Was reading two books recently, one on writing, one on dieting, and they both had an odd sort of similarity, in that both presented clear cases that things are stacked against you from completing either thing successfully.

In The Pleasure Trap, they track human history and show how the Western Diet is basically short-circuiting our natural systems that were designed to keep us healthy from the beginning of time. They also don’t believe in moderation, saying that our diets are so out of whack that it needs to be treated like alcoholism and everyone needs to go on a vegan, no oil, no refined foods lifestyle. I stay pretty close to that already, but the book is basiclaly saying that the 30 percent that I don’t do keeps me unhealthy. It is like an alcoholic who only drinks a glass of two of wine every day, but is no longer out all night drinking beer. Like AA, it needs to be all or nothing to have lasting results.

The book also make a good case for waster fasting, whereby you consume nothing but water for days on end, but the book seems to make a case for it without mentioning it could also be dangerous without medical supervision. The people who wrote the book run a fasting center where you can check in and go through a supervised water fast, but I wonder how many people will just read the book and think, “Hmm, just drink water, easy.” The center is north of San Francisco, so if I really get into it, I could just as well fast with them. Or, if it’s expensive, find some website that wants me to write about water fasting and go for free.

But, anyway, the message of the book is that the Western Diet is entirely rigged to short-circuit a perfect system of balance, and that eating rich foods basically opens up forces that will work against you.

The other book I read was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (legend of bagger vance), and talks about writer’s block and is basically an inspirational book about the creative life. But again, the book delves into the myriad ways that forces in life and in yourself work to prevent you from completing things. How your ego wants to avoid happiness, and is waging a battle against your self on a constant basis. Was also a good book, and seemed to have a lot of things to say that I really liked to hear, a few too many “Oh, shit, I do that” moments, and just a well-reasoned look at the life I’m starting to live.

I just found it odd that two seemingly disparate books would seem to have such an important factor in common.

I guess I should talk about the fact that I am no longer writing about my writing here. Did I do it in Thailand? Yes. Am I doing it now? Sort of. It just doesn’t seem like it lacks any useful insight, so for now, my entries will just be about other randomness. It is part of a new thinking about everything, though. Hmm, we’ll get to that.

This weekend, Kirk and I got together to chat and a lot of it centered on writing. Moreso about the way I approach writing. It’s been something I’ve thought of since then, even though I don’t think my position has changed.

Kirk was either concerned about, or just pointing out, the way I seem to approach my writing. In a nutshell: my writing is very insular, in that I am surrounded by a large group of local writers, yet I avoid any notion of public readings, writing groups, or any sort of support from that community, whereas the writers I do tend to talk about are the Chuck Palahniuks, JT Leroys, and Stephen Kings of the world.

So, basically, why am I not tapping into this available resource, yet seem to have some perceived kinship and support with people I don’t really know.

Ultimately, I think this debate is sort of like the Matrix: it’s not about making a choice, it is about understanding why I made the choice I did.

My belief is that my writing approach is isolated and disconnected on purpose. My favorite time to write has always been the middle of the night, with just the quiet and stillness and the words appearing on the screen. I like to tinker, and the novel has just given me a much larger palette to try and get right. A lot of things that happen in the novel are like the proverbial butterfly wings fluttering in China that cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. Every change affects things that came before and will come after, and sometimes you don’t know if the change is for the better until you make it. Some days the end of the novel seems closer, other days it seems further and further away.

I did read from my novel twice this year, both times with Kirk, and I don’t see them as moments that aided the progress of the novel. Yes, it was good to finally let the words out into the world. It was nice that it was well-received. But in advance of each reading, I don’t think the frantic editing and preparations helped the chapters toward publication. I was merely preparing them to be read. Parts were clearly not ready, parts dragged, things got moved so that I didn’t have to do any set-up. But the goal was to get them as pretty as they could be in time to be performed. Afterward, sections that were added got ripped back out, and things were back in flux.

My takeaway was that readings were a distraction to completing the novel.

Now, many local writers read from works in progress on a regular basis. There are events and groups that are ready and available to writers who want that feedback. Now, I’m not crazy enough to think my book needs no feedback, I just don’t want premature feedback. If I am writing something that I know has a huge plot hole in it, or drags, or the pacing is off, or has a poor transition midway into it, then as far as I am concerned that piece needs to stay on my desktop and get fixed. It serves no purpose to read it to people and have anyone tell me there is a plot hole, it drags, there was something off with the pacing, etc.

Basically, I am dismissive of writing groups, although I’ve had no actual long-term experience with any. I see them as artificial deadlines and procrastination and feedback I already know, or feedback I don’t want. I mean, one of the reasons I think the book is taking so long is that I am learning the craft and writing the novel at the same time. If I had the writing skills in place prior, then I would have finished the novel, stepped back, and said, “Omigod, this whole thing is just a huge metaphor for…. the main character is just basically exploring how I need to… ” and all of this insight would have come when it was appropriate, after a draft was complete. But with all the tinkering and the false starts and the reworkings, basically I know what I am writing now, so finding my way in, getting myself lost enough to write it, has become more difficult.

When I took the writing class in Oregon, I wrote a piece about my mother. Well, it was like two or three pages, barely a piece, as they only wanted it to be a short scene. So, I wrote a tiny thing about how I used to pretend to be asleep when she would come home from work, she would eventually come in my room, call me a faker, and I would stay in bed to show I really wasn’t faking it, but then I eventually would fall asleep for real. Very simple, nothing too deep. They said it could only be two pages, so I tried to stay simple (unlike many people who went on for 12-15 pages). When it came time to review it, the piece was dissected to no end, with people hunting for image systems, hidden meanings in everything, why did I need my mother’s attention so badly anyway, what was I trying to say, and a lot of suggestions on how I can expand it into a larger piece, all basically pulling it in different directions.

Now, I really had no intention of working on that piece beyond that class. Still don’t. But I do think that very little of the feedback, if any, would help me expand it. And the drill-down grammar, style, and pacing stuff are all things I would have easily found had it not been a piece I jotted down the night before.

I did like the teacher showing how to change the piece to the minimalist style of the class, giving actions to things to move the piece (”my eyes moved around the room” instead of “I looked around”), etc., but very little else. Initially, I did like the emotional things people took away from the story, even the ones who read the piece all dark (largely due to the morbid tone set by the preceding pieces that were read), but if it were a larger piece, I wouldn’t want to know that yet. But the only useful feedback came from the teacher, not my peer group.

I’ve done that with my own writings, too. Getting excited by something, and quickly e-mailing people to share, but then the replies come back with things that shouldn’t be in my head yet.

So, the ruling I’ve been using for a while is that nothing I am writing now or have written will be read, e-mailed, printed, shared, or anything else from this point on until I think it is finished. Or until I am ready to open that door for feedback, whenever that might be. I do know that before that occurs a single draft that I adore will need to exist from beginning to end, and every chapter in that draft will have been scrubbed extensively by me.

Of course, a larger issue Kirk was interested in for me was that writing groups would be social. I would get out with people who were creating and beyond the “writery” aspects, I would just benefit from building relationships and such.

Now, on one hand, I completely agree. I do need to be more social. I do need to build a larger base of friends in San Francisco. And I do need to get out of the house more. I do need to date. And I do write that more than I take steps to do it, I know. But I just don’t see any benefits to doing any of that with writers, given how I am approaching my writing as outlined above.

If anything, I think my writing would benefit most by hanging out with people who don’t write. I’d rather hang out with waiters, bartenders, people with bad office jobs, anything, just chill out. Play cards, drink, play board games, talk about life, cook dinner together, whatever. I’m not saying I will avoid hanging out with writers, but I certainly want to avoid specifically seeking out settings where writers will be talking about writing as part of the plan. My relentless focus on writing certainly didn’t make the novel come out any faster when I was in monk mode last year. I think the less I focus, the more I will have to write when I do it. It’s kind of like that tired line about finding a relationship when you aren’t looking for one. But you can’t just intentionally not look for the sake of finding one, though, you have to actually not be looking (or something).

Which brings us to the other issue of the writers I quote (Chuck, JT, Stephen King) regularly as though I just ran into them on the street and not read online interviews, audio blogs, online diaries or other things from them instead. In a nutshell, this is the bar. This is who inspires me. Having met Chuck and talked to JT, I don’t see them differently. They just got to where I want to be before I did. If I was in a band, I would strive to be the unique combination of U2, REM, The White Stripes, and everything else that inspires me, all funneled through the lens of my chords and lyrics.

So, when Chuck says something about writing in an interview, my ears perk up. He’s actually going to be publishing regular updates on writing soon which he will later publish in a more polished form as a book, and I guarantee you I will devour every single one. Stephen King’s On Writing book is never far away. I did my best writing in Thailand while reading Nabokov and knowing I will never write anything a third as perfect. Hell, hoping someday I could achieve writing something a third as perfect!

As much as I conceptually like the “group of young artists all coming up out of the trenches together” thing, inspiring each other, supporting each other, with that undercurrent of competition that keeps you all pushing further, getting better, strengthening your game… it’s not a place I see myself.

Last week, Kirk hosted a reading, and at one point someone was onstage and said something that was pleasant, but I didn’t think too much of it, and in that moment, Kirk, another author on the bill, Kirk’s boyfriend, and a few others in the room all sighed because what the person said hit some spot in them. There was a connection. I’m not saying it isn’t real, or that it wasn’t genuine, or that the writing wasn’t up to snuff.

Just that in that same moment, I wasn’t sighing. It was just a nice night out for me. A live substitute for not having Friends or Will & Grace pumping into my living room. A pleasant distraction.

I go to readings regularly enough to say that the only writers who have ever made me want to run home and write are Kirk, horehound stillpoint, and Michelle Tea. But, if I weren’t at the reading, I would probably already be home writing. So, if anything, it would just be reminding me what I should have been doing all along.

I do like how I started this entry by saying I’m not going to write about writing anymore. I guess I should amend that to mean I don’t plan to talk about the process anymore. Like today, I fell asleep in the evening, am awake now when i shouldn’t be, which will negatively affect me getting up early to bang it out. No more of that kind of nonsense. Starting now. I wasn’t going to write that stuff ever again, but I had to write it now so that you know what kind of nonsense to which I was referring. Now that you know, it’s all over.

Halloween self-portrait.

This is the first entry of many that I will be writing and not publishing on the main site. They are being written because I plan to leave my job in mid-2004 and want a record of things. They are all being written with the category tag of “leaving my job” so that when these entries are eventually merged into the other weblog (after I quit), people can sort them easily and catch up on things.

Anyway, one of the things I was contemplating in Thailand was my future, in many respects. I really dislike my job. the people are fine, but on one hand you get the sense that the well isn’t deep for future fictional exploits. I need to be around people, out in the world. Office jobs are the same people, not enough interaction with other people and the topic tends to be work. Constantly. This move also has repercussions beyond writing books, arguably much more important ones, like getting me dating and out in the world more.

But more important than anything is that I’m not happy there. Every morning, it is a chore to get up the will to go in, and I only don’t call off more often because I think it is bad to do karmically since I tend to be healthy. So, I go in and try and make it through the day, but it is really just counting down eight hours every day. Well, seven and a half. Heh.

If it were less taxing and I could actually squirrel myself away and write my novel on their dime, I would. But it is bothersome enough that writing my stuff wouldn’t work there. But the real downside is that what little work I actually do there seems to tap into whatever shallow well of energy I need to write what I actually want to write.

Now, I’ll be the first one to admit that this was a convenient cop-out. In much the same way that I can insist that I would be an amazing guitar player had I not banged up my left elbow so that I can’t hold the guitar right, the “I would be writing an amazing novel if I didn’t have this pesky day job” could also be filed away as another tale of woe that will never be proven.

Except my job was good enough to give me a sabbatical. And, although I laid around and was contemplative for about the first third of it (usually thinking of ways to focus on my career as a novelist and not my sick, pathetic job writing corporate yammering nonsense for a software company), eventually I realized that I had something that usually wasn’t available to me, an abundance of time.

So, I wrote. One chapter per day. For 34 days.

34 chapters in all.

And, I have to admit, I had a great time. When I shut off the world and stayed locked in my apartment most evenings last year (earlier this year? I forget anymore, it’s all in the diary on the other site), the writing happened, but it wasn’t inspired. I was inspired TO write, but the writing itself didn’t have that spark. It didn’t leap off the page with life.

In Thailand, the writing was pure joy. I laughed out loud as I wrote some chapters, but even beyond that, there was just a subtext of happiness floating under the words. And that was what was missing for so long.

So, my job giving me a sabbatical confirmed my decision that I need to leave my job.

But, being old and cautious (young and foolish isn’t an option anymore), I have to hang on for a bit, pay off some debt, save up some money, and prepare to make a clean break as soon as possible. I’m hoping to do it before summer; the tighter the budget, the quicker the freedom.

This decision has been met with some criticism, I suppose. It is actually surprising to see who ends up on what side of the fence on this issue. Some people I thought would be all “Do what makes you happy” are very concerned with the whimsy of leaving a rather high-paying job. Others are all, “That’s great” and supportive.

The most constant theme, though, is that I don’t know if I can be a novelist, or make enough money at it to have “a living.” And the truth is, the odds of me making huge bank as a writer anytime soon are rather bleak. But the only way to grow as a writer is to write more, learn the craft, etc., etc. I am explicitly leaving my job with the goal to be a bartender that is trying to become a writer. It isn’t a recess until I make a ton of cash with a novel. The odds are very good that I will be pouring drinks through several novels.

Some people want me to try and sell H@e first, but if I do that, it means I will be dry when it sells, as opposed to having a second book in some form at that point. Some people want me to try and get a part time gig where I work now. For many people, the goal seems to be how little change I can make to get by. But, it is like being lost in the jungle. When you know you’re going the wrong way, you don’t turn three degrees in either direction and keep walking, you make an abrupt turn. 90 degrees right, 90 degrees left, or a complete 180.

Thinking back, it is unfortunate how long my “fall back” careers were in play. In colelge, i was working on a screenplay, and journalism was meant to be the safer career to fall back on, but then somehow i ended up doing it. So, I am basically resorting to the original plan of writing for me. I don’t want any writing gigs to help pay the bills. When I launch Microsoft Word, it will be entirely to write for myself.

There will also be no writing classes, public readings, e-mailed chapters or anything else anymore. I don’t want to let anything out into the world until I’m done with it. It derails the process and I’m removing anything that get me off track. I’m glad people ask and want to read stuff, but the process isn’t interesting, the end result is. You’ll have a much better time when it is finishd than knowing how it evolved. There’s usually a good reason things get deleted.

That is something else that changed. It changed a while ago, but I’m not sure I noticed it at the time. Or it changed too gradually to be obvious. I really am less concerned with publishing than writing anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I have every intention of trying to sell my books. But, the focus shifted. Now I am writing my books for me. When I complete H@e, the finish line will be crossed. The victory mine.

I noticed this when people said I should wait and hang on to my job to see if I can sell the first book before making any big decisions.

But the overarching theme here, and this is beyond work and beyond wanting to write, is that I’m not happy there. I mean, that alone is enough reason to get out.

Oh well, enough for now. And, of course, keep this a secret.

Finally writing about Halloween here… a few days later.

Started Halloween at work, where the candy part was very much honored, but costumes were not happening. Then I went home and got ready for the night.

I was dressed as a renaissance princess, which was basically a long purple, velvet dress with pink velvet inside the long, hanging ends of the sleeve, and pink up the front/middle. The chest had a gold, lattice bodice, and there was also a purple headpiece, basically a rolled up purple velvet sweatband-type thing with pink velvet that dropped under my chin and hung down on each side from the headpiece.

A co-worker loaned me eye makeup and glittery lip gloss, although I think I should have gone a bit brighter and exaggerated. I had a bath towel rolled up to give me a huge bust. But with no blonde wig, the whole thing seemed awkward. Of course, as I kept reminding myself, the point wasn’t that I be spectacular, just that I not be in street clothes (like every other year). So even some poorly thought-out costume was better than showing up in jeans. Not to mention, I get to blame my costume unpreparedness on the sabbatical anyway. I did look for costumes in thrift shops before Thailand, but nothing really worked. And once I was coherent and back on time zone, it was costume crunch time in the city.

So, I decide to head out bright and early to go eat at Nirvana in the Castro, as that would be at the heart of the festivities later. Eat a nice meal, drag it out, and when I’m finished, the Castro will be filled. Leaving my apartment, it was raining, so I was a bit hesitant about the night. A bunch of my friends weren’t going and many others would be there, but not sure when, or at other bars in the city. It is one of those rare nights where I want to have a cell phone, although they are thankfully rare nights.

I get a table pretty quickly in Nirvana, after having a Mango Mai Tai at the bar. Ana made Halloween her last night as a waitress there after five and a half years, so she was having a good time. My friend Dan was doing a fierce Asian waitress with a latex/plastic short skirt, chopsticks in the hair, and platform shoes. The skirt was a bit shorter than he realized or perhaps because of all the running around he was doing, so he was constantly tugging it down. Fun time.

After Nirvana, I head over to see Quinn and Joel, who live nearby. It is the first I’ve seen them since returning from Thailand, so we hung out there for a bit and I chased my two mai tais with some white wine on their patio. I thankfully tell them I envisioned my costume with a blonde wig, but couldn’t find a cheap one, and Quinn happens to own a blonde wig, so my costume ends up complete before we head out.

Mainly Halloween is like any other event on Castro Street, you just walk around and look at other people. Although, it is less cruisy on Halloween than Gay Pride, since you are looking at their costumes. It takes quite a while to slog through the crowd, but we check out the different areas. I throw back a malibu and pineapple at the pendulum, and then I realize the two of them hadn’t had dinner, so we head over to Zao, as Bagdad had a huge line. I have tofu fries and a diet coke.

But that’s kind of all Halloween is, getting a bit buzzed, looking at costumes, dancing here and there. the police were all prepared for violence that never occurred. They went all crazy prepared, too, like an entire lane of the street was blocked off in its entirety so that if something happened, they would be able to quickly get to the scene. Except, as near as I saw, nothing happened.

After Quinn and Joel went home, I ended up in… some bar on Castro, on a back patio having a Sangria, then headed back to Nirvana to see if Dan was heading anywhere else now that his shift was over. Sat on the bench outside for a while, and some cute shirtless boy sat next to me. His voice was so affected and effeminate it was even too much for me, and that usually doesn’t ever occur. He was totally buzzing on something, and I doubt it was alcohol, because I don’t think he was 21. He was friendly, though, and chatting with strangers is always interesting.

Then I talked to Adrian for a while, who used to work there but now works at Millennium, and then Dan came out of the patio. But, he wasn’t a fierce Asian waitress anymore, just a cute Asian boy. But one that had spnt the last 8 hours or so on platforms serving food, so he was beat and heading home. We all ended up in front of Nirvana talking for a while. I called another friend on Dan’s cell phone, but he did end up hooking up with someone and was already in some guy’s apartment, so he was out of the running for keeping me out late.

By this point it was one in the morning, and I had to decide whether my night was ending of half over. A few people I know from Nirvana were apparently at the End Up, where I was planning to, err, end up. But they close the bar at like 1:30 so that they don’t have anyone drinking there after 2, so that they can stay open until the following morning. But, I would need more drinks if I was going to plow through a few more hours.

So, I decided to just call it a night and head home. Of course, it was still a decent walk home, and the streets were still loaded with people, so I took my time, took it all in, came home, took a quick bath to get all the glitter and makeup off of me, and went to bed.

Writing about it, it doesn’t seem like it was all that interesting. That’s the impression I get writing this, or hearing what i am writing in my head. But, I actually had a great time, and just hope that next year I have an even fiercer costume put together for the occassion.