Tue
Nov 28

So Brutal

Add Comment

I am having SERIOUS writing issues at the moment. Yesterday, waiting in an airport terminal in Sacramento I found it impossible to write even a single sentence. I would come up with two or three words and then stare at my notebook for a full minute, fighting to find the next. I gave up pretty quickly, hoping that today would be better. It isn’t.

I just wrote perhaps the most rambling and nonsensical six hundred words of my entire life. What started as an observation on college admissions somehow ended up with an old man staring at a boy and reminiscing about the life he never lived.

He saw in me all the What Ifs and What Could Have Beens. He saw in me his past’s lost future. And that is why he smiled.

After writing that sentence I literally stood up out of my chair, threw my hat against the wall, and yelled, “WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!”

Then I closed my eyes and said, “What the fuck?” another half dozen times.

I don’t know where this thing is going, but at the moment nothing that is being put to paper even vaguely resembles the story that I want to tell. So far this whole novel writing idea seems to be producing little more than frustration and profanity.

9 people care

  1. HeadShot
    November 28th, 2006

    Well, on the bright side you only need to write 8,000 words per day to finish it up in time (assuming you still count today as one of those days!).

    Hmmm, what should I buy for $50?? Maybe the new Superman HD DVD…

  2. Zurezo
    November 28th, 2006

    $50 please in cash

  3. Jim
    November 28th, 2006

    I’m going to buy Twilight Princess for the Wii that I don’t yet have.

  4. wyvern
    November 29th, 2006

    I just abruptly ended the chapter rather than try to dig my way out. I started the next chapter fresh and now I’ve got my words back.

    20k words or bust by the end of today.

    Yeah, you guys should definitely go ahead and spend the fifty bucks ahead of time. It will make it that much sweeter when you don’t get it.

  5. wyvern
    November 29th, 2006

    Or better yet. Go ahead and buy a bunch of stuff, but then when I do finish on time you can all just mail me the dvds and videogames that you bought.

  6. Altstar
    November 29th, 2006

    Storm of Swords > your novel

  7. wyvern
    November 29th, 2006

    …obviously

  8. lukas
    November 29th, 2006

    i dunno, link is pretty much a storm of swords right about now, not that Jason has an unopened copy of Twilight Princess and a Wii just sitting around hooked up to a large TV…

  9. jimmeh
    December 3rd, 2006

    i dunno what it is exactly you’re trying to write, but have you seen tuckermax.com? check it out. He doesn’t do anything but write stories straight out of his life. which is to say, he just published his blog and that was his road to fame. I find your blog (parts of it) fairly interesting. what’s your e-mail? I’ll send you something