag like that with Ch7 of my current novel, and I just overcame a snag like that with Ch13. I imagine I'll hit another similar snag (following the pattern) with Ch19 and Ch25. Ah well.

If all of this deflates for you the "magic of creative writing," I apologize. Sometimes it is indeed best not to look behind the curtain. However, sometimes it's also good to know how things work, and why. And this is what works for me.

(Word count: 35,211)

Elevator Ghost

Watch for the creepy ending:




Don't you just love horror movies?

(Word count: 35,410)

It's funny because it's true

Here's a painfully accurate post from Justine Larbalestier:

Types of crazy writers

Because I am myself barking mad I feel moved to share my four varieties of insane writers with youse lot. This is different from the run of the mill craziness of every writer who writes differently to me. This is the down-to-the-bone craziness.

I just shared my list with a bookseller friend and we agreed as to the unadvisability of ever blogging them.

So here they are:

1. The unpublished writer who can barely string a sentence together yet is convinced that the reason they are not published is because of a conspiracy. “Those evil New York publishing houses only publish crap, deliberately keeping me from being published! They are fools and cannot recognise my genius!”¹

2. The newly published writer who believes they have the keys to the kingdom and know everything there is to know. “I am published! I am real! I have met my editor and thus acquired all publishing knowledge ever! All bow down to me!”²

3. The midlist writer whose career is not where they wish it was and blames it on everything and everyone in the entire world. Especially all those foreignors who are gobbling up all their publisher’s attention and winning all the prizes that are rightfully theirs.³ When in fact success or failure in publishing is almost always a matter of luck. This is the most common form of madness simply because success in this game is such a crapshoot. If by success you mean “can make a living at it” then not that many published writers are a success. Maybe five per cent of them. Tops. If you mean “has written a book that they’re proud of” then many writers are a success. Guess which definition I prefer.

4. The super successful writer who believes that they are so important and such geniuses that they should never be edited again. Or questioned. And that their fans should lay down at their feet as if before a god. In fact, so should everyone.⁴

Of course, there are all sorts of temporary insanities that hit every writer. Not just crazy outlining and writing books backwards and burning the first version of the book, there’s also:

• Amazonomancy⁵ the obsessive consulting of the Amazon tea leaves to see if your book is selling despite knowing that Amazon tells you nothing. Absolutely NOTHING.
• Furtive facing out of your books in bookshops when the clerks aren’t looking in the largely mistaken belief that they won’t notice and that in the fifteen minutes it stays like that your book will sell.
• Conviction that your book is tanking even though it’s only been out for a week and the only evidence you have is Amazon numbers and a note from someone in Delaware/Dubbo saying they couldn’t find a copy in their local bookshop.

There are many many more. Seriously, I could go on forever listing them.⁶

In fact, I would argue that attempting to make a living writing is a sign of total insanity, which may be why the part-timers tend to be much more stable.

1. I definitely suffered from this one during my twenty years of not being published. How could they publish HIM and not me?! [↩]
2. I confess that I went through this stage. I’m so sorry! [↩]
3. This is where I’m headed. Best to buy LOTS of copies of my next book to prevent me from winding up there. I’m just saying . . . [↩]
4. Let’s all hope this never happens to me for I would be a MONSTER. [↩]
5. The term comes from the briliant Hal Duncan [↩]
6. You may have noticed that I am a big fan of lists. [↩]

(Word count: Not sure...Microsoft Word is misbehaving)

Joe Lieberman vs. the 1st Amendment

This from Google-owned YouTube:

Last week, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) contacted us to voice his concerns about seeing videos from several Islamic terrorist organizations on YouTube. We appreciated our dialogue with Senator Lieberman and his staff and wanted to explain to the YouTube community how we responded to his concerns.

First, some background: hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to YouTube every day. Because it is not possible to pre-screen this much content, we have developed an innovative and reliable community policing system that involves our users in helping us enforce YouTube's standards. Millions of users report potential violations of our Community Guidelines by selecting the "Flag" link while watching videos.

Senator Lieberman's staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube's Community Guidelines. In response to his concerns, we examined and ended up removing a number of videos from the site, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech. Most of the videos, which did not contain violent or hate speech content, were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines.

Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a letter sent today, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube -- even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos. While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds. Of course, users are always free to express their disagreement with a particular video on the site, by leaving comments or their own response video. That debate is healthy.

We appreciate Senator Lieberman alerting us to videos that violated our policies -- and encourage our users to continue to do the same through the flagging tool. And while we disagree with him about the details of our policies, we respect his views and thank him for giving us the chance to respond to his concerns.

Plain and simple: Senator Lieberman is wrong. I appreciate his point of view here, but media, whether it be informative or entertaining, is regulated in this country by the viewer. If we don't like what we're seeing, we can switch the channel or close the web page. If I wanted my government to legislate my values, Senator, I'd move to Saudi Arabia.

The People vs. Tommy Chong

Last night I watched a documentary called A/K/A Tommy Chong, which detailed the federal investigation and prosecution a few years back of comedian Tommy Chong. It seems that Tommy Chong ran an internet business selling water bowls (for, um, recreational use). The sale of water bowls is illegal in Pennsylvania, so his company (run out of California) refused to sell and ship to that state. Would that deter John Ashcroft and his band of US Attorneys? Hardly.

They set up a phony buyer in Pittsburgh who spammed Chong's business repeatedly with phone calls and emails, begging to purchase the water bowls. This buyer was so desperate that he drove to the California warehouse and bought a ton of them in person. They couldn't fit all of his purchases in his car, of course, so he had them ship what they could back to his home in Pittsburgh. As soon as the water bowls arrived...the DEA arrested Tommy Chong for the trafficking drug-related paraphernalia.

Entrapment anyone?

It was a really terrific documentary. The war on drugs has always been a bit of a windmill tilt, but to actually target someone not for selling drugs but for selling water bowls (esp. in post-9/11 America, where we should have other priorities) strikes me as a bit of a waste of our tax dollars.

(Word count: 35,126)

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Why didn't I post yesterday?

Well...I forgot.

Lame but true.

On a positive note, though, I was productive, and managed to churn out a whole chapter in 24 hours. Yay: churning!

(Word count: 34,415)

Joss Whedon's new shew

(Word count: 32,996)

Fall 2008

(Word count: 31,100)

Other mothers

Last night, my stepmother Shiela lost her mom. Her mom had been sick for quite some time, but it's still a sad loss.

Shiela was able to fly up to Minnesota to be with her mother for her final days. My heart goes out to her and to her family.

(Word count: 30,818)

Mom (continued)

Today was Mom's first chemo treatment. Last night I slept over her apartment.

She was nervous about the chemo. So was I.

This morning at 8am we headed to Piedmont Hospital. Traffic helped prolong the anxiety-ridden trip. Thanks, traffic. When we finally arrived at the Outpatient Infusion Room, Mom was escorted into a room full of lounge chairs and nurse practioners. Half of the chairs were already occupied. Not everyone here was receiving chemo - some were here for antibiotics and blood.

Around 10am, the nurse prepared Mom's pre-meds: a series of anti-nausea, anti-allergy drugs to help (temporarily) combat the side effects of today's chemotherapy. Meanwhile, down in the lab, the technicians were preparing their two bags of poison. Each chemo bag is prepared fresh, and made to order. Mmm...good.

The first bag was hung at 11am. It was a 3-hour drip. About a half hour into it, Mom got hungry. This was a very good sign. About an hour into it, Mom's kidneys began to (finally) kick in. This was an even better sign (and made for quite a few sojourns to the WC). Around 1pm, she began to crave an A&W root beer float. I asked what else she was craving. Pickles, perhaps?

The staff at Piedmont couldn't have been nicer. By 4pm, the chemo treatment was over. By 5pm, Mom was enjoying her A&W root beer float in the comfort of her own apartment.

One chemo treatment down, five more to go. Go team!

(Word count: same as yesterday - I was a little busy)

Addendum to yesterday's post

In a Newsday article today, a woman in West Virginia named Donna Madden explains why she's voting for Hillary Clinton:

"It's good to hear her talk about gas prices. They're killing us. She's an American, a real American. It's just good to know that she has the same ancestors as us, that her family goes back for generations and generations and generations."

Oy vey.

(Word count: 30,000 - on the dot!)

A Christian Muslim or a Muslim Christian?

Of the many ill-founded attacks laid against Barack Obama, the two which have struck me as the most peculiar are these:

1. Because he attended Reverend Wright's church, he must share Reverend Wright's views and be a hate-filled Christian.
2. Because his middle name is Hussein and he spent some of his childhood abroad, he must be a terror-wielding Muslim.

Many of his wilder critics believe in one or the other, and some even offer credence to both, which is truly remarkable. Of course, he is neither, but that doesn't stop the speculation. In our era of 24/7 news channels, much of the air time is clogged with gossip. It's not that bloggers have risen to the quality of journalism; it's that journalists have fallen to the quality of blogging.

(Word count: 29,892)

Happy Mother's Day

Etch-a-Sketch (Python style!)

(Word count: 28,639)

Etch-a-Sketch Comedy

I've decided to make this weekend a celebration of sketch comedy. We'll start homegrown, with SNL:



What you just saw was created in 1975 by Paul Mooney, who was Richard Pryor's co-writer for much of the comedian's career.

(Word count: 27,723)

AOL vs. Gmail

In the 90s, like everyone else in America, my family joined America Online. My dad had the master account and each of us had an account under him. We couldn't be online at the same time, but so what? Our 28.8 modem allowed us access to the World Wide Web!

Then came broadband, and AOL made the strategic error of not keeping up with competitors (like the cable companies). AOL's exclusive content and shoddy browser began to pale in comparison to, well, everything else. Still, I remain a member. I had my own account now and regularly chatted with my family and friends online.

Then AOL went from Not Keeping Up, which was OK, to Lagging Behind, which was not. I spent a lot of time online. When I'm writing, I require constant access to the internet (for purposes of research and/or distraction). I found a new ISP...but kept my AOL email address. I mean, it would such a hassle to change it after all these years, right?

And then came Google.

I love Google. It's my preferred search engine, it's my blog host (obviously), and by all accounts it treats its employees very well. In contrast, AOL fires its employees very much. And Gmail's spam-blocker is reputed to be so much better than AOL's. Plus its interface is less of a memory drain. And it's highly customizable.

So last night I made the switch to Gmail. I am now barrosyde@gmail.com. I can still get my old AOL junk forwarded to me, but I am hoping all that will taper off.

(Word count: 27,002)

My older brother

You don't know my cousin Matt.

He's whip-smart, stand-up funny, and about as hard-working a person as you're likely to find this side of a Victorian mill. He is the second child (and only son) of my father's brother Bob and sister-in-law Janet. Growing up, Uncle Bob and Aunt Janet lived not too far from us (hey, we're talking about Rhode Island), so any and all family events included them. We attended the same synagogue. I am my parents' oldest child (the oldest of four). The assumption is I never had a big brother. That assumption would be wrong. I had, and have, Matt.

I played Star Wars with Matt (he had the Millennium Falcon and Boba Fett's shuttle - how cool is that?). I played ping-pong with Matt. I shot hoops with Matt. But mostly, I chatted with Matt. He could sass me when I needed sassing, but mostly he just made me laugh and made me think.

He still does.

Matt lives out now in San Fransisco. We don't talk as much as we should, and that's more my fault than his. Still, every time we get together, it's old times all over again. We have a bond so much stronger than cousin-to-cousin. He's my older brother, and I love him. You don't know my cousin Matt. But you should.

(Word count: 26,875)

BEA Aggressive!

On May 27th, I will be flying out to the City of Angels for the Book Expo America (BEA). BEA is the world's largest trade show (next to the one in Frankfurt, Germany) for the publishing industry. I will be there representing (read: pimping) my new novel, Nuclear Winter Wonderland. While there, I also plan on promoting some of my publisher's other fine books.

Some facts about BEA:

• Over 2,000 exhibitors, from Marvel to Random House, will be hosting pavilions
  
• Some of this year's attendees will include Christopher Buckley (who I love), Michael Moore (who I like), Moulitsas Zuniga (who I don't know), Judy Blume (who is still alive), Eoin Colfer (who will be celebrating his 12th birthday), John Hodgman (who is a PC), and Dennis Lehane (who is gone, baby, gone).
  

Nuclear Winter Wonderland is going to be a featured selection at my publisher's booth. This is quite an honor, and I hope I do it justice. If not justice, then truth. If not truth, then the American Way. If not the American Way...well, then, I'll just have to call Captain Britain.

(Word count: 26,245)

Best. Game Show. Ever.

(Word count: 25,333)

Jar-Jar!

If you haven't seen Robot Chicken's Star Wars episode (available here), you're missing out. Here's a hilarious sample:

(Word count: 23,242)

Diablo Cody & John Cusack interview each other

And Josh's brain gets overloaded with glee.

Artist on Artist: John Cusack and Diablo Cody


Now I need to clean up the excess glee leaking out of my ears.

(Word count: 22,314)

Another trailer from my publisher

This one is for Callous by TK Kenyon. Enjoy!



(Word count: 22,220)

Mayday! Mayday!

....Yeah, it's May Day.

Not much to add.

Hi.

(Word count: 22,131)