blurbs

I went to see The Dark Knight Rises this evening, and was only mildly annoyed with it. That must be some kind of record.

Corn actually tastes pretty good on pizza.

My novel manuscript is 411 pages (double-spaced) and clocks in at 81,476 words.

I went to the bank in my pajamas two days ago.

Somehow I'm in the middle of reading three books: The Chase by Clive Cussler, The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, and Cross the Stars by David Drake.

If I take a walk in the afternoons or make a run to Costco in the mornings, I sweat so much that I leave salt deposits on my T-shirts. It's that hot and muggy out there. This is worse than Tennessee.

Terra Nova (a sci-fi TV show, formerly on Fox) has been canceled. It'll be put out on DVD soon and will henceforth be presented as a "motion comic." I suppose I should know what that is, me being an aspiring comic book writer. But I don't.

The weirdest Google search I've ever done was for "alien draft animals"...three days ago.

Intensive courses begin at work on Tuesday. I'll be working from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., or something. For the next month. Goodbye, sleep schedule.

Sometimes I get the idea that the Koreans' cultural respect of the greater good and their belief in the insignificance of the individual are all a sham. They're all rugged individualists once they climb behind the wheel of a car. Or maybe cars are just Asian Kryptonite.

Listening to Winston Churchill speeches on YouTube gives me goosebumps.

Until tonight I had no idea what the phrase "to wit" meant.

I put one of my felt hats in the laundry last week (it got completely soaked with sweat on my last outing). It came out all limp and misshapen. I still love it.

Getting into the habit of watering houseplants every day has been tricky, but well worth it. We have little red flowers blooming constantly on the plant by the window.

They're not "pushpins," people. They're "thumbtacks." I dare you to tell me there's a difference.

These are just a few of the things occupying my mind at the moment.

this damn novel

I don't know if I've mentioned this properly, but I'm an aspiring novelist. I've been writing ever since I was a pre-teen, mostly tongue-in-cheek poems and short stories about animals. Then, after I got to college, I realized two things: (a) I really couldn't stand advanced chemistry, and therefore probably couldn't be a zoologist; and (b) I actually really enjoyed writing. I began to wonder if I could do it for a living, in fact. I liked to write, and I liked animals, and science, and people, and culture...and I loved to travel, see new places and describe them floridly. Why not?

So I switched my major to journalism, got my degree, and set out on the road to become a travel writer. But even before that, the writer's madness began to take hold. My imagination has always been overactive. I read ravenously as a child and was instilled not only with the capacity to create fantasy-worlds from the whirling darkness of my mind, but also to put them on paper in an intriguing way. And so the short stories took shape. They were awful, undoubtedly. The writing may have been above average, but the plots were thin and the premises ludicrous. I wrote an entire novelette in high school about a family of nurse sharks who migrated across the perilous ocean floor to a new home in a secure reef. (Needless to say, it was inspired by Watership Down.)

When I was 19, something finally resembling an original idea began to coalesce in my head. An idealist. Yeah, there's this dissatisfied idealist. Unhappy with his lot, see? Working a dead-end job. Going nowhere, slowly. Him and his best buddy, both. And then what do they find out? They're reincarnated from history's heroes. The souls of humanity's most famous warriors, leaders and tricksters are bound up inside them. These two guys are privy to these famous men's powers, fighting prowess, intelligence, cleverness, and charisma.

The story underwent several permutations. At first, my two protagonists discovered a time-machine and became sort of like time-traveling private investigators. That didn't last too long. It's a rip-off, for one thing. There's half a dozen original Star Trek episodes just like that, not to mention that Sci-Fi Channel series TimeCop. I also wasn't happy with the realistic side of things, either. My idealist (let's call him Protagonist Number One, and his buddy Protagonist Number Two) was working in an antique clock shop in Los Angeles, inherited from his deceased parents. That coincidence seemed a little too corny. So I scrapped it.

I'm paranoid about plagiarism, so I won't say much about the plot of the story as it stands now. I will say that the theme is now post-apocalyptic. A global time disaster sucks these two guys in and spews them onto a new world, where (armed with their new-found metaphysical powers), they pursue their fortunes. The plot roughly parallels human history (beginning with ancient Sumer, hence all the stuff I've been reading about old Mesopotamia). I've got some rather weighty things to say about human civilization and social behavior along the way, too. Protagonists 1 and 2 will acquire a motley bunch of supporting characters over time, all of whom have something to contribute to the story (literally and allegorically). It's going to be a great adventure, a little bit preachy, grandiose, captivating, lucid, funny, rip-roaring, swashbuckling, touching, and all those other things that my favorite adventure novels and fantasy epics are.

Now, I've actually finished writing the damn thing. It's been sitting in my top desk drawer for months. Why could that be? I love writing. I love this story I've created with all my heart. I think other people are going to love it, too. So why am I hesitating yet again?

I'm scared. I'm scared of that manuscript. I know exactly how Victor felt when he looked down upon the monster he'd sewed together from corpses, and it opened its watery yellow eyes and grinned at him. I've created a monster. It's grown into something much larger than I thought it would. I think it could be great. But there's the terrifying thought that, after my editing is done, it might not be great. I want this to come out perfect, or as near to perfect as possible. And I'm not sure I can do it. And even if it gets to the point where I think it's good, and have grown as fond of it as a proud father of his child, and send it out into the world to seek its fortunes...where's the guarantee that other people will like it? What if they hate it? Or sweet mother of sassafras, what if they love it? What if it becomes the biggest thing since Harry Potter? What if this thing transcends genres, age groups, sexes, borders? What if the entire planet likes it? What if it becomes so popular that ravening fan groups on the Internet begin breathing down my neck for endless sequels?

All of these fears and apprehensions torment me daily—whenever I open that top drawer and see that manuscript sitting there, grinning at me with water yellow eyes. I'm afraid of imperfection, I'm afraid of failure, and I'm afraid of success.

But you know what? I've decided not to care anymore. I've waited long enough. I want to see people's eyes light up when they read this story, the way mine do. I want to get this thing revised, accepted, printed, published.

So I finally unleashed it from the desk drawer two weeks ago. It sat on my nightstand for two weeks, just sort of "airing out," as I told myself. But today, after a long bout of late-night soul searching the previous evening (during which tears were shed, Coldplay was listened to, mournful pamphlets written, and morose epigrams dispensed on Facebook)...

Today, after four years of daydreaming, writing, ripping, tearing, destroying, rewriting, rethinking, and reworking...

Today, after four months of equivocating, stalling, hiding, cowering, rationalizing, hemming and hawing...

Today I picked that manuscript up, sat down on my bed, and had a look at Chapter One.

And you know what? I reworked it. I rewrote some bits that other people had said weren't working. I switched some stuff around. I changed some information. I refined, expanded, revised, expounded, redid. My heart swelled with every word. And I got it done. The long-awaited second edit of the Postman's very first novel has commenced. It's not the last edit, certainly not. But it's a start. It's the first step down the long, leery, hardscrabble, soul-scouring road of revision. At the end lies the publication process, itself a trial, but the next link in the chain to everlasting glory.

I'm sitting here, typing this, that exhilarated feeling pounding through my torso, feeling like I've just run a marathon or survived the final round of a trivia contest. I'm on cloud nine. This feels good. I don't know why I waited this long. I ought to be ashamed of myself. Since when have I ever cared what other people think? Life's scary. So what? Overcoming uncertainties isn't easy. Who cares? That's how you're supposed to live life: conquering insecurity, dealing with uncertainty, and learning from your mistakes. I don't care if I get critiqued. I'll take whatever harsh edits my friends and editors throw at me, and use them to better the final product. The criticisms of the audience I'll use as ammunition against error in ensuing works.

I don't mean to be a name-dropper, but there are a few people who said what I want to say before I did, and I want to give them their due. It was Winston Churchill who gave us what is now my new favorite quote:

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things."

Henry Ford had something else pithy to contribute:

"Whether you think you can or think you can't—you are right."

And it was Eleanor Roosevelt, bless her, who stated:

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."

I don't care if people say this is the single greatest flop in the history of literature. I'm going to fix it. I'm going to finish it. And I'm going to do my best with it. Then I'll sleep easy.

At least I'll have tried.

and now, here are a few of my friends

These are some good buddies I've been bumming around with here in the desert: John You already know a little about him from what I've told you before. He's six-foot-four, thin as a rail, eats like a wolf, works at Best Buy, loves Scotch and cigars, and has girl problems out the wazoo. I could go into detail, but that would both violate his privacy and give you the impression that I don't like him, which would be patently untrue. He's done a few things that I really don't approve of, like refusing to go to Australia with me on the grounds of remaining devoted to his girlfriend (not to mention converting to Catholicism). Nevertheless, I consider John my best friend. He's funny, smart, brutally honest, violently profane, endlessly hospitable, and delightedly human. If I was Winston Churchill, I'd still be very fond of him. He has none of the virtues I dislike and all of the vices I admire. Chris Though two years younger than the rest of us, Chris, son of Apple Valley's former mayor and very politically-minded himself, is anything but a baby. He lost his cherry before the rest of us did, that's almost certain. He, too, likes Scotch and cigars, has gotten his pilot's license (which he never ceases to wave under my nose), works at Del Taco, is almost flat broke, drives a red Ford Mustang (and drives it like a maniac), has a most ribald sense of humor, was in the Army for a few months before a leg injury forced him to bow out, digs guns and weaponry, is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican (and a newly-minted atheist), and is about as modest as a rabid chimpanzee. Despite this (in many cases, because of it), I love the guy. He's awful fun to be around, and is always up for doing something, anything. Basel That's pronounced just like the English name, Basil. Basel is also skeletally tall and thin, has an aquiline nose, Arabian features (he's of Syrian descent), is Catholic, loves rap (especially Eminem), really knows how to fill out a hoodie, is bilingual, works in his father's liquor store, is an excellent bowler (compared to the rest of us), has about a million cousins, eats salad unashamedly, and is currently having sort of an early-life crisis. He quit school because he hated it, and is now in the process of figuring out what he wants to do instead. He's also a fun guy, genuine, and generally available for a party or a get-together. Last night, the four of us went out on the town to celebrate John's upcoming 23rd birthday. Chris and I met up at Albertson's beforehand and purchased our good buddy an early birthday present: a bottle of Jameson's Special Reserve, aged 12 years. Then we rendezvoused with John at Oasis Lanes and bowled a couple games. Basel beat us all out the first game, being the only one to break 100 (he got 105). He got 105 the second game, too...only Chris and John had warmed up by then and scored even higher. I got worse from Game 1 to Game 2. I scored 78 in the first game and 66 in the second. Then we adjourned to Buffalo Wild Wings over on Bear Valley Road, sat down at the bar, and had some drinks. We started out with a quartet of White Russians...we'd been quoting The Big Lebowski while we were bowling the second game. Then we moved into Leinenkugel's (B-Dubs is the only place in the whole town that has Leinie's on tap), and shots of Jack Daniels Single Barrel and Maker's Mark, and finished up with a Colorado Bulldog each (White Russians with Coke). In the meantime, we talked, jibed, japed, took over the jukebox with the Moody Blues and the Band and Joe Walsh and Warren Zevon, and quoted every funny TV show or Internet gag we knew. The bartender (his name was Adam, but we called him Gary; it's a Big Lebowski thing) must've thought we were a pretty sad lot. I can't explain why my bowling got worse over the course of the evening, even without the aid of liquor. Of course, I did have a lot on my mind right then. Seems like every time I get together with the old high school gang I can't help but wonder. I marvel at how much they haven't changed. They're still the same people, admittedly older, their faces more angular, the baby fat all gone, a tiny bit of real life in its place. Their voices are deeper, and they're a tad taller and broader. But their minds remain the same. They still laugh at the same jokes, frown at the same misfortunes, shrug at the same problems. All that's changed are their catchphrases. They're not going the same places they were when they were younger. That's changed, too. When we graduated from high school in 2004 (Chris in '06), our ambitions were a lot different than they are now. We were shooting for the stars. Basel was attending the University of California in San Diego. Chris went to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona. John went to California State University in Stanislaus, and was originally trying for a chemical engineering degree. I went off to North Dakota State for zoology. None of that's the same now. I'm not really sure what happened. Maybe life intervened. Basel quit school. Chris spent $20,000 in one year at Embry-Riddle just to get his pilot's license, then joined the Army, hurt himself, and came back here, broke. John couldn't stand being stuck at CSU Stanislaus (in the middle of a dusty, one-horse town called Turlock), switched his major to English, went through some ugly break-ups, came down here to the local community college to knock off some general education requirements for cheap, and now has serious girl problems. And I, finding that I didn't get along with advanced chemistry, switched my major to journalism, graduated in three and a half years, job-searched for six months without luck, went to Korea out of desperation, came back, got fired from the local newspaper, and am now living with my parents and can't find a job. I wonder about three things when I get together with the old crowd: where our lives wound up going, how different our situation is from our original destination, and where things are going to go from here. I have no idea about the latter. None of us has been through any real trauma. We haven't even had difficult lives relative to how hard it's going for the rest of the world. We've got loving homes to go back to at the end of the day. Most of us have steady employment. We're not sad or depressed. It's more like we're disappointed. You know how it is. When you're young and bold, you reckon everything's going to be wine and roses for you no matter what happens. Then you actually start down the road and find out that, like Tolkien said, adventures aren't all pony rides in the May sunshine. Sometimes—often—there's frustration, and anger, and disappointment, and bitterness, and humiliation, and awkwardness, suffering, shame, misery, impatience, and stupidity. That's that little thing called life, I reckon.