These days, there is nothing concrete on the schedule.  There is no place I need to be at a previously contracted time.  Tomorrow morning I am expected at my neighbor’s house at 9 AM to teach her how to bake bread, but to this point, aside from lunch plans, which hardly require the use of an alarm clock, I’ve had nothing on the docket that is inexorably tied to a specific time.  There are no imperatives on the order of “show up to work or get fired.”  Regardless, I continue to set my alarm.  Mind you, I set it four hours later than when I was employed, but set it I do.  I’m naturally a night owl and my waking hours have been shifting later and later the deeper I get into this strange phase.  I feel that I should try to keep some semblance of a routine, at least in terms of when I wake up and start moving.  A funny thing happens, though, regarding the wake-up call when one removes the externally scheduled urgency.  That alarm has become the most horrible, unrecognizable sound I’ve ever heard.  I thought I knew that beeping intimately well, but now it blares like a klaxon at the gates of Hades warning that there’s been a jailbreak and all manner of Hellspawn will soon pour forth to cover the Earth and there are only a few short minutes to get to the bomb shelters.  Every time it goes off, it’s like I’ve never heard it before, even though I experience it no less than seven times each morning at five-minute intervals due to incessant snooze button mashing.  The bed covers explode, my body roiling and writhing underneath as I try to make sense of the ungodly sound invading my brain like a bullet from a 9mm.  It’s the most remarkable phenomenon.

Anyway, I’m awake now.  Good afternoon.

• See eye-catching cover with intriguing title
• Pick up the book and read the blurb
• Make a decision to buy or keep moving

And all of that takes place in the span of about fifteen to twenty seconds, so that blurb is way more important than most folks think.

Another marketing tool a publisher has is the excerpt.  In the bookstore example, if you get to Step 3 and still need more info, you just crack the book randomly and read a page or two.  Awfully random and unpredictable.  The luxury I have is that I can choose something specific for you to read.  The downside is that if this chunk doesn’t float your boat, where does that leave me?  A conundrum, to be sure, but we’re not here to tip-toe through life.  As my wife and I constantly remind each other, you’ve got to go big or go home.  Since I’m already home, I’m going big, regardless of the fact that I feel like I’m about to birth a litter of kittens.

Without further ado, please enjoy this excerpt from Speck Martin.

*****

It’s not entirely true that I didn’t cry outside of chow time or when I needed a fresh diaper.  I screamed plenty, just like every kid.  The thing that was unsettling for the adults around me was that I didn’t cry very long.  After a couple of months, lying on my back in a crib staring into space wasn’t good enough, and once I got ambulatory, I moved fast.  My mother could not keep up.  I crawled faster than my older brother could walk.  Mom would turn her head for a second – quite literally one second – and I was gone, baby gone.  As you might imagine, this lead to a great deal of opportunity for injury.  Table and chair legs, doorjambs, the corners of bureaus and sideboards; everything was in play.  While my muscles developed quickly, I was still only a baby, so the mental acuity needed to navigate a suburban home was simply not present.  Head down, moving at top speed…crack!  Kitchen door to the forehead.  Night-stand to the skull.  Liquor cabinet to the face.  There wasn’t enough padding in the world to cover every protruding edge and hard surface I would eventually plow into.  Sometimes I’d get up a head of steam and clumsily race past Michael, knocking him down, ass over tea kettle, with yours truly breaking his awkward fall.  Crunch!  Like any normal infant, the wailing would begin.  Unlike every normal baby, however, it would stop as quickly as it started and usually before Mom got to the scene of the accident.  She’d pick me up and console me, but I hardly needed it.  She would bounce me in her arms, her gentle, sing-song voice in my ear, dutifully reassuring me that everything was okay. For possibly the first time in baby history, a parent was not stretching the truth.  Everything was okay.  I was okay.  There was nothing to cry about.  The pain was gone and forgotten and it was time for a new adventure.  Through a hundred incidents like this, my parents, my extended family, and anyone else who witnessed the phenomenon eventually figured it out.  I was healing.  Fast.  My body was a healing machine.  Bruises lasted thirty minutes; cuts and scrapes an hour.  Gone without a trace.  No pain, no marks.  I’d trash myself by knocking a dining room chair onto my cranium at noon and the evidence disappeared before my dad got home for dinner at six.  No bumps.  No scars.  Nothing.

Now, before we all panic and storm the castle, let me assure you that everything is fine.  No deadlines have been pushed, no flights out of the country to avoid angry mobs have been scheduled.  We are still very much on target.  I just need to pull my head out of wherever it was that I decided to stick it and get some heavy lifting done.

Excelsior!

I’ve more or less decided that I can’t write very well at home during the day.  Unemployment breathes heavily on me in the house, using up most of the available oxygen, and there are far too many pointless distractions which I relentlessly engage in.  No bueno.  I decided last night that I’d get up early and hit the library, doing a chore or two quickly before I left the house.  I picked out a rock-solid pair of pants and a favorite shirt, wanting to insure that my energy would be all positive as I’d be unencumbered by ill-fitting garments.  I packed my bag with snacks in case I got hungry; all the better to avoid quitting early and heading out for a cheeseburger or, heaven forbid, fried chicken, which would ruin the afternoon and the evening.  The computer was charged, the dog was walked, everything in place for a day of genius-level writing.  A quick iced tea to stay hydrated and I’d be on my…

I arrived at the library wearing an inferior pair of pants and shirt after soiling the clothes of choice with my tasty beverage.  Real smooth.  To make things even better, I exited the truck covered in Moon Pie crumbs, since I simply could not wait to hit the snacks, apparently.  As I settled in at one of the least crowded tables – the library was packed for some reason – I found myself surrounded by attractive people working and reading and looking devastatingly studious, and a crush of books on every topic known to man, leaning in close, desperately begging for attention.  4:30 PM.  Nice and early.  Just like I’d planned.

Yeah, this will work out just fine.  Heck, I might just breeze through the rest of the novel today!  Conditions could not be better.

One-Armed Surprise…

It sounds like something, doesn’t it?  A wrestling move, a pickpocket in a Chinatown tea-house, a new sexual position?  Who knows?  To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as a One-Armed Surprise.  (A quick Google search revealed nothing, thankfully.  That could have gone quickly off the rails, as Google searches often do.)  My brain was reconstituting after a respectably hard sleep and hadn’t quite realigned itself with reality, chucking random notions together.

D.J.’s Brain: “I have a feeling these things don’t match, but fuck it: One-Armed Surprise.  Chew on that, douche-bag.  Moron probably won’t even notice…”

Picking through the thoughts swirling around in my head during those groggy first moments of the day is like panning for gold or trying to locate one more peanut hiding in a box of Cracker Jack.  What will I stumble over and will it be worth anything?  Sometimes I get good stuff in those moments before sleep, but they’re harder to remember and are tainted with the stink of the day that came before.  The really good bits, the morsels that carry never-ending promise, are found in the morning, when my sub-conscious had all night to dredge the swamp, churning long-forgotten chunks back up to the surface to co-mingle with the tried and true.  I never know what I’m going to get.  Today, amongst appearances by old crushes, subway platforms to nowhere, and costumed sports mascots frolicking on the beach, I got One-Armed Surprise.

Who knows if that will ever wind up in the book or in a story all its own, but it absolutely, positively sounds like something.

I doubt he knows it, but I’m coming for him…

Fiction is never really fiction. It’s all autobiography. Not a verbatim retelling, of course, but everything that has ever happened to an author winds up on the page in some fashion. It could be a significant event recast with a more desirable outcome expanded into the climax of a book. Perhaps it’s something that the author wished she hadn’t said to her boyfriend that winds up coming out of an antagonist’s mouth. Maybe it’s hopes and dreams for a happier life that the hero can never attain that drives him past the breaking point and straight into insanity.  Suspicions about a family member, the color of the upholstery on the family sofa, something seen out of the corner of one’s eye, the way that apple fritter tasted and the one simple reason it was the best apple fritter ever.

Speck Martin is a fictional autobiography, a man recounting his life story, but I can tell you right now that it might as well be mine.  Everything is tossed into the meat grinder and available for use; thoughts turned over on a drive through the rain after overhearing something in the office; a book Don Draper was reading on Mad Men; the torrent of ideas that flooded my brain after I pulverized my little toe on a table leg six months ago; relentless dreams that tortured me as a child; a look on a girlfriend’s face that I’ll never forget; something a stranger said to me on a street corner one quite night.  Everything.

It’s all in there, in one form or another.  The dots are unconnectable, though; there are no absolute truths about my life in there, so don’t go looking.  Actually, that’s not entirely true.  There is one.  Look for that itemized bill in Chapter One.

Yeah, I thought it was Tuesday. I need to keep better track of that.

In unrelated news, you can now follow me on Twitter. I know; the moment you’ve been waiting for since Monday. Or Saturday.

There’s a convenient widget in the column on the right, perfect for those of you on the go.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Maker Faire, start with the concept of a grade school science fair, add a decade or three to the ages of the participants, give them college degrees, and allow them to use all the tools and materials in the shop, not just safety-scissors, tape, and cardstock.  It’s a fantastic weekend of wild creativity untethered to financial concerns or pursuits.  If you ever have the opportunity to go, I strongly suggest you do.  There is something for everyone and you’ll leave with your mind cracked wide open to a million possibilities.  This astounding event goes a long way towards proving the theory that anything is possible.  It just takes someone to go out there and do it, conventional wisdom and monetary interests be damned.

I’m going to share links to some of the vendors and exhibitors over time, but today I’m starting with The Poetry Store.  The Poetry Store is a creation by a delightful woman named Silvi who writes poetry, but packages it in a way that brings it out of dusty old library books and makes it immediate and accessible and wonderful.  In her own words, here is how it works:

1. you want a poem.

2. you carefully select a piece of paper on which your poem will be written.

3. you tell the poet what you want your poem to be about.

in three minutes or less, you will have your poem–as spontaneous as combustion and as original as bergamot and balsamic on your ice cream.

satisfaction is guaranteed.

I don’t know what bergamot is and I’m lactose intolerant, so ice cream is out of the question anyway, but that’s neither here nor there.

Silvi sat in a little chair in front of a tiny table with a non-electric typewriter at her fingertips, ready to create for the masses.  Her poems are staggeringly poignant and sensitive; no limericks or overtly comedic poems here.  They are deceptively touching and as light and delicious as the air wafting from the front door of a bakery.  Intoxicating.

Silvi is a perfect example of how to combine the new with the old; websites and social media in the service of tapping out subtle poetry on decades-old equipment.  How utterly perfect.  She has captured what I’m trying to do here.  Having a publisher reaching all corners of the globe with my work sounds fantastic, but for now, it’s just you and me, here, on my blog and in our inboxes, just because we can.

What ideas do you have rolling around the back of your head that you haven’t tried yet?

When a new movie comes out, the stars are trotted out to make the rounds; talk shows, newspapers, magazines, radio shows, etc.  Anything to promote the film.  There are only so many ways to ask the same questions.  How did the film turn out?  Were you excited about working with so-and-so?  Do you think it will do well at the box office?  What projects do you have coming up next? The repetition has got to be numbing.  With dozens if not hundreds of media outlets, the stars must go a little nutty at the end of a junket, regardless of how well-compensated they may be.  This relates to my situation in that, as well-meaning as people may be, it’s draining to be asked the same questions over and over by everyone who stops by my desk, especially since my answers aren’t giving me any comfort.  What are you going to do next? (No clue.)  Any prospects? (Not yet.)  Who’s going to take care of stuff after you leave? (I’m being let go.  I’m not so devoted to the cause that I’m going to continue to care much after I’m shown the door.  No offense.)  It’s tough to keep my chin up, but I’m doing my best.  Like I said, everyone’s intentions are good.  That counts for a lot.

What does this have to do with the novel?  Not much, except that the writing is going slowly.  Painfully so.  I’m looking forward to the weekend when I can put that ordeal behind me and move forward.  I’m ready to scoop the junk out of my head and dig down to the gold nuggets.  I know they’re in there.  I can’t wait to get at them.