blues traveler

Can I register for this?

So the moving blues have finally hit. Sad face. I knew it would come, because it always, inevitably, does. Moving is hard. It's really exciting and it feels good to leave your "old life" for something new and exciting, but after awhile, the reality sinks in. You don't know the territory. You don't know anyone. You don't have a network. You don't even have a favorite bookstore.

Sigh.

Today has been a lovely rainy day, a great relief from the blast of heat we've had all week. It's good sitting-inside-and-writing weather, which is what I've attempted most of today. It's also fitting for my mood.

But boy, boy-oh-boy, have I been blue today.

It will pass, with time. It will, I know that. But, man, today is one of those days you have to muscle through.

ffffound

Meanwhile, I love this:

      

(fictional) New York City urban etiquette posters. 

Brilliant.

Arrived in the Mile High and before the internet could get hooked up, my computer suffered some sort of stroke. Crimeny. Right as I'm sitting here with no Web, no car, no job, nothing but loads of time to devote to novel-writing. I suppose I should have impulse-purchased that old typewriter I saw in Chicago. That'll teach me to be frugal.


So the computer is in the shop and it's going to cost me about $300 to fix, and hopefully nothing I've saved there will get erased, like my research, and photos, and wedding info, and the images I've saved for this blog, and my entire iTunes library. I tried to perform an emergency back up of my stuff, but the computer froze mid-burn and went black. Clearly, my computer is an anarchist.

This, apparently, is the typewriter Hemingway owned, and actual descendants of some of his cats. I love how the descendants of Hemingway's cats have been traced, but my family still isn't entirely sure if great grandpa came from Russia or Germany.

Write Now

ffffound

Write now. Stop getting distracted by other blogs, by the Internet at large, by another bottle of San Pellegrino Limonata. Write, now, you should be writing, you should be working hard at your novel, because you want to finish and publish and see your name on a book jacket through the window of a bookstore. Stop talking yourself out of it, stop being scared that you'll fail before you begin, stop stopping yourself. Write now. Begin. Write now you are sitting here without the boy without the dog without plans with nothing but a night ahead, write now you are success waiting to happen, you are stories bursting through your seams, you are words, words, words and you know this, sometimes, better than you know your own name. Fingers on the keys. Write now.

It's lonely. It's hard. But what can you do? It's your very self, so you must write. Just one more sentence of procrastination longer and...

No more excuses. You are brilliant and clever and it's just the shitty first draft which no one will read anyhow, so you've nothing to lose. You know you will anyhow, so you might as well get to it.

Write, now.

Classic T's

Wonder if I can get one of these for my birthday.

(which is November)

via out of print

So, in my perfect world, I (a published & New York Times best-selling novelist) own a little bookstore/cafe/wine shop that prints chapbooks & works with guys like Out of Print. You should read their rad mission (no way, I just said "rad.")

The Final Countdown

The boy leaves with our puppy this weekend to make the first trek to Colorado.
Sad face.

Actually, I'm taking it fairly well, even though in 24 hours they'll be gone, not to be seen for a month. So, I'm guessing this is the denial talking.

He: "What're you gonna do without us here, getting in your way while you're trying to write?"

Me: "Probably finish my novel."

He: "You'll miss us."

Me: "Sh, writing."