i'm wondering if we have a ghost. what started off as me simply losing my mind has now becoming lisa losing her mind too. this house was built in 1910, so it has its old, creaky noises, but i've been hearing distinct words coming from, well, thin air, and so has lisa. it has become routine for one of us to think we've heard the other calling, or for one of us to enter a room mid-conversation with the other wondering what the hell they're talking about. the other night i was making tea, and when the kettle sang i swear i heard lisa say, "can't you hear that?" as if to say, turn the damn fire off, idiot. but no, lisa was far away in the back bedroom - i wouldn't have heard her if she had spoken. we've both heard voices saying things like "have you checked the baby?" and "is isaiah ok?" and we've written it off thinking it was our new-parent brains freaking out. but it's happened so often that i think something stranger must be happening.

 

the other explanation is, logically, the cats' telepathy. the old diva cat, karintha, has bonded with isaiah in a way that's almost maternal, though she's never had kitties of her own. when isaiah cries (a surprisingly siamese-like sound), she comes running, sniffs at his head and looks at us, like, "why the hell aren't you taking care of my poor baby?" the voices we've been hearing might be her superior psychic skills controlling us with cat-whammies.

 

or a ghost. or a grandmotherly hobgoblin. you, know, i've a scientific mind, so i'm open to all possibilities.

 

 

everyone in the world has probably already received this rant via email, but i'm posting it anyway, cuz it's just so damn good. my favorite brick-bat is the one aimed at the dems. thanks to mark and aeron for forwarding this:

 

This was Bill Maher's Valentine's Day show-ending rant:

"You can't claim you're the party of smaller government
and then make laws about love. On this Valentine's
day, let's stop and ask ourselves, "What business is
it of the state how consenting adults choose to pair
off, share expenses, and eventually stop having sex
with each other?"

And why does the Bush administration want a
constitutional amendment about weddings? Hey, why stop
at weddings? Birthdays are important; let's put them
in the great document. Let's make a law that gay
people can have birthdays, but straight people get
more cake. You know, to send the right message to
kids.Republicans are always saying we should privatize
things like schools, prisons, social security-hey,
how about we privatize privacy! Because if the
government forbids gay men from tying the knot, what
is their alternative? They can't all marry Liza
Minnelli.

You know, the Republicans used to be the party that
opposed social engineering, but now they push programs
to outlaw marriage for some people and encourage it
for others. If you're straight, there's $1.5 billion
in the budget to promote marriage, but gay marriage is
opposed because it threatens or mocks or does
something to the sanctity of marriage, as if anything
you can do in Vegas drunk off your ass in front of an
Elvis impersonator could be considered sacred.

Half the people who pledge eternal love are doing it
because one of them is either knocked up, rich or
desperate. But in George Bush's mind, marriage is only
a beautiful lifetime bond of love and sharing, kind of
like what his dad has with the Saudis.

But at least the right wing aren't hypocrites on this
issue. They really believe that homosexuality is an
abomination and a dysfunction that's curable. They
believe that if a gay man just devotes his life to
Jesus, he'll stop being gay, because that worked out
so well with the Catholic priests.

But I have to tell you that the greater shame in this
story goes to the Democrats because they don't believe
homosexuality is an abomination, and, therefore, their
refusal to endorse gay marriage is hypocrisy. Their
position doesn't come from the Bible; it's ripped
right from the latest poll which says that most
Americans are against gay marriage. Well, you know
what? Sometimes most Americans are just wrong, and
where is the Democrat who will stand up and go beyond
the half-measures of civil union and
hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner and say loud and clear,
There is no sin. It's not an abomination and no one
can control how cupid aims his arrows, and the ones
who pretend they can usually turn out to be the
biggest freaks."

The law in this country should reflect that some
people are just born one-hundred-percent outrageously,
fabulously, undeniably Fire-Island gay. And they do
not need re-programming-they need a man with a slow
hand."

 

 

bummer. carl anderson died. (no relation).

 

it's hard to put this in words, because i only knew him, really, from his role as judas in "jesus christ superstar." but that movie and the music was/are so important to me. before i was ten years old, i had the broadway album (with murray "one night in bangkok" head as pilate), the off-broadway album, the movie soundtrack when it finally came out, and i saw the flick, hell, i don't even know how many times. i can trace my love of 5/4 funk to that soundtrack, drilled into my 6 year old brain like i was a manchurian candidate, so that now, honest, i have the groove from "39 lashes" rolling incessantly in my bones forever. anyway, knowing that carl's voice is gone makes me very sad, makes me want to play "damned for all time" at top volume and dance hard till i freak the cats out. maybe i will.  i just always wished i could have met the man who made judas a deeply sympathetic character.

 

and screw you, mel gibson. just cuz.

 

 

i stayed home from work yesterday to take care of isaiah and lisa (who has a drippy head cold). after a day of playing with the kid, doing dishes and laundry, and changing diapers, i put my head down in the afternoon to take a fast nap, and in the short time that my brain's lights went out, i dreamt of an edit for the story i'm working on. i dreamt i was cutting and pasting text on my computer, turning the story's second scene into the first. it's a pretty good idea, too. this morning  i got up early to do the surgery, following my dream's blue print, and i think it's a better beginning now.

 

meanwhile, isaiah is feeling a lot better and, in his recovery, seems to have become rolly-polly. all of a sudden he's this ulttra physical bundle of energy, wrestling, clutching, pulling, lunging, almost crawling, grabbing and clambering up your clothes like you're a rock-climbing wall. suddenly his danger zone is about 4 feet because he can now spring at things like a rattler, particularly when he sees a passing cat (he got hissed at last night, which he did not like one bit).

 

i have a feeling we're going to have to buy guards for the electrical outlets within the week, he's so close to crawling.

 

by proposing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, bush is rallying his base. not only is he playing to the religious right, he's playing to economic conservatives who don't want government  to extend benefits to same-sex couples ("The state is not involved in their [gays'] right to have a relationship but on economic benefits" ). in so doing, he'll squash any discussion of civil rights.

 

because the real "benefit" of marriage is neither economic nor religious but one of human dignity. as this political fight engages, it's going to be important for proponents of civil rights to tell stories about gay couples who've been discriminated against and denied the basic benefits of a couple due to their lack of a legally recognized marriage. we need to tell stories that describe the dignity that can be compromised in sickness and in health and when death does us part. such as hospitals denying someone access to their dying partner. or a company denying leave to an employee in order for him/her to care for a terminally ill partner. dignity is denied when custody of a child cannot be established with a non-biological parent.

 

a broad interpretation of marriage extends these dignities to gay couples, their children, and their families. civil unions, meanwhile, would confine some of these dignities only to straight couples.

 

and that's exactly what a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriages would do, too.

 

 

ho hum. just another day in the roman empire. up next - sports!

 

 

 

very quickly over the last 48 hours, my kid's cough went from bad to worse to scary. but all our baby health books said, hell, if he doesn't have a fever, coughing is a good reflex - let em do it. but yesterday his cough started sounding wet, like he was strangling, and lisa and i would look at each other like, "can that big noise really come out of that little body??" but still, no fever, no other symptoms. so today lisa took him to see a doc and found isaiah has a touch of bronchitis. so we got a prescription - baby's first pharmaceutical! - and thank crom for it. we gave the kid his meds and he seems better already, much to our relief. isaiah was laughing his little boy laugh earlier while lisa pretended to devour his stomach, and i realized i hadn't heard him laugh that hard in days.

 

of course, now lisa has a stuffy nose, and my throat is twingey...

 

 

isaiah's really really sick with a scary, wet cough. life's busy so i'll catch up later. but must mention that the blood oranges right now are amazing. when cut open, they look like something out of an aztec ritual, yet they taste like hawaiian punch. what gives?

 

 

"We Want Big Dick!"

 

 

here's the democratic chameleonic dance so far:

 

1) john edwards became richard gephardt.

2) john kerry became howard dean.

3) howard dean became michael dukakis.

 

and ralph nader isn't green anymore.

 

agh. my head. it pains me.

 

~

 

the ratbastards have announced the table of contents for our upcoming, third chapbook of short fiction. it's going to be a hell of an anthology. the stories in this collection will. blow. you. away....

 

 

 

my story "Lot 12A: The Feast of the Dead Manuscript" is up at Fantastic Metropolis. and iko's phlegmy cough has turned into a bark!

 

cnn:

"Both parties expect a close race in November, as in 2000, when Nader is believed to have pulled votes from Democratic nominee Al Gore. Nader, who ran on the Green Party ticket, received nearly 100,000 votes in Florida, which Bush carried by a mere 537 votes. In New Hampshire, Bush beat Gore by 7,000 votes; Nader captured 22,000 votes there.

Had Gore won either state, he would be president."

yeah. and if al gore had run a competent campaign capable of winning his own freaking state, he'd be president.

don't blame, nader. it's off-target, lame, and so 4 years ago.

ok. on to fun letters from diane in GA:

"Hi Barth, just wanted to say thanks again for the wonderful time I had
last week with you, Lisa and little Iko. Iko is adorable...(although a
tad of a cry baby, don't you think?) (hope you know I'm kidding
there....)

Anyway, that piece of fruit we bought tasted like waxed lips and
smelled like a squashy pumpkin. I don't think I need to have another
one...

Take Care,

Diane

ps.

William Gibson is a hottie! Well, not quite a hottie, but he has his
charm. Actually he was quite charming. He was a mouse of a man, dressed
Eddie Bauer chic who I swear spoke with a mushy southern accent. The
place was not crazy crowded...we were able to snag a spot about 5 feet
from him. Felt almost like a groupie. He took q's and a's from the
audience...Don asked him something about some book and how it related
to the Crying of Lot 49...he just scowled at Don and said ptooooie..."I
spit on Pynchon!" he exclaimed. And then he stopped taking questions
and began signing copies of his books.

And that's how we spent Valentines.... "

good times.

the fruit was called cannistel, by the way.

 

 

"Marriage has been undermined by divorce, so don't tell me about marriage. You're not going to lecture me about marriage. People should look at their own life and look in their own mirror. Marriage has been undermined for a number of years if you look at the facts and figures on it. Don't blame the gay and lesbian, transgender and transsexual community. Please don't blame them for it," he said.

 

who's "he"? why, mayor daly, of course.

 

(thanks to susan for the link).

 

 

sure i'm a partisan for the organic farming movement. but i could easily be a proponent and fan of truly innovative biotech, too. this is so amazing it makes my heart race.

 

[i'm waiting at the wedge deli for my lasagna when, suddenly, i'm in the crosshairs of the ever-flirtatious scott.]

 

scott: [blithe and, well, gay] it's such a beautiful day, i thought i'd grab a wedge cookie, a cappucino and traipse down to loring park. (vaudevillian pause during which he slips an arm around my waist). so...what are ya doing for the next hour, cookie?

 

by march 9, bush will start training his guns on edwards, too.

 

 

something's up. a fact checker from the New Yorker wrote me to verify my claim that the Lusty Lady was the first co-op strip joint in america. (wasn't quite sure what to say. "no, for real, dude! they ARE!"). i doubt i'm getting personally quoted or anything. i'm just doing my part for journalistic integrity in america. *wets pants laughing*

 

let's see. what else? boutros boutros-ghali, the evil cat who makes me write, has been getting me up earlier and earlier this month because, i suppose, my great big brain is like a ball of yarn to her at that hour. it's a good, i guess, since i've been very productive as a result (even if it is solely due to being cat-whammied by the diabolical miss boutros). the cat just wants me to feed her, of course, and my funny lil human habits like "writing" or "taking care of the baby" are mere machiavellian means to her kitty ends. but my point is that, with earlier, darker hours comes stronger coffee and more of it. i'm up to a full pot of french press by the time i've finished writing, played the yeah-yeah-yeah! game with the early-rising isaiah (no need to go into detail - it's about as simple as its name), and fed the mayor of my brain, aka, pussy control. then i go to work, drink a latte because i get a discount, and sit in my office trying to write but really i'm snarling and chattering like a 28 Days After zombie. damn. i'm probably drinking 3-4 pounds of coffee beans a week, all thanks to that damn cat.

 

elsewhere, kudos to haddyr for blogging her love for the wave of sunny weather here in MN. (sucka! you're gonna be buried in snow by the weekend!). and either gwenda or chris better post some serious san miguel pics or stories soon because i'm suffering a major mexico jones this week.

 

and the coffee aint cutting it.

 

 

 

 

attending members or supporting members of the 2004 worldcon in boston, you should john campbell me. why? 5 reasons:

 

5. i will cut taxes, increase spending, deploy the military irresponsibly by invading, you know, whoever, and otherwise prove myself to be the most benevolent despot you ever saw.

 

4. i will secure the elements of texan life that g w bush should have secured for all of america: superb food in immense portions, tejano gay bars, rib joints where you can bring your own keg, and day-long fiestas in obscure swimming holes.

 

oh wait. all that's irrelevent. hang on. i'm reshuffling my campaign priorities.

 

3. under my administration, all writers will have at least 5 hours a day to write and we'll create a program for needy writers by taking time away from those who have it in abundance and give it to...er...me!

 

2. fifty. cents. per. word. MIMIMUM!

 

1. dance! dance to bootylicious funk! and irresistible cosmic slop! dance to the mothership and back! dance to new hampshire! and south carolina! and california!.......YEEAARRGGHHH!

 

[yeah, ok, well, i finished a short story under very adverse conditions and feel smug about it. so sue me]

 

If any form of pleasure is exhibited
Report to me and it will be prohibited.
I'll put my foot down;
So shall it be -
This is the land of the free.

 

-Groucho, Duck Soup

 

 

 

i write backwards. i've known this for a long time - i figured it out when i jumped from my heavy-metal royal to my first mac in '87 - but it's shown itself again, recently, with all the nonfic/journalistic writing i've been doing. with fiction, i automatically switch it around in my head, i guess, before the paragraph ever hits the page, but not so with articles. apparently, i write towards the point, and i have to see it in print before i know what i'm doing. i'm contantly going back and inverting my paragraphs, making that last sentence my thesis sentence, and rewriting my original "first" sentence to make it riff off of the thesis, explain it, undercut it, give it tone, etc. 

 

did i just do it again with that last paragraph? yagh. i drive myself mad.

 

a very dear old friend, diane, came to town last night and proceeded to torture my poor child. i forgive her because she works for the CDC, and i'm a little starstruck by that. the fact that isaiah cried whenever he looked at her for the rest of the night not withstanding, it was a great visit, festooned with margaritas, designer pizza, and lefty ranting with wild hand gestures. god bless wisconsin progressives.

 

i'll mention the weather, too only because my whining MN colleagues only blog about it (i.e., plead for your sympathy) when the temps turn lunar. but when the wind is warm and the streets run wet with february, are they waxing wordful in their journals now?

 

no-ho-ho-ho. .. .

 

 

 

i got the ol' one two-punch yesterday. jay lake wrote me a very nice rejection for Polyphony #4. stupidly, i'd started pinning hopes on that one, considering how long the decision was taking. so that bit. but then i got the news that Abyss & Apex is going through an editorial shake-up, with editors leah bobet and kathryn allen leaving the show. A&A publisher carol burell did write me today to say i'll get a contract and payment for my accepted story soon.

 

i hope it really happens, because it sucks to have a sale snatched away. especially on the heels of a rejection letter.

 

plus, the boy got another round of shots this morning, making him into goblin boy of the first degree. so it's been a rough day.

 

 

 

"When you're in the States and you're a writer and you've got money and you walk into a bank and you've got money, you're a bum with money.  If you're broke, you're just a bum." - norman spinrad

 

the above is from spinrad interviewing woody allen, but woody's asking most of the questions. 

 

i'm in this funny pattern where i wake up early, write for an hour or so, then isaiah wakes up and we play for about 30 or 45 minutes. when he gets bored with me, i take him back to bed so he can have second breakfast with his mom. then i write for another half hour before heading in to work.

 

it's a good schedule. it reminds of living in the co-op in madison some 15 years ago, when my house job was to bake bread for my 36 housemates. on my bread-baking day, i'd wake up, write, then go downstairs to the kitchen, put "maggot brain" on the shitty kitchen stereo, and do the initial mixing of flours and kneading. during the first bread rise, i'd go back to my room and write for another hour and a half, after which i'd go back to the kitchen to punch down the dough (which had ballooned to frightening portions - ever seen dough for 16 loaves?). during the second rise, i'd revise or edit what i'd written the day before, and then when it was time to shape the loaves, my writing day was pretty much done. if i was inspired, maybe i'd write a bit more during the actual bake, but most often i'd put out sticks of butter and honey and receive people filtering downstairs, following their noses to the fresh bread baking.

 

i think breaking up the writing day like this is good for me. i can get too focused, too single minded, so it's good for me to take breaks and do something tactile and physical, like bake bread or let a baby yank on my beard. too much time up in one's maggot brain is not a good thing, especially for something as brainy as writing.

 

i'm pretty sure i'm going to have a first draft of this new short story to show greg this week. it keeps shifting on me, which usually means it needs to "rise" more. but i think even a flawed first draft would be a great accomplishment for me, in these days of diapers and dr seuss.

 

 

i've never written solely for financial concerns before. don't get me wrong, i like writing-money. but now, with our budget barely listing into port each month, both lisa and i are looking into finding new ways to exploit ourselves. lisa is starting to write articles - birth stories, literacy issues, young adult book reviews, etc. - for parenting and library magazines. (she's good, too - very smart with a rye wit.) i got paid for the mad cow article this week and it just underscored what i already know, that nonfic is where the money is. i researched some high-end LA organic living magazines recently and two of the more high-end, LA-ish ones pay $1 word. there's no guarantee they want what i write - i'm certain i'm too political a writer for these yoga-and-beachwear publications. but it could answer the question: how the hell am i going to get to wiscon this year?

 

elsewhere: i'd rather be sitting next to a screaming, farting arab with a fuse coming out of his shoe than endure this.

 

 

your soul, being eternally reincarnated, only comes to complete consciousness once every 138 millennia, like a turtle, as a master once said, floating to the surface from the deepest depths of the universe. if, in that blink of awareness, you're able to see bootsy collins decked out, in person or in image, then you have attained a heightened state the buddhists call funkaliciousness, a step on the staircase, transcending to funkisatvahood.

 

sela.

 

 

 

i've sort of dreaded talking to a certain acquaintance about writing. we've moved in the same circles for many years and he's made it known that he writes and that, since i too write, he and i should hang out some time and, you know, talk about writing. for reasons that remained vague to me over the years, i've sort of kept him at arm's length.

 

anyway, we bumped into each other recently and i left the door open to chat about writing because  - i don't know why. just cuz. we started talking about what we were working on and he said, "so i've heard you've had a few short stories published." i shrugged. yep. "can i ask you one question? how in the world did you do it?" i gave him the clarion party line: i finish what i write and i send it out. "but how do you know if what you're writing is what editors want?" i told him that some time he could read my story "Lot 12A: the Feast of the Dead Manuscript" (which i've sold twice now), and he could decide for himself if writing what editors want is really relevant to getting published. he went on to talk about the 400 page collection of short stories he's writing, the epic poem, etc, and saying he just doesn't know how to crack the market.

 

i asked if he ever submitted his work. he said no.

 

i'll probably get together with him and offer him some tips on developing a market list (he doesn't have the blessing of a ralan.com for his style of writing), query and cover letters, and other basic business stuff that just about any writer reading this blog could tell him. but i'm not at all sure that's what he even wants from me, since his eyes sort of glazed over as soon as i said the word "market." 

 

i don't judge him for not sending his work out. he just has very different reasons for doing what he does, and maybe simply adding pages to his giant collection of words is enough for him. that's fine. but it reinforces my basic belief that writers don't necessarily have anything in common with each other. it's a granfaloon, as a vonnegut called it in Cats Cradle, a bogus connection that creates a bogus sense of belonging. like being a californian, or a democrat.

 

i'm not saying writing friendships are all bogus. not at all. but this lil exchange underscores why the writer pals i do have are so precious to me.

 

 

 

from NASA's Stardust project, this reads frighteningly like the sf i used to write in high school:

 

"Stardust Status Report
February 6, 2004

The Stardust team had daily communications with the spacecraft in the past
week. Telemetry relayed from the spacecraft  indicates it remains in very
good shape.

This past week, Deep Space Maneuver #4 was successfully performed. The
maneuver utilized the same mode that will be used for Earth return in
January 2006. During the burn, all solar array segments were verified to
be working properly, indicating that no damage occurred while inside the
coma of Comet Wild 2."

 

 

 

iko finally ate some avocado last night. lisa mashed up a perfectly ripe avo (into what we called "iko-mole") and he was really into licking it off of our fingers but, once in his mouth, didn't quite know what to make of it. he had this profoundly disconcerted look on his face, like "in the name of god, what IS this?" but i think he actually swallowed the stuff that didn't wind up on his bib, making it a successful evening. then we celebrated afterwards by me juggling for isaiah, which is a sure-fire laugh-jag inducer, and the grown-ups ate the rest of the iko-mole.

 

on the other end of this pressing issue, we've made the jump to handling diapers ourselves. we had been using a service ("cheek to cheek") that picked up laundry and dropped off clean diapers for the week. but since lisa is working only intermittently now, we decided to purchase a mess - oops, er, bad word - bunch of diapers on e-bay and now we're in business for ourselves. based on how much it cost to buy our own diapers, we figured that in two months we'll start saving what we spent on cheek to cheek. to say nothing of the fact that we're able to do our laundry with a great deal less bleach than the service probably used on their disturbingly white diapers.

 

 

 

from a memo i recently received regarding mad cow:

 

"If Management and cow comfort are pinch points, stress load will increase when subopted. "

 

no glossary came with the memo.

 

 

 

i've been thinking a lot about austin tx since i saw this picture a few days ago. it reminds me of something that i adored and feared while i lived in austin - the mythology. texas mythology is not dead and studiable - it's alive and screaming on the highway. to talk to any drunk staggering up congress avenue, texas was always just about to secede from the union, and if one of those west texas cowboys from "the searchers" was getting his portrait done, he might have instead solemnly asked the photographer to gather this flag, the gun, and harmonica, and had this picture taken instead.  i didn't live in texas long enough to really know what i'm talking about. i don't pretend to understand this jarring mix of guns and chauvinistic fervor. but eric nabbed the myth.

 

and a nice surprise to see photography in a specfic e-zine, i think.

 

~

 

it's like a never-ending drumroll around here - isaiah still hasn't eaten his avocados yet.

 

even as we speak, four avocados are ripening to perfection at home. one of them, friends, will be isaiah's first solid food tonight...

 

~

 

our last ford escort was named loretta because she reminded us of an old anorexic waitress from texas. whenever she started up, her radio always switched to the country western channel, and her gas gauge always read more gas than was really there ("oh, no, i'm fine," we imagined her telling us. "i couldn't eat anything. i'm full. really, i'm full, honey.").

 

our new ford escort is named francine. she's loretta's ditzy younger sister who never knows what time it is (the clock is wildly inaccurate), but who shares loretta's anorexia and love of wholesome music (francine, however, always starts the day with the christian rock channel. i imagine her giving me a dirty look as i switch to NPR.)

 

but damn. in the midst of minnesota heat death, francine and loretta wake up without whining or stalling. just turn the key (and the channel) and you're on the road. used escorts are god's gift to the upper midwest.

 

ok, ford. where's my check?

 

 

you want to be a writer, more than anything. you go to clarion. maybe you attend odyssey. a college writing track. maybe all (or none) of the above. you have natural ability, good grammar, a slick turn of phrase. you hammer on your keyboard for years on end and teach yourself all the skills needed to become a Real Writer (it's a big step when you finally call yourself a Real Writer).  you scrutinize the folks around you, their motivations and psychology, so that you can write Character. you tape conversations and transcribe them so that you can write Realistic Dialog. you learn the seven-point plot structure, or the three-point one, or you just watch "the godfather" a million times and break it down scene by scene in a spiral notebook. however it happens, you learn Plot. you learn to build worlds and develop realistic magic systems. you learn to avoid cliche and can cite entries to the turkey city lexicon faster than you can spit. you develop a snappy and engaging Voice. you write 2000 words a day, every day. you read the trades and update your market list. editors know your name, and you've published a few stories, maybe even a book. 

 

but look. you'll remain in the apprentice-writer mindset forever, mulling over the minutiae of writing, reading author autobiographies, obsessively talking to other writers about writing instead of things that matter, like food or alcohol. you can't excel at anything by merely following the rules. all your goddamn writing tools, i'm telling you, are there so that you can throw them into the ocean when the moment comes.

 

that's a vague aphorism and i fear you'll write it in a rule book you're keeping. so i'll be specific: the "moment" i'm talking requires an easy comfort with insanity.

 

here's a pretty well-kept secret: after you've managed a certain facility with the writing rules, it's a mild, controlled psychosis that makes you a writer, not how many words you write per day. face it: you ARE creating fantasies (all fiction is fantasy, ok?), even though you seem to be an otherwise sane and sober person. you walk through the streets of your life but, simultaneously, you're sending yourself away, into an array of self-created mirages and imaginary conflicts among pretend people. and you strive to write well so that you can convince others to believe these illusions too. well, that's just nuts, and the sooner you realize it, the better for your writing. whether you write traditional stories or plotless, unrecognizable "fictions", you are wading through the edges of your own sanity and, as a result, constantly on the hem of even deeper, crazier waters. own up to it.

 

because this is what will make your writing stand out from an anonymous crowd, not how tight your lead paragraph is or how well you use the limited third person. whether you're following rules laid down by damon knight, borges, or hemingway, it eventually becomes time to abandon them. will you? will you recognize that the safe guideposts put in place by Real Live Writers might well be interfering with your own mad vision? do you know what your own mad vision is? have you ever stolen a peek at it?

 

i'm not advising that you abandon your tools forever. they're important and you'll need them when you come back from the brink. but for the moment in the creative process that i'm talking about, you have to let your all-important grip on sanity loosen, and write something that the available rule books, workshops, mentors, and grad programs simply CANNOT cover. this moment is more akin to an improvisational performance, as if you were a musician ready to risk a riff that you haven't attempted before, that no one has attempted because it's only located in YOUR fucked-up brain. it's a flight of dada randomness coming in at 12 o'clock. it's indulging a right angle when the rules have told you to stay on the straight and true. it's the distinct smell of sex in the middle of an empty parking lot. go with it. don't ask why or you'll kill the precious moment, and you can't afford to kill it, because this craziness is YOU. allow yourself to walk to the edge of reason so that you can come back with one sentence, one image - or if you're a real freak, a whole story - plucked from the eye of insanity. allow yourself to write something that makes people say, with either admiration or fear, "where in the fuck did THIS come from?"

 

then, chalk it up to your mad vision when people say such things to you, even if they aren't being completely complimentary. be brave and do it again in your next story. go even further in your next.

 

that's how people become Real Live Writers.