I haven't been blogging because... eh... I don't always have something to say. I have been writing though. I'm proud of myself for re-writing "Silent Blue" (which, after a consultation w. Hobby on Monday, I intend to send out into the ether) and "The Catskills (which I will be reading at Malaprops tomorrow at 3 PM). Come see me read! Ten years from now, you can tell people, "Yeah I saw Jeremy Rice back when he was still playing the local Indie clubs. Before he sold out."

I decided to work on "Silent Blue" rather than "The Catskills." The revision is going nicely. It's funny: just a couple months ago I felt as if I had revised this story about as much as I possibly could. But already I feel like my writing has improved so much that I have to re-write it again before sending it out. And I think as I do this current (and hopefully final) revision, the story is truly drastically improving yet again. The content is fixed; I'm just tightening every paragraph. making sentences shorter and more clear, removing unnecessary adjectives and details. This part of the writing process is a lot of fun for me; I love working meticulously with language. To give you an idea of what I'm accomplishing with this revision, here is an excerpt from the last version and then an excerpt from the new version.

Steve watches himself on screen—eight years younger, the NCAA championship game, he the starting three guard, in wolfpack red, hot blood red, so young, a mop of brown hair mushroomed by a white headband. The game is alive. The crowd breathes its roar in and out, in and out. The players move together, stretch and constrict, flex and tremble like muscles. Steve is the heart controlling the flow. The game pulses out of him, bends back toward the steady beat of his dribble, the sudden gush of his drive. He watches himself slap the ball away, web it through his legs, around his waist, make it dance like a marionette. Watches himself razor down the backdoor cut, flick lay-ups like beads of water, launch passes like a bowstring, wrestle away rebounds like a graceful Goliath. Alone in his home office, he stares at the TV/VCR combo perched on his desk, socked feet tapping the carpet to the rhythm of the game, the dance he choreographed. It’s late. Papers—newspapers, half-crumpled typed drafts with red-penned edits, notebook pages ripped and ink-battered—litter the floor. Threatening to topple off the desk and faded couch cushions are stacks of Carolina Sports, the monthly magazine for which he writes features and editorials and has an editing hand in most everything published. He can feel his sleeping wife underneath him downstairs sunk into the bed like a hunk of ice, silent and rigid, facing the wall. Here’s the part of the game where he breaks the spell, smacks stupidly the point guard’s wrist, an angry, awkward move that earns him his fourth foul, a seat on the pine. Steve leaves the tape playing and wanders downstairs.

And...

Steve watches himself on screen. NCAA championship game, NC State and Arizona. He, eight years younger, is the starting three guard. Blood-red Wolfpack jersey, fierce black eyes, a mop of brown hair mushroomed by a white headband. The crowd breathes its roar in and out, in and out. The players move en masse. They stretch and constrict, flex and tremble like muscles. Steve, the heart, controls the flow; the game pulses out of him. Opponents bend toward the beat of his dribble, are carried by the gush of his drive. He weaves the ball through his legs, makes it dance like a marionette. He flicks lay-ups like beads of water, launches passes like a bowstring, wrestles down rebounds like a howling Goliath. Alone in his home-office, his socked foot taps the carpet to the rhythm of the game.

It’s late. His wife Cassie is downstairs, directly beneath him. A silent, rigid, slab of ice frosting the sheets of their bed.

The TV’s flickering light tosses frail shadows around the dim room. Sections of newspaper, half-crumpled drafts with red-penned edits, and ripped, ink-battered notebook pages litter the floor. Threatening to topple off the faded corduroy couch cushions are stacks of Carolina Sports, the monthly magazine for which he writes and serves as editor. A whistle shrills, marking the part of the game where he commits his fourth foul, an awkward wrist-slap that earns him a seat on the pine.

I think the difference is significant.... More later.

Being that it's Spring Break, I have taken a few days off work to catch up on my drinking. But now I'm ready to write again. For this next week, I'm turning my focus away from the novel and onto two concerns: one, my malaprops reading on the 16th; two, trying to get "Silent Blue" published. The other day I spent some time poring over websites and I found seven interesting journals I'd like to submit to. I was going to send the story how it is, but after I re-read it a little, I decided it could use another quick revision to sculpt the language a little more. So that's one thing I'm working on this week. The other is revising and rewriting "The Catskills" which I am planning to read at Malaprops. I think today I will work on the latter project.

The Cat

Excerpt:

What’s this? Something gray is crumpled against the wall. It looks like a wadded, dirty sweater. I walk over and freeze: a cat. At first I think it’s alive; it seems to be twitching. But no, it’s just its fur rustling in the breeze. I bend down close. Its eyes are black slits. Its mouth hangs open, revealing jagged teeth and a pale, pink tongue. Brown patches of dried blood circle its scruff. I can’t stop staring at its front teeth, so still and violent. Could I touch? I want to caress the tip of the sharp, jutting tooth. It seems necessary. I reach forward, brush my index finger against the tooth, and jerk away. It’s dry, sharp and cold. For some reason I felt it would be hot. I look around me; the alleyway is deserted. The fur fans stiffly in the breeze. I stuff my hands back into my hoodie and quickly walk away.

I don't know what compelled me to throw a cat into the narrative. I haven't really been planning much as I write; I just kind of try to enter the world I'm creating and allow whatever to happen. I found myself wanting to encounter a dead cat. I'm glad it happened. The narrator is obsessed with connections and the cat becomes something to which other images and impressions can be linked. Particularly significant is his original perception of the cat as a "wadded, dirty sweater," as he obsesses about the soft, white sweater worn by Joni. Thus, the sweater becomes a symbol for both fear and desire and the paradoxical emotions become more and more entwined. Here he first encounters Joni:

"Hello stranger," her voice is like a purr. I think of the dead cat; its eyes jerk open. Glowing green, like the Heineken bottle, like Roky’s eyes shining with a strange, internal light. Shake the image away. Her lips are reddened and sticky from the bottle of Tropicana fruit punch.

"Hey. How many bunnies did you have to kill to make that sweater?" She laughs and I can see her tongue: red and sticky and sweet.

"Actually it’s polar bear. And it only took one. It’s really soft… see?" She holds her arm out for me to stroke. It is soft! I can feel the warmth of her arm beneath the sleeve. Why so warm?

Joni and the cat are instantly inseparable. As the object of the narrator's sexual desire, Joni is prey, but, because of her relationship to the cat, she is simultaneously a predator, with fruit punch blood around her mouth and an image of her murdering bunnies. The dead cat is also both predator and prey-- predator by nature and by violent appearance, prey by virtue of the fact of its bloody death. Also, like the cat, Joni confuses the narrator by defying expectations: he is surprised by the coolness he feels touching the cat's tooth, and by the warmth he feels touching her arm.

That's it for today.

Back from paradise. The weekend was not devoid of literary pursuits. I found a great used bookstore downtown Charleston and treated myself to birthday novels/collections from Doestoevsky, Gogol, Kafka, John Kennedy Toole, Harold Brodkey, Jose Saramago, Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Lethem. Then I was able to meet one of my favorite artists, Bill Callahan (!), and discuss literature with him. According to Bill, he was into Doestoevsky at my age, enjoys Knut Hamsun, is unimpressed with David Foster Wallace and thinks Milan Kundera is "sleazy." Currently, he is reading Christopher Hitchens's God is not Great. Amen.

Anyway, I still don't have much to post. I'm revising today and tomorrow, still hoping to have 15-20 pgs for Wednesday. Today I'm revising the first scene involving the narrator's romantic interest "Joni." I'm focusing on recording a dizzying accumulation of images that comes from the heightened state of awareness the narrator has speaking to someone whom he has the screaming desire to fuck. I'll probably provide an excerpt tomorrow.

More revision. It's coming along. I inserted a dead cat into the story, partly as an homage to Witold Gombrowicz, partly because I want cats to be a motif throughout the novel. Like these characters, kitties epitomize hedonism. They live for food, comfort and cat nip. But mostly, they just want love. Awwwww!

I won't write or blog again until Sunday or Monday. We're leaving early tomorrow for Charleston and spending the weekend there in drunken celebration of my birthday.

I'm revising more today so there's not much to discuss. One thing that is coming to the surface as I continue to work on this story is the complex relationship between the narrator and his roommate Dylan. Maybe even a little homoeroticism there. Okay... definitely a little homoeroticism. Sometime this week or next I'm going to switch my focus to "The Catskills" and perhaps this other story "Am I Dreaming?" and I will blog about them at that time. But for now I'm just shoving ahead with the novel. I hope to have about 15-20 pretty good revised pages by next Wednesday when I next meet with Hobby.

I'm working on revision again today, concentrating on tight sentences, significant images and interesting dialogue. It occurs to me that I should think about making jumps forward in time throughout the day. It's difficult to cover every minute of the day and I don't want there to be lulls in the narrative.

I need to start thinking about my reading at Malaprops coming up in a few weeks. What material should I read? I don't feel like I'll be comfortable with reading any part of the novel so soon so I think I need to have a couple short stories prepared. This week I might turn my attention away from the novel to polishing "The Catskills" and working on another of my unfinished stories. I'll blog more about them when the time comes.

That's about all I have for today.

Post-September 11th Hilarity

The writing output has slowed these past few days. I've just been feeling dull and uninspired. I'm not really that concerned; I always have creative peaks and valleys, and I was extremely productive the two weeks before this lull. At these times I tend to focus on revising rather than producing more text, and so I'm beginning to rewrite a little of the beginning of the novel. What I'm thinking now is that I want to deemphasize the "realism" of the writing. With the rough draft, I'm writing a continuous monologue in the voice of the character. I mentioned in an earlier blog that this style distresses me a little because it doesn't allow for more "writerly" sensual description, etc. Well, I'm thinking as I revise that I can add those descriptive flourishes without sacrificing my stylistic vision. I'm just going to try to have my character "think" more in images and analogies than just language. And I'm going to give him space for detailed description of images, emotions, etc. That might not realistically approximate consciousness; we think more in abstract, fragmented flashes than fully realized and describable images, but as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am not concerned with approximating consciousness. I'm just trying to write this story in a new, intensely interior style. To demonstrate what I'm trying to do with the revision process, here is the first paragraph of the rough draft, followed by its first revision.

There’s no sugar or milk in the house so I have to drink my tea straight. The tannic taste makes me grimace but the warmth and the kick of caffeine make me melt with gratitude. What would I sooner give up? Tea or beer? I look around the kitchen: a battlefield of corpses from three different armies—Heineken, Sierra Nevada, Busch Light in the can. Who the fuck was drinking Busch in the can? Ah yes, Cabe. A quality cunt, but lousy taste in beer. I rolled with the Heinekens last night. I can almost taste it. My stomach churns. Feels like death down there. A beer would probably kill me. Still, they say, don’t they, that the best cure for a hangover is a beer itself. Lift the grime right out. Ah, fuck that, I couldn’t even. Still, beer gets the nod over tea in the end. Couldn’t live without it. And there’s always coffee for the caffeine kick. I’ll have to teach Cabe how to drink like a connoisseur. There’s no excuse for Busch Light. And in the can! At least get the bottle man! Pour it in a fucking glass if not that! Ah, this tea is just the thing, just the thing. But we’ll have to spring for some sugar and milk to make it the true thing. Some half and half at the least. Don’t know if we could drink up the milk anyway before it expires. I won’t have it with anything except my tea. And Dylan? Don’t know that I’ve ever even seen a drop of milk touch his lips. But what was I thinking? Ah—Cabe. A good cunt. Would be better if he drank like he knew what fucking time it was. Perhaps I could spring for an education. Three beers. If he doesn’t like any of them, fuck the cunt, he can go back to Busch.

There’s no sugar or milk for my tea. I grimace at its bitterness; I have the impression that dry black powder is collecting in the back of my throat. But the warmth splashing down, and the ache of caffeine awakening my senses make me melt with gratitude. God it’s gloomy in here; a battlefield of beer corpses is scattered around the kitchen. Three fallen armies: Heineken, Sierra Nevada, Busch Light in the can. Who the fuck drinks Busch? Light? In the can? Oh: Roky. A quality cunt, but lousy taste in beer. I can see his opaque green eyes. Like the thick glass of the Heineken bottle in the window sill illuminated by the morning sunlight. With those eyes, he should drink a green bottle beer. Half-crushed cans all over the countertop; Ragu-crusted plates packed into the sink; beer stains on the gray carpet; this sticky film on the lacquered table top. God I feel dull, dull, dull. Dull as the black powder in the back of my throat. Dull as the putrid nausea churning in my gut. Clumps of moist black powder. Like the ash tray on the porch railing filled with rainwater. Dull as this numb headache. Like a bent wire frozen in the center of my brain. This tea is thawing the freeze. We need to spring for some sugar and milk to give this tea the dignity it deserves. Half and half at the least. Does Dylan drink milk? I imagine a swath of cream above his always-chapped lips; it doesn’t fit. Half and half, then; I wouldn’t use milk for anything but the tea anyway.

I think the writing of the revision is far superior, if only for the images: black powder in his throat, Roky's eyes, the green bottle shining in the sunlight, the sauce-crusted plates, beer stains, sticky film on the table, rain-filled ashtray, bent wire, the cream over Dylan's chapped lips. The first paragraph has none of this vivid imagery to engage the reader. I already spoke about how I'm trying to focus on the character's distorted inner logic; here I have another example: Roky should drink green-bottle beers because he has green eyes. Another thing I'm trying to do is have images occur repeatedly throughout the text. I think this happens in our brains: certain images, arbitrary or significant, flash into our mind's eye over and over again until those images take on new significance apart from their original context. For instance, our hero could keep thinking of the black powder he imagines in the bitter tea. It could become one of many personal symbols and its meaning could evolve. Or he could become obsessed with Dylan's chapped lips, etc. The revision process will allow me to discover a lot of these types of possibilities.

Another major change I'm thinking about concerns the dialogue. When discussing an excerpt with Hobby, he mentioned that the dialogue is boring compared to the inner thoughts that the reader receives simultaneously. That's because I've been going for realism with the dialogue. And I think it's pretty realistic, but why am I going for realism? Realistic dialogue is boring; there's nothing stopping me from making it more stylized and absurd. I had an idea when hanging out with a group of people smoking weed. The conversation jumped from ominous topic to ominous topic. One person talked about how one in ten people on earth are part of the Chinese army (!) and how the US army literally does not have enough bullets to shoot them all. Then someone else talked about our government's "Star Wars" missile-defense program, all the secrecy, corruption and waste that's gone into it, and how it can't tell the difference between a missile and a weather balloon. I thought about how all my, my fiancee's and my friends' stoned conversations revolve around all the terrible, terrifying and cruel shit that's going on in the world. As awful as it all is, it's all hilarious because we've all developed black senses of humor in order to cope. I'd like to put these apocalyptic conversations all through the novel to establish a strong sense of paranoia. And more than that, but a reveling in the absurd horror of this post-September 11th (haha, couldn't help myself) world. Perhaps even an irreverant discussion about sept. 11th will go down. For instance, what were you doing when you found out? I remember being with my friends making jokes like "I hope they don't preempt the Simpsons because of this." And then I visited my mother in a psychiatric hospital that night and we sat in the TV room with a group of drool-encrusted psychos and watched footage of the planes smashing into the towers over and over and over again while my mother sobbed. That's just the sort of humor I need in this novel!

One final tentative decision I've made about the novel concerns names. I always like my characters' names to have some sort of significance, so I don't want to have this novel peppered with regular Jessicas and Timothys. I think I'm going to name my characters after musicians who are important to these characters' lives. Music is going to be all over the novel, as it, along with drugs and sex, is one of the greatest means of significance in our existences, and so I thought using it in my naming would be appropriate. Each character's namesake will have some sort of relation to the character. I already have a "Dylan" and a "Roky" (after Roky Ericsson from the 13th Floor Elevators) and I'm going to name a drug dealer "Beefheart."

A couple plops into the water

I'm just going to submit a quickie blog today because I don't have a lot of free time and I want to get to writing. Here is an excerpt from yesterday's writing:

I walk to the bathroom. It’s a single toilet deal. I lock the door behind me. The fluorescent lighting is harsh so I flip it off. I sit on the toilet seat. It’s cool. With the light off I’m in near-darkness. Just a bit of light peeking under the door. I like it. I try not to think who else might have sat on the toilet seat. It’s cooler in the bathroom than in the rest of the place. The dimness is nice on my eyes. I lean my elbows against my bare thighs. Finally, I start to relax a little. For some reason, I think of the chipmunk scurrying through the sunny pile of pine needles. I roll my head around my shoulders a little. My stomach is still a little tight. This might take a while. I follow the chipmunk through the pine needles in my head. I imagine squatting and taking a shit on a pile of pine needles. Might develop an itch that way. Lourde pops back into my head. Her bulbous face. Her eyes popping out. Nasty yellow teeth as she yells. Quivering throat fat. I imagine gripping that throat, squeezing so her eyes pop even further. I imagine pinning her to the ground by the throat, right there, on the sunny spot of the sidewalk. I can feel the rough warm sidewalk against my knees as I press her down hard. Still gripping her throat, I squat over her face. Jeans around my knees. She’s gurgling. Ah, here it comes. A couple plops into the water.

I'm just posting this because I think it's funny. It was fun to write. It's fun to re-read right now. I think it gives an idea of the absurd humor I'm going for with this novel. I think it can in parts be really sensitive and poignant and in parts it can be about taking a shit, and about imagining a former teacher's face under your anus as you take a shit. I'm not restricted by any sense of the taboo. There's nothing I won't write. And I think that's a real strength when trying to portray a somewhat believeable teenage boy's consciousness (or anybody's consciousness.) We think about nasty, depraved shit all the time. Sometimes we think of nasty, depraved shit while we're taking a shit. This novel is going to be full of disturbing and hilarious sex and violence fantasies, and it's going to be all the more realistic for it.

Now to write.

Inner Logic

I've been sick all this past week with Bronchitis. Sucks. Haven't been able to write. It's always difficult to pick back up when I've fallen out of my rhythm, but there's nothing else to do. I'm happy with the work I've put in so far. I've drafted about 14 pages and only covered a little over two hours of time in the story. I like how that's going. The reader is with the character all day long. The day itself is filled with tension and release and is slowly building to its ultimate climax (no pun intended), the aforementioned psychedelic blow job. I can't really guess how many pages it will take to finish this day off. It will be at least thirty or forty. Maybe even fifty. At this rate, I can probably fit three or four days time in the novel. The question is, should those days be successive, or should I jump ahead? I'm not going to try to answer that question yet. I'm just letting the story take me where it will.

I'm writing in a continuous vomit-like stream which is something that I've never done before. Typically, my process is to spend an hour sculpting a paragraph, laboring over every sentence to get the language just write. But this style does not allow me to craft writerly language-- the language is all in the character's head with no authorial intrusion. This is scary because I feel that one of my greatest strengths as a writer my use of descriptive language, but it is exciting because I feel that the writing in this novel is different from anything else, not only anything else that I've written, but anything else that I've read. And I'm encouraged that it's coming so fast. I already have 14 pages and I can see myself after another week of strong work having 40 or 50. And when I go back to revise, I can still sculpt the language. It will be different from any revision process that I've experienced before, but I think I can achieve a lot through revision. I'm already excited about it. I think I'm going to continue to vomit it out until I've finished the first section, this first day, culminating in the psilocybin trip. Then I'll go back and revise and try to figure out where else I'm going with the novel.

One thing that's been interesting as I've been writing is having my character speak to different people toward whom he has different attitudes. His speech as well as his thoughts as he is speaking changes drastically depending on who he is speaking to. So far he has conversed with his roommate, a peer who he disdains, a girl who he has a crush on, a peer who he admires and a teacher. Perhaps some excerpts. Here is our hero with BJ, a "rich cunt" who wants a bag of weed.

I take my tray outside and sit under a tree. The applesauce is watery and the chicken patty isn’t that warm but my body hums with gratitude for the nourishment. I look around at the little social pods scattered across the grounds. There’s Kirsten in a half-circle with her goody-good friends Rebecca and Sarah. They’re all wearing sweaters. Rebecca in an olive wrap-thing, Sarah in a red and white striped tight thing short enough for a band of tummy flesh to peek out when she leans back on her hands. Kirsten in that white fuzzy one with the big buttons. I’ve always wanted to touch that sweater. It looks soft. Shit I love a girl in a sweater! If they only knew! I imagine Sarah using both hands to pull open Rebecca’s sweater. What color bra should she have? No bra. The air is damp and a little chilly. Her nipples will be swollen. Sarah will want to warm them with her mouth. She’s bending toward them. What’s this? BJ Shula is standing in front of me. I bet I know what he wants.

"What’s up man," he says.

"Chilling. You?" I don’t like sitting down with BJ standing over me so I stand and lean against the tree trunk.

"Where you been? Haven’t seen you around school lately." He’s smiling way too big. The boy’s heart must be flying. I bet his mother cuts his hair. The way he’s smiling at me and shifting his weight from foot to foot makes me nervous. But I kind of like it. Nobody feels comfortable talking to each other, do they? We would be better off if nobody ever invented language. BJ has a crop of pimples circling his temple. It’s sickening. I look away. Sarah and Rebecca together. Where’s Kirsten? Oh, there she is walking toward the trash can. Putting a stick of gum in her mouth. The way she walks—man—does she even know? What is he saying to me?

"Oh, yeah, well. I’ve been around. You know," I say.

"Right, right," BJ says, nodding too big, as if I have just said something incredibly fucking profound. Get to the point man! Those pimples! I don’t think I can take it!

"Just been smoking and shit, you know. Drinking tea," I say to encourage him along. That sweater. If only she would let me rub my face over that sweater. I feel as if I can smell her from across the grounds. What’s that? Did she just look at me? Was that a little smile? A private little smile? Yes, I think it was. I very much think it was. It was a private smile. She’s keeping that smile to herself. She’s not going to share that smile with Rebecca and Sarah. Man—that kills me! That smile! Shit. Don’t freak about it. So what. Whatever. What’s going on here? BJ. Right.

"Hell yeah man. That’s what I’m talking about." This kid cracks me up. "Hey, about that—I was wondering…" He’s ducked his head and is whispering. It kills me.

"What’s on your mind, friend," I say with a big smile. I’m going to make him say it. This awkward fuck.

"Yeah, I was wondering if, you know, I could ask a favor…" Shit. I can’t take it anymore. Those pimples!

"Of course, man. What do you need—an eighth?" I say it louder than I need to so he’ll blush. He does. This cunt positively fucking kills me. I snap a twig off the tree and concentrate on peeling its bark so I don’t have to stare into his constellation of zits.

"Actually I was thinking… more like a quarter." He says it as if I should be impressed. Little shit. Does he even know? He doesn’t know a fucking thing.

"Sure, whatever. I guess that will be a ben."

"A what?" This cunt.

"A hundred."

"Cool, cool." He looks over his shoulder to check if anybody’s paying attention. Shit! Relax man! He’s making me nervous. I kind of like it. He has so much money in his wallet. This rich little cunt. His mother probably gives him a hundred for making his bed. He hands me five twenties. His fingers are shaking a little. I like that. I fold the money and stuff it in my back pocket.

"Cool, so should I…"

"I’ve got your number," I say. He nods, looks around, shrugs his shoulders, nods again and finally walks away. He walks like a rich little cunt. I realize I don’t have his number. Whatever, he’ll get his herb. I sit back down to my lunch. This applesauce is the thing. It looks like shit, but man. I need to eat more fruit. Fruit is the fucking thing. What I need is a fresh orange. Like one from the commercial, bursting with flavor. Like from the commercial—I could just jab a little straw in and suck it down. Man, orange juice—that’s what I need. I seriously got the dregs. One of those oranges that peels so easily. Then you can rip it into little wedges. My fingers actually feel sticky with the imaginary juice. I rub them over my jeans. The food is gone except for the second sandwich. Two vegetables—what the fuck! Should I eat the sandwich? I wonder if Dylan has found anything to eat. Maybe I should save the sandwich for him. That’s what a quality mate would do. Well I’m nothing if not a quality mate. I slide the sandwich into the pocket of my hoodie, pick up my tray and walk toward the trash can. The bell will ring any minute. I’ve got to make a decision. Should I show in English class? I could maybe handle that. The money in my pocket gives me confidence. Maybe I can get the spot behind Kirsten. Find a way to put my hand on that sweater. Oh, speak of the devil. Here she is now.

And now, with Kirsten:

"Hi!" she says. I wonder if Kirsten is a virgin. That "Hi!" is the "Hi!" of a virgin. Right? I hope so. Is it stupid to hope so? I don’t know, but I hope so.

"What’s up. How many bunnies did you have to kill to make that sweater?" She laughs. That laugh!

"Actually it’s just regular wool. But it’s really soft, see?" Damn! She’s holding out her arm. I stroke her upper arm. It is soft! I can feel the warmth of her arm beneath the sleeve! It’s so warm! Why is it so warm!

"Not bad, not bad." My voice sounds stupid. Touching the sweater has weakened me. I’m over-conscious of the sun shining on my head. I had shade under the tree. This is a whole new environment. What should I say? What should I say? The bell rings. Shit, she’s going to be leaving.

"Are you coming to English?" I don’t know, am I? She picks her backpack off the ground at her feet and slings one strap around a shoulder. Her hair gets caught a little and she pulls it out. I can’t stand it! Should I go? I don’t need to now, do I? I’ve touched the sweater. I can’t be around people now. I need to go to the mineral museum. I need to take my private touch into the mineral museum. She can take her private smile into the classroom. And we won’t tell anybody at all.

"I don’t know. What are you doing in there?"

"We’ve been reading F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. Have you read it?" Her voice is hurried. She’s nervous. She might be late to class. She wants to go. But she’s staying. For me! She wants me to come to class. She wants me to come and sit behind her and stroke her sweater all class. Well, I can’t let her have me so easy.

"Nah. Any good?" She’s going to bolt any second. She looks at the door. The last group of lunch-eaters are shuffling through.

"I like it." She touches my hand, a flash. It’s hot. "You should come!" Her voice is hot. Her fingers are hot. Her cheeks are flushed. Her blood is on fire. Why? Is it because I touched her sweater? Well, I can’t come. Especially now, after that touch. It’s too much. I can’t just fold. She is one second from bolting. Her body is leaning toward the door but her feet are planted. For me!

"Cool. I’ll have to check it out sometime. But I think I’m going to jet. It’s too nice a day to spend in class. Plus, I haven’t read it so I can’t, you know, participate in the discussion…but hey. I’m having a few mates over to the place tonight, why don’t you…" I can’t believe I’m saying this. Yes! I’m the fucking shit!

"Yeah, okay, give me a call later or something," she says and she pulls a pen out of her pocket and grabs my hand. What is she doing? Her fingers are on fire! Shit! She’s writing her number on the back of my hand! The ink is cold! Her fingers are scalding! I can hear her breath. The hair around her ears! I can smell her! Her smell! Shit—she’s going to be late. I can’t believe she’s taking this time. She’s going to be late and she doesn’t care. She’s probably never been late before but she’s going to be late this time. For me! I’m the fucking shit! What is she doing? She’s staring into my eyes, squinting at them. So cute!

"Are you high?" she whispers, crinkles her nose and smiles. That smile! That same private smile! She’s sharing it with me! And that nose crinkle! What is she doing to me? This is too much. Okay, what? Oh, am I high? Ha! Am I? A little, I guess.

"I mean, I smoked some before I came," I say, but she is gone, running up the steps and through the door. Her hands as she runs! That crinkle! The hair around her ears! The smell! The sweater!

I think those excerpts demonstrate pretty well what I'm trying to do with the fluidity of consciousness. In a minute's time, our hero becomes a completely different person. With BJ, he is distracted. The relationship serves to boost his ego. He feels cool because this poor kid is asking his help in obtaining weed. He builds his ego up further by talking down to him and embarassing him. Then he's with Kirsten and he's like a child. Suddenly he's very uncertain about his coolness. And instead of being distracted, he's hyperaware. Not only does he hang on her every word, but he applies to their exchange illogical significance. The "secret smile" is immensely meaningful. The fact that he touches her sweater means that he does not need to go to class. That does not make any objective sense, but is profoundly sensible to his subjective inner logic. As the story and drug-use proceed I expect that inner logic to become more and more bizarre.

Psychedelic Blow Job

Have been busy all week with comps but all that's over tomorrow and I'm pumped about plunging hard into my writing. I was able to free write a little the other day. I found myself writing with an extremely close interiority, basically an endless rambling interior monologue with small interjections to describe physical action. For instance, here is the first paragraph I vomited out:

"There’s no sugar or milk in the house so I have to drink my tea straight. The tannic taste makes me grimace but the warmth and the kick of caffeine make me melt with gratitude. What would I sooner give up? Tea or beer? I look around the kitchen: a battlefield of corpses from three different armies—Heineken, Sierra Nevada, Busch Light in the can. Who the fuck was drinking Busch in the can? Ah yes, Cabe. A quality cunt, but lousy taste in beer. I rolled with the Heinekens last night. I can almost taste it. My stomach churns. Feels like death down there. A beer would probably kill me. Still, they say, don’t they, that the best cure for a hangover is a beer itself. Lift the grime right out. Ah, fuck that, I couldn’t even. Still, beer gets the nod over tea in the end. Couldn’t live without it. And there’s always coffee for the caffeine kick. I’ll have to teach Cabe how to drink like a connoisseur. There’s no excuse for Busch Light. And in the can! At least get the bottle man! Pour it in a fucking glass if not that! Ah, this tea is just the thing, just the thing. But we’ll have to spring for some sugar and milk to make it the true thing. Some half and half at the least. Don’t know if we could drink up the milk anyway before it expires. I won’t have it with anything except my tea. And Dylan? Don’t know that I’ve ever even seen a drop of milk touch his lips. But what was I thinking? Ah—Cabe. A good cunt. Would be better if he drank like he knew what fucking time it was. Perhaps I could spring for an education. Three beers. If he doesn’t like any of them, fuck the cunt, he can go back to Busch."

There is some inconsistency in style. I begin "There's no sugar or milk in the house so I have to drink my tea straight..." That's using a pretty traditional narrative style in the present tense, describing what is actually happening as if addressing the reader. But starting with "What would I sooner give up..." and continuing until the end of the paragraph, the reader is directly inside the character's head following his fragmented, associational thought process. I think I'm okay with this inconsistency. I want to be inside the character's head at all times, but I don't want the style to be overly disorienting, so I think it is necessary for certain exposition to be simply stated. "There's no sugar or milk..." is not being said inside the character's head as "What would I sooner give up..." is, but it is a condensing of his thoughts and it serves to orient the reader. I don't want the reader to be lost in an indecipherable stream of consciousness; I want to tell a story while exploring an individual's consciousness. I'm not too worried about authenticity; authenticity is impossible anyway. I just want to be sure the writing doesn't sound too wacky combining elements of traditional narrative with elements of stream of consciousness. So that's something I'm paying attention to as I write.

I'm also trying to find the voice of my character's interior monologue. I think we tend to think in a similar voice as the one with which we speak, but obviously one that is less self-conscious. Or actually, just as self-conscious if not more, but conscious of self-judgment rather than external judgment. Anyway, I'm trying to find a comfortable voice that feels believable. Then it will be fun to have both the interior voice and the exterior voice running as the character has contact with other people. The contrast will set up opportunities for plenty of irony.

As far as story goes I'm just trying to let it unfold organically without forcing myself to adhere to any preconceived outline. I still have no idea how much time will pass in the story, or where it will end up. I just have a few significant events in my mind. Right now I'm winding toward the first significant action--a possible sexual encounter with a young lady. I'm actually considering a blow job scene (I am always drawn to the blow job scene.) In fact, a psylocibin-fueled blow job that goes horribly wrong. Haha. Something that I'm going for strongly in this novel (and in all my work) is in the inevitable collision of the banal and the absurd. The character's day begins with the banal--drinking tea and thinking about a friend's poor taste in beer-- and will end with the absurd-- a psychedelic hummer. But of course the banal will inevitably have elements of the absurd and the absurd will inevitably have elements of the banal. That excites me.

The Aesthetic Roof

In an interview, Milan Kundera was asked about a few writers with whom he is often associated, namely Hermann Broch, Robert Musil, Witold Gombrowicz and Franz Kafka. Was he influenced by those writers? No, Kundera answered, but he felt that he and they existed under the same "aesthetic roof." I find that to be a significant distinction. With my own writing, I feel a strong connection with certain writers such as Kundera and Kafka, though I would not necessarily say that they influenced me—stylistically, my writing is nothing like theirs. Yet I like to think that we are roommates in an aesthetic apartment. We share an aesthetic that is grounded in the way we perceive the world. Specifically, we perceive utter absurdity in every aspect of human existence and we recognize and celebrate the rich humor, irony, beauty and despair that result from our awareness of the essential meaninglessness of existence. My worldview comes from the entirety of my human existence rather than from the influence of a particular book or books. For this reason I think it is more worthwhile to talk about shared aesthetic ideals than to talk about influences, which are a lot more difficult to pin down, when discussing where I’m coming from as a writer, what I’m trying to achieve as a writer.

That being said, I take some issue with the approach of the creative writing department at UNCA. The department fails to adequately encourage its budding writers to discover their own unique "aesthetic roof" and artistic purpose. The emphasis is on form. Chekhov. The inverted checklist. The epiphany, etc., etc., etc. To an extent, I understand. It’s necessary to master technique. The brilliant surrealist painter must first be able to paint a realistic bowl of bananas, blah, blah, etc. But the implication is that to be a good writer you must write in this specific color-by-numbers way. It results in disillusioned, creatively-stifled writers who have mastered the craft of composing formulaic, mediocre pieces of writing. So many times in workshops I’ve wanted to scream, "Yes, this story is well-structured. The setting is clear. There is a beginning, middle and end. There is a moment of crisis. The character has demonstrated change. BUT THE LAST THING THE WORLD FUCKING NEEDS IS ANOTHER SHALLOW UNIMAGINITIVE STORY ABOUT A CHARACTER WHO LEARNS SOMETHING TRITE ABOUT HIMSELF AFTER HIS FUCKING GRANDMOTHER DIES." I think a better approach to teaching creative writing would be to challenge the student’s artistic vision. What do you have to offer the literary world? What can you do that is different in some significant way? Why should people be excited to read your work? If the writer truly has talent he will develop the necessary technique through practice, maturity, gentle guidance, the revision process and extensive relevant reading. But the technique is worthless if the writer does not have an artistic purpose.

And so I will return to my own aesthetic vision. I was speaking with Blake this morning about how the writers with whom I feel a close aesthetic kinship—Kundera, Gombrowicz, Bernhard, Hamsun and Beckett pop to mind—are all European. And, with the exception of Kundera, they are all dead. I would like to take existence at this contemporary moment, with all the unique characteristics of living in American society at this point in history—material hyper-saturation, the omnipresence of technology, the paranoia of looming nuclear war, terrorist violence and environmental catastrophe, etc., etc.—and express it through the lens of my absurdist aesthetic. It is my role as a writer to reflect the unique perspective of my specific generation and my quest as a writer to reflect the unique perspective of my own specific aesthetic.

Enough abstraction. I will discuss my immediate literary plans. I have an idea for a novel that is in part inspired by Knut Hamsun’s autobiographical novel Hunger. Hunger is written with a close interiority. The reader is basically inside the narrator’s head for a period of time, follows him throughout the day as he roams the streets of urban Norway trying make enough money to eat from day to day. We are witnesses not only to his minute actions but also to his consciousness. From page 3:

"It was nine o’clock. The roll of vehicles and hum of voices filled the air, a might morning-choir, mingled with the footsteps of the pedestrians and the crack of the hack-drivers’ whips. The clamorous traffic everywhere exhilarated me at once, and I began to feel more and more contented. Nothing could be farther from my intention than to merely take a morning walk in the open air. What had the air to do with my lungs? I was strong as a giant; could stop a dray with my shoulders. A sweet, unwonted mood, a feeling of lightsome happy-go-luckiness took possession of me. I fell to observing the people I met and who passed me, to reading the placards on the wall, noted even the impression of a glance thrown at me from a passing tram-car, let each bagatelle, each trifling incident that crossed or vanished from my path impress me.If only one had just a little to eat on such a lightsome day! The sense of the glad morning overwhelmed me; my satisfaction became ill-regulated, and for no definite reason I began to hum joyfully."

The way that Hamsun obsessively records small details and every thought and impression that flies in and out of the narrator’s mind allows for intimate characterization and description and a great deal of absurd humor. Certainly, consciousness does not operate in a logical manner. Our minds are constantly intruded by irrational or incongruous thoughts, impressions, memories, associations, emotions, desires, impulses, etc. Hamsun celebrates the bizarreness of our internal life and allows it to dictate the narrative. Thus he gives the reader an engaging, often hilarious perspective that is utterly absurd, but at the same time more realistic than the realist of American realism. So called mimetic fiction does not accurately represent the absurd reality of our consciousness, now does it?

Furthermore, Hamsun’s character’s identity is significant. He is something of an outcast, extremely intelligent and most likely capable of being quite successful, but he does not share the common ideals of his society. His disillusionment with society makes him someone with whom I closely identify.

For my prospective novel I intend to follow Hamsun’s basic model with respect to style, aesthetic and character-type, but I will move the setting from 1880’s Norway to contemporary southern America. My character will be loosely based on a combination of myself and my younger brother. I think people like us represent a specific attitude today. A major aspect of our identity is that we are resigned to the inherent meaninglessness of existence. I was reading recently a comparison of postmodernist literature to modernist literature that cited this particular distinction: modernist writers often used art to try to discover meaning in the chaos of existence while postmodernist writers realize that there is no meaning to be found anywhere and use art to express the futility of the search. For perhaps a less abstract example, I think of the Beats, who were technically postmodern, I guess, but who were not resigned. They rejected conventional modes of meaning and sought their own through drugs, travel, alternative religions, art, etc, etc. Unlike the beats, we have given up on any quest for higher meaning. And yet we exist—and so we are constantly searching for transient affirmations that existing is better than not existing. Allen Ginsberg used peyote because he thought it allowed him to reach a more enlightened plane; I drink psilocybin tea because it makes me feel happy for a little while. My character might not be so philosophically aware, but that is the perspective he will embody.

My character’s life situation will resemble more my brother Alex’s than my own. Alex is similar to Hamsun’s character—he is highly intelligent but he is incapable of operating within the expectations of society. A high school drop out, he works odd restaurant jobs to make money, spends long periods of time unemployed, tries to make extra money gambling and dealing drugs and he uses drugs constantly, particularly marijuana. Being high is the greatest affirmation he has found for living. He has no illusions about any sort of afterlife or any noble purpose in this life. I feel similarly, as do many other people, and I feel our perspective is one that needs to be expressed.Like Hamsun, I will closely follow my character’s interior life and the minutia of his daily life. Hopefully comic absurdity will abound as I record the state of his mind as he lives his regular life, from trying to score drugs to trying to score with a girl to trying to figure out what the fuck he is doing in this world, and as his consciousness is altered by intoxication and sobriety, depression and contentedness, illness and well-being. What really interests me is that our consciousness is truly altered throughout the day, not only by drugs, but by subtleties—a headache, some painful or joyful memory, nuances of our relationships with other people or for no discernible reason at all. Hamsun’s character, for instance tends to have more irrational thoughts, think more rapidly and have violent mood swings the longer he goes without having a meal. I hope to be able to track the fluidity of my character’s consciousness throughout his day.


At this point, I am lacking in any particulars for the novel. Questions that I need to figure out include what literal action might I include in the novel, what characters other than the narrator might play significant roles in the novel and how much time the novel will cover. For now, I’m just going to do some free-writing and try to brainstorm a couple possible plot-lines. I need to talk with Alex, as well, in particular about his arrest and time spent in jail (I think this might be a nice climactic event to write about). What was going through his head when the house was being searched and the cops found his drugs under the mattress? (He was extremely high on opium at the time which presents an opportunity for great absurd humor.) What thoughts were haunting him as he sat all day in his jail cell? For that matter, what are some things he talked about with his cell-mate? We’ll have to get high and talk about it soon.