actual work

editing is tedious. i finished a draft of my novel and i've been putting off starting on the next draft for 10 days now. i have been working every day for the past 6 months and it feels very strange not to work but i can't bring myself to start. i will start today.

i will start today.

i can't think of a decent title for the book either. i have a list of titles but i'm not sure i like any of them. i'm not sure what i like.

PEDOPHILE

NEW TONGUES FOR THE NEW HEAD

RUIN

THE SUM OF ALL FUTURE LIGHT

TOMORROW IS ALSO NOT YOUR BIRTHDAY

INVISIBLE CHOIRS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GOODNIGHT

i dont know about those.

submitting work to magazines is hard work. its a second job to support a job that pays in nice feelings.

i got a job writing reviews of local businesses for yelp.com in atlanta. my reviews are at blakeb.yelp.com. that's been pretty nice. temporary for now, though it may renew after 2 months. i hope it renews. i like the job.

i also have a possible paying freelance gig writing short profiles of strange peoples for a new online magazine backed by a porn company. that should be also fun.

moving is a bitch. maybe that's why i haven't been editing. i've been so busy moving.

i am going to edit now, goddamnit.

The Sentence

i have a story called 'The Sentence' that is one sentence long in the new issue of Alice Blue Review

i think the original draft of this story was about 2 years ago. i played with it a smidge between now and then. it is rather DFW-ian in voice, a thing that used to come out of me a lot more than it does now.

the whole issue is awesome and worth a hearty read.

in other news today i think i finished a first full draft of the novel i've been working on. i have a lot to do in revision, but it feels good to reach that point. still need a better title. yarf.

buyin shit

all of the following things came to me in the mail today. ..




i guess that means it's been a good day. i have a lot to digest. and i'm supposed to be writing.
fudge.

according to statcounter.com, somebody found this blog the other day when they googled the phrase: "how often should i shit each day"

my life is goin right

net porn titties pamela anderson paris hilton sex tape

the following is a list of firefox browser cookies found on the narrator's computer in my novel-in-progress:

www.badbassbitcheswithbigassboners.com

www.superspecialpleasuretreasures.com

www.smellmefromamileaway.com

www.squirters.net

www.immaculate======)~.com

www.whoareyoukiddingletsboink.com

www.dongvillage.com

www.nodildosonlylove.com

www.hindquarters4life.co.uk

www.yumexclamationmarkpoon.com

www.hairyisheavenandiveseengod.com

www.cootergenius.com

www.husbandwho.com

www.ibirthchowder.com

www.penile-vertebrate.com

www.legalschmegal.com

www.isthataharddickinyourpantsorareyouboringmetodeath.com

i think i wrote this list in like 2 minutes. if you have any other good pornography cookies you would like to suggest, please do, and perhaps i will include them in the manuscript at your permission.

i am hoping that somehow this list will up the traffic on this blog to a tasty extent.

right now i am calling the novel 'the sum of all future light' but i'm not sure it will stick. if i really wanna sell it i should call it 'pedophile.' i think.

i just finished reading miranda mellis's 'the revisionist' for the third time. it is fantastic. i will have a review of it in the next bookslut.

okay.

links and shit and shitting

today i have a review of TAO LIN's EEEEE EEE EEEE at Bookslut

and an interview with Melville House's DENNIS LOY JOHNSON at Econoculture

i like reviewing and interviewing. it is a good way to make friends. i don't have any literary friends in atlanta. i don't know anyone who reads books in atlanta. i know a few people who buy books but i don't ever talk to them about reading.

i'm reading Robert Coover's GHOST TOWN right now. i bought it for $6 used because i like other things by robert coover and the back of the book said it was like him writing like cormac mccarthy on hallucinogenic drugs. i don't think it actually said that, but that's what it made me think it was saying. the book is pretty good. if i wrote this book and tried to sell it i would be told it was 'too bizarre'.

the first novel i wrote was originally called 'The Pupils of an Inflated Giraffe'. actually, it was the second novel i wrote, but the first that i could actually imagine trying to sell. i got an agent with the book, Rupert Heath, who i think is a very smart agent, and who isn't only looking for something marketable, but for good art also. i respect his opinion. rupert suggested i change the titled of the book to 'The Human Lottery' because the book was partly about a man who is employed as a human lottery ball. rupert shopped the book to 15 or so major houses. the basic response was: 'i really like this writing. i think it is smart and imaginative. however, it's a bit too fantastical for a first book from an unknown author. i'd like to see something less out-there from this writer.'

since
then i've been trying to write a novel that is less 'out there'. i begin with a premise that is based in real life, but somehow i always end up going way out. there is a tendency in me to turn everything to fucked. to write unsympathetic characters and have fucked things happen to them. to have the fantastical be as much as a part of the storyline as real things.

i wrote a third novel called 'YES I AM AWARE THAT I'M IN HELL' that was fucked and bizarre and about a divorcee who takes his son (who hates him) to disney world in the desperate hope of getting a job there.

that book did not quite work for me and was too bizarre again.

i am trying now, again, to write a novel that is less fantastical and less bizarre, and somehow i've ended up writing about a man accused of pedophilia.

i am going to continue writing books and have them eat the memory of my hard drive until there is no room left.

william burroughs

it took a long time before i realized coffee. i don't know how up until now i wrote a fucking thing. my syntax before it comes out like gradeschool papers. afterwords i can just flow. i have enough trouble waking up in the morning, bringing my head out of itself, that i don't know how i didn't discover this sooner.

i always imagine how they found william burroughs, in the midst of writing naked lunch: locked in a hotel room in (i think) tangiers, sitting in a corner with the manuscript in a mess all around him, and the floor mucked ankle-high with wrappers vomit shit etc because he hadn't been paying attention to anything else. i need to do that. i need to sequester myself somewhere. i do to some extent but not enough. there are too many outside impulses. i like the access of the internet. i like certain evening hours of outside occurence, ie: girlfriend. but the days i work, i'd like to work in a box with coffee and no bed and the internet. taking a lot of little breaks is important to me, but being irritated by the endless buzzing of the phone is not a break.

the phone the phone the phone. if you want me to answer everytime you call, motherfuckers, pay my bill. otherwise it's mine and it will be silent and i will try to forget you exist.