It’s not easy to write a blog entry, seeing as I don’t seem to… do anything unique on a regular basis.

Since the last entry, I have instituted a 2,000-word per day minimum requirement, just to keep me working. That has been going well.

For the past week, the writing has been flowing rather easily. Things that have never previously occurred to me end up on the page and I love seeing it happen. Sometimes writing is really just reading something in real time.

The book is going to be divided into two narrative threads. There is the fiction section and the “non-fiction” section. I put it in quotes because the non-fiction section is the book that the fictional character writes in the book. So, it’s written as non-fiction and all, but it’s really fictional non-fiction.

Anyway, I’m less than a week from finishing the non-fiction book, at which point, I start doing the “big work,” which is switching back to the main fictional story element.

After that, it will be a matter of weaving the two together in a cohesive manner. The point has to be that they are stronger intertwined. That is a more satisfying read as a result.

When I was writing today’s section, I saw the threads that would connect it to the fictional story. It was nice seeing the points where they intermix like that.

But the trick is… the non-fiction has to read like a real non-fiction book (although the non-fiction will only be presented in excerpts), and the fictional elements have to piece together and work on their own.

If you only read the non-fiction, it needs to hold up, and vice versa.

It has to be something that makes both elements serve a bigger story in a better way.

I hate it being a device and will resist all attempts for that to happen.

This plan paints me into a corner and will make me tell a more real story. By excerpting the non-fiction, the characters have to become real. The exposition is removed from their interpersonal dialogue. The reader will know what they are talking about at that point.

Which means their story has to become compelling without the artifice of setting up and explaining what is going on around them. That’s the goal.

So, that’s kind of what I’m up to. I don’t like yammering about the book and the process much, but at the same time, I do like leaving little trails here for me to look back on someday. This is sort of the moment in time when I’m starting to feel that it’s going to work. At least the combining of the two narratives. (Ignore previous blog entries that claimed there would be three).

That’s all I do right now.

Every week, there are more pages and less author. Write. Gym. Write. Gym. Write. Gym.

Something has been gnawing at me. One of those things that are obvious, but you just can’t sort it out, or verbalize it exactly? I mean, I’ve been writing, but it just seems like it’s such a… hobby.

I sit here. Words end up on pages. Pages accumulate. I’m just not feeling the fire or passion of it all. I think it is that I have been putting writing on the albeit short to-do list for the day, and when it’s done, so am I.

Writing? Check.

Gym? Check.

Cool, what do I want to do with my day now that I did my required things?

And, honestly, that’s not the point of this.

One of the things that made writing successful in Thailand was the whole point of being cut off and isolated. The advertisements weren’t in English. When you saw a random television, they weren’t speaking English. The locals didn’t speak at the level where you’d have extended random conversations. The tourists were cordial, but we all did our own things, only occasionally joining one another for dinner or somesuch.

Writing was passionate and fun, and I would be writing quickly with a smile on my face, as some new audacious element came to me and was being recorded.

So, things obviously need to change around here. I don’t think I can force the passion, but I think that comes with a mindset that has more commitment. The book largely needs to become obsessive. Distractions should happen, but they should not be appearing with the regularity they have been. The intake of (downloaded) TV shows, movies, and everything else needs to grind down.

Only reading and writing need to occur every day. Everything else is superfluous.

While I’m not writing this book on deadline, in some way I am now. At some point, I will run out of money, unemployment will run out, and I will need to re-enter the workforce, or find some other kind of work. Basically, this is the most amazing window of time I will ever have to write this book, so it needs to be treated as the precious commodity it is.

Looking back on my recent schedule, I think I could have written longer every day. I think at another point during the day, I could have edited what I had written to give myself a better launching pad for the following day. Play time needs to end. I want to be writing to exhaustion, giving in because I’m so tired and I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. That’s a bit much, but on the sliding scale of how much more I can be doing, it is a healthier goal than what I am doing now.

Wow. Wow-wow-wow.

For the past few days, I have been reading a book at a clip that I barely ever use. When I woke up, I wanted to read. In the bathtub, I would read. Before bed, I would try and read some more. I couldn’t get enough.

The book is the aforementioned The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, who started his life as the son of a dairy farmer, who went into research to try and help the meat industry grow larger animals to increase profits.

Ultimately, his research led him to find causal relations between animal protein and cancer promotion. So, he starts on a diary farm, working to help slaughter animals, kills probably thousands of mice and rats over the years in his studies, and his end result is now that people should eat a whole foods, plant-based diet.

To be clear, he is not saying to eat LESS meat and dairy. He is saying NOT to eat them. So, for me, this book was amazingly affirming, as I went vegan roughly six months ago.

My first instinct after reading this book was to go online, order a case of them, and send them to everyone I know. I mean, in some way, anyone around me who gets sick because they eat what we are told is good for us by so many sources… I’d still feel partially responsible is I hadn’t told them the risks.

And, this isn’t just about fat. One of the leading cancer promoting things in the American diet is casein, the protein in milk. And the same protein is in whole, skim, fat-free, and every other kind of milk on the market.

I’m trying to think of all of the other amazing stats in this book, but there are so many. It shows all of the problems with the food industry, the medical industry, the government, the research industry, and how they are all motivated to not say the truth. One example is that every diet you ever read says we need 30 percent of our diet to be protein. The reason? Going under 30 percent would mean not eating meat. So, health isn’t the top concern necessarily. The government funds farmers. The food industry, drug industry, and government fund nutrition research. There’s a lot of money being made, and the decisions aren’t always made in the best interest of the people whom they most affect.

Another example: The average level of blood cholesterol found in their research in China was 127, almost 100 points under the American average. Some counties in China had an average of only 94! The American range is usually around 170-290, and our doctors use that range as their guide. So, if you are under 200 or somesuch, your numbers are considered “good.” But they are only “good” by our standards. Our medical “industry” actually has said there might be dangers of having cholesterol levels under 150, but offer no proof to back this up. This route back around, though, to what you would have to do to get your cholesterol under 150 (read: not eat meat).

I’m not saying doctors are against you, just that most of them get their information from biased sources. Many medical schools are taught nutrition using information paid for and distributed by the dairy industry. So, basically, the people who sell the leading cancer promoting agent in the American diet help teach doctors nutrition?!

I should point out that I am not saying meat or dairy are carcinogenic. They do not cause cancer (to my knowledge, anyway). Acquiring cancer is still genetic or environmental, just as you’ve always heard. However, in lab experiments, whereby mice were given cancer, the ones who were given 20 percent of their diet from milk protein, the cancer grew. If they were given soy or other proteins, it not only didn’t grow, but it reversed.

In the book, Campbell said the three stages of cancer are like how you grow a lawn. There is an initiation stage, where you put the seed in the ground. There is then a promotion stage, where you add water and fertilizers and get the seed to grow. Then the third stage is when the grass takes over and is growing between the cracks in the sidewalk, basically out of control. The stage of this you cannot control is initiation. The stage of this that you help when you have animal proteins and dairy is promoting it. The rats that had been initiated with cancer, but never had dairy or animal protein to promote it?

They all lived.

This book is SO important. I can’t impress upon you enough how important I think this stuff is. It can literally save your life.