Going back through the archives of this journal, I came across this entry.

Always stop and smell the roses, people.  Always.

First off, thank you to all who have wish me luck in this upcoming health issue.  Although it's a little soon to say, no progress on the lump (which is good) and I have been able to mostly stick to my guns concerning a lack of bare feet on the hardwood, present morning excluded.   What can I say?  Old habits are hard to break.

I think that's about as good as a segue as I'll be able to come up with for the next section, so we'll say it was a smooth transition and be done with it.  It bears mentioning that this week was an OMG EARLY type at the bus company, yesterday featuring Your Number One Contender stumbling into the office at just past 4:10 AM and after the week of sleep deprivation due to meowing cats and other noises in the dark, I was very glad to be able to sleep in this morning.  However, it has also left me a little groggy and sodden, but we'll just have to soldier on and do the best we can.

Anyway, on to the meat of the post.  Archive jaunt, yay!

Why You Should Read This:  first of all, it's Saturday so your probability of getting LJ post updates from other sources are rather low.  Contrary to what they always say, most LJers actually manage to go out and find a life on the weekends, so you don't get to hear about their office politics, evenings watching American Idol and such in between doing real work during their day jobs.  Having said that, this one is short and easily digestible .  This was a little vignette I wrote after two other novels (Diablos and Suspiria) featuring the same cast of characters, and it's always had a neat little place in my heart.  I intend to go back some day and do another work with Jenna Barker and Derric Sherman some day... maybe for some NaNoWriMo, who knows?  In the meantime, let's dial up the Way Back Machine to 1996, dear Sherman, and take an early morning jaunt into a lonely girl's personal heart of darkness.

While browsing through the archives looking for something to copy 'n paste, I came across this essay, written back in 1995 about buying my first computer.  It was a Pentium 75 MHz with 4 MB of RAM and a 1.08 GB hard drive.  Yeah, I know.  Oh, and the brand-new Windows 95 operating system.  It was destined to be a rocky beginning.

Four years later, this story would repeat itself when buying my next computer, and as some of you are thinking about what you'll be spending your tax return money on, this edition of The Lint Trap is perhaps very timely for us all.  So throw the lever in the Way-Back Machine, my dear Sherman, and let us return to October of 1995.

I've been talking a lot about writing and the business of rejection as of late, because it's very much been on my mind.  In all other aspects of my life, I am pretty much complete.  I have a great vehicle, a wonderful wife who I share a strong mutual love with, a nice house and my employment is about as secure (and fairly lucrative) as can be.  It's only this one area of life that eludes me and I thought this was a pretty good time to drag something out of the archives.

Why You Should Read This:  this excerpt, taken from The Light At The End II and written in early 1998 during a very dark time, shows about as accurately as possible the stuff that goes through a writer's mind when they get their material returned to them with a faceless cover letter and must buckle their chin strap a little tighter and go back to the waiting game again.  As I've said before, the process of publication is a monstrously slow one and there's plenty of time for self-doubt to build up between salvos.  Occasionally, it can become damn near paralyzing.

In that Playboy interview I'll have some day, I'd like to be able to say that I never lost faith, that I always stood firm as a rock and my belief in my own abilities and such never wavered.  It was only a matter of time before I was discovered, right?  Wrong.  That would be a lie.  Occasionally the only thing that has kept me submitting was all that time I spent waiting with semi-bated breath to hear from a company and knowing that if I packed it in and stopped sending material away, all those weeks and months would have ultimately amounted to nothing.  We persist, sometimes, only because we wish to state in the end, "I was here the whole time.  I kept on keeping on, and ultimately it paid off.  Persistence can be its own reward."

All the blood spilled has to count for something, no?  With that said, cue the stage lights and wheel in the scenery.

Stranded out on special service again.  As I currently type this, it's 6:53 in the evening, meaning I've been sitting out here on this bus for almost four hours.  There are much worse ways to make a living, I'll grant you that.  It could be much worse; I could be stuck out here without my laptop, and then where would I be?

I've been putting this time to good use by going through the writing archives of the hard drive and have made a rather astounding discovery; I have written a whole fuckload of material over the years.  There's a folder called INCOMPLETE NOVELS with twelve entries underneath.  Most of them are only four or five chapters long, or some scenes done in no particular order, granted.  Ideas that seemed nice in the dead of night and quickly petered out when faced with the sun.  Some of you know how that goes.

The exceptions to this rule, however, are a little head-scratching.  The Xieven Scenario, a science-fiction tale about insterstellar warfare and diplomacy, clocks in with ten completed chapters.  Sacrifice, which has been alluded to in past posts, has fifteen of the little buggers.  The Light At The End is nearly thirty thousand words of bile-black college life walking on the dark side.  Ditto with the uninterestingly titled The Light At The End II, featuring completely different characters with the same buzzkill themes.

The championship belt holder, however, has to be Lottery Odds.  At twenty chapters long and therefore roughly fifty thousand words, it's by far the longest incomplete work I've ever done.  This was my third whack at a star-crossed lovers story featuring the same pair of characters, and to this day, I have no idea why it was that I stopped writing on it.  The words were flowing, the plot (such as it was, since I was very much a "slice of life" writer back then) was moving along nicely, and I really dug my characters.

I just literally woke up one morning and never went back.

Funny, huh?  Anyway, as you were.

As you may have guessed by now, I'm not going to be a Chippewa author.  The deal is that they want to do an e-book first and, if it sells well, then possibly go into the print version.  To which I responded with a big fat raspberry.

No, not literally... but then again, in my own calmly reasoned and logical way, it was close enough.  When I found out this plan I said, "Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight.  They want to take an unknown, unheralded author with no name and send him out with no promotion into a format that is actively reviled by many readers and viewed with disinterest by the rest.  If through the grace of God or Mammon it manages to hit (i.e. sell more than 200 copies, their definition of a 'success' which makes me wonder exactly what most of their sales sheets look like), they then want to send it out into the world again and try to get people to pay again--and at a higher price--for the same product.  Do I really have this right?"

Apparently, I do.  Granted, I went to college at Jolly Old Chico State to become a journalist rather than a keenly honed business mind, but even I could sense that there was something just a little back-asswards about this proposed  model.  Oh, and don't forget that half the books put out each year never even earn back their advances... which given that the advance offered in this case was nil, gives you a nasty peek at what's happening down E-Publishing Way.

Tomorrow I hit the Writer's Market for fresh new beaches to storm.  But for now, we turn our attention to the archives.

Why You Should Read This:  well, it's not very long, for starters.  This is the initial prologue section of Nightfall and the first of several doctor's notes that serve as interludes.  I wrote it back in the dark days of late 1998 and early 1999 and I think these first few pages serve very well as a harbinger of the tone to come.  I'm still tremendously proud of this book, dark-themed though it is.  There is a part of me that would love to see this done some day as a Bachman Books sort of project, once I have established a literary name for myself.  I'm also considering posting the entire novel here as friends-only in this space since it's not doing much at the moment, so if you'd like to see that, feel free to let me know.  I'm not doing much original posting these days; there's just way too much going on.

Oh, and the names of the doctors in the correspondence have a bit of history behind them as well.  A screenplay version of The Silence Of The Lambs I saw with a kick-ass alternate ending used the name of "Gideon Quinn" for legal purposes rather than Hannibal Lecter.  "Dr. Raspail" is taken from Lecter's first victim in the movie of the same name, the one whose head Clarice Starling discovers floating in the jar of alcohol in the opening half-hour.  And "Franklin Channard" is the doctor from Hellbound: Hellraiser II, only this time all three people are on the up-and-up.  In literary terms, we would call these names homages.  That's where my head was back then.

With that said, welcome to the edge of the well.

...I decided to bring this entry out of the archives.  It's about America's Favorite Vampire, Maury Povich.

(rubs hands together gleefully)  Oh, yes.  Here comes the pain.

( The Ballad Of Donkey Ass: Part Three )

( The Ballad Of Donkey Ass: Part Two )

Coming into the weekend, I am very, very glad it's here.  It's been a rather long week, between illness, drama, painful sneezes (which will apparently go on for another two months or so) and trying to get and maintain the house in order... man, I am whacked.  I wanted to give you a wonderfully original post today to make up for not doing anything good recently, but this was not meant to be.  Awful sorry about that.

So, let's dive head-first down the stairs to the archives.  Fun fun fun!

Why You Should Read This:  if nothing else, the timing for this piece is too perfect considering I submitted Crossroads about two weeks ago.  This is the absolutely true, absolutely horrible story of me and my first agent, and why I hope he dies slowly from intestinal cancer in a part of the world where morphine has not yet been discovered.  This is also a very, very long essay and since it's a sure bet that most people won't update their journals this weekend, this gives you loads of material to enjoy.  With a lead-in like that, how can you not give it a whirl?

( The Ballad Of Donkey Ass: Part One )

Yay, new friend time!  Everybody, please welcome _reprimanda_ to the group.  She went to the same high school as I did, and I remember her because for about three months or so I always say hello to her in the hallway and she would either smile real quickly or just stare at me like I was growing a second head.  Eventually I thought, "Jeez, I guess I should stop trying, this chick must really hate me."  That's the wisdom of a 17-year-old dumbass for you, right?

She's recently graduated from Chico State, where I went to college (notice how I didn't use the word "graduated") and does some work on the side at the same magazine I worked at when I attended that university.  The similarities are a little unnerving, but she's a good person so please make her feel welcome.

In response to sabrarosa's question about how the weekend went:  blah.  I'm sick and tired of boxes, or unpacking boxes, of folding up boxes and of transporting their cardboard asses out to the office where they clutter my path to the computer with Internet access.  I also did not get as much sleep as I wanted to and didn't drink as much beer as I would have liked to.  However, I did get some really excellent sex so that took a lot of the sting out of the forty-eight hours spent in Cardboard Hell.

As of this writing, I have officially given up on the Eight Hunks Of Hanukkah.  I'm currently at #28 and out of the coveted eighth and final spot by 74 votes, so barring a finish that makes the infamous 1968 Heidi game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders look like a snail's pace, you can stick a fork in me because I'm done.  Meh.  So be it.  Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and it was a fun little thing to enjoy.  I'm not broken up in the slightest about this; I polled a few votes, and that's really all I'm concerned with.

Unfortunately, this also marks the end of any original things I have to talk about, so it's time to visit the writing archives.  I know, you're excited.

Why You Should Read This:  actually, this one is being posted for hihankara.  At the time I spun out this little billet-doux, I was unemployed, subsisting on one (1) peanut butter and jelly sandwich a day and a bowl of ramen and tap water that tasted like pork, copper and ass.  I was unable to find a job no matter how hard I looked--because Chico is a reprehensibly terrible place in terms of job market--and consequently spent a good deal of time writing and trying to avoid a gnawing in my gut.  On the plus side, it made the occasional 40 oz. bottles of Mickey's I consumed hit me like a highballing semi.

The job search is no fun at all, so as befitting my increasing dark and twisted frame of mind back in April of 1998, I decided to try to have some gallows humor at my own expense.  All I have to say, hihankara, is that you're a long way from being where I was when I wrote this.  So have a beer, kick up your feet and get diverted for a few minutes on me.  Unfortunately, there are no benefits or pension offered, but I know you're going to land on your feet soon.

And with that said, on with the show!

( Adventures Of The Great White Job Hunter )

Well, since we've gone about four days without an original update, you know what that means.  Yes, my devoted peeps, it's time to raid the archives again!  I'll try to post something original later on tonight, but for now, enjoy this slab of gristle... errrr, steak.

Why You Should Read This:  first off, I haven't posted anything since Friday so I know you're hungering for some entertainment in this space.  Don't blush; after all, I know you all too well.  Secondly, I see by the postings that some of my LJ brethren are going through some emotional issues concerning the opposite (or same, in a couple cases) sex, so I thought this short story written in 1995 was very timely.  Don't think I'm attempting to minimize what you're going through; quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.  The story is also quite short, so you should be able to eat it up in about 10-15 minutes.  Welcome, my friends, to Short Attention Span Theater.

The two main characters in this story also appeared in a pair of novels moldering away in the bowels of my laptop, Diablos and Suspiria.  Yes, I did get the title from the Dario Argento movie of the same name, but it was also the moniker of my old guitar teacher's band, a breakneck blend of speedy melodies and bone-jarring rhythms that Metallica would have been proud to appropriate for their own albums.  I believe it was supposed to serve as an opening to that 700-page and seemingly endless polemic Suspiria... but I moved on to better--though not necessarily bigger--things, and that tale fell by the wayside.

Have at it, and be well.

( The Long Kiss Goodbye )

Okay, here it is.  Part deux of my treatise concerning my long-running infatuation/obsession with devil women.  In the future I'll do a post about what I used to think my dating/relationship life would be like as I got older but for now, I'll leave you with the horns.

Why You Should Read This:  everybody has, at some point in their past, been attracted to somebody that they know is completely wrong for them.  We rationalize this away in a vriety of methods; we think we can change them into what we want, or that all they need is the right person (namely ourselves) to realize their potential and crawl from their battered chrysalis as a beautiful moth... or maybe, just maybe, we're brutally honest with ourselves.  We say, "Yes, Ricardo/Lucretia is certainly wrong for me, but you know what?  I don't care.  I want to screw their socks off and if there's an emotional price to be paid, so be it.  I'll gladly spring for that toll once I've seen them swaying seductively before me chewing on a pinky finger.  I want to lick whipped cream from the inside of their thigh because even though I know they are evil incarnate... goddamn, they sure look good.  Tally-ho!"

This article was originally posted to my two old web sites back in 1997, so forgive the out-of-date refences.  It's a much brighter world now.

( Return Of The Living Devil Women! )

Today was an interesting day, and one that I'll write about tomorrow while stranded out on special service again.  It was a black day at the bus company, but Yours Truly managed to rise above it and chalk up a W on the scoreboard.  Love it when that happens.  Until the inevitable late-night update tomorrow about 11:30 PM or so, enjoy this offering from the archives.

Why You Should Read This:  until I met Lady Jade, my dating life was a hammersmash of psychos, sociopaths and more than a few really nice girls that I was unfortunately too fucked up to recognize as good things until after they shook their heads and strolled out of the emotional toxic waste dump masquerading as my romantic life.  Truthfully, I don't blame them a bit.  I was a mess, my devoted peeps.  I'm not one of those people who looks back on every relationship I ever had and says, "Jesus, I just had a talent for picking lame chicks, didn't I?  Hey, it's not like it was my fault; I was a good, devoted, caring boyfriend who always saw fit to my partner's oral pleasure and never, ever, ever got involved in relationships that I knew where self-destructive.  No, siree.  Never happened, folks. By the love of Christ's puppy dog, I was perfection under glass."

No, I was lame and freely admit it.  This episode of The Lint Trap published back in 1996 is a very revealing look as to one of the reasons why.  Enjoy.

( Oh Devil Woman, My Sweet! )

Today while having lunch at a Chinese restaurant, Lady Jade and I ordered our drinks.  She went with the traditional Pepsi; myself, who is trying to avoid fizzy things in the name of my stomach lining, found apple juice listed on the menu.  The waiter smiled, said very sorry, we do not have apple juice.  I suspect his grasp of English was not the best, and I was soon to be proved very right.

“Oh,” say I.  “Well, how about… the orange juice?  Do you have the orange juice?”  (at this point, I indicated it on the menu with my finger to make sure we were on the same wavelength)

“Oh yes, we have orange juice,” he said with a big smile.  I smiled as well… until he brought the drink to my table.  Of course, my wife’s arrived first and I was almost a third of the way through my course before I asked to receive my drink, and he brought me… orange soda.  To make matters worse I actually drank it.  I still wonder what he would have brought me if I’d insisted on the apple juice (shudder).

Orange fucking soda.  God-damn.  I haven’t drank this stuff since college, which means that in honor of this event, I present to you this installment of The Lint Trap published in 1995 and ripped from the archives.

Why You Should Read This:  I haven’t drank that neon-colored piss in over ten years.  Trust me, time has not made my heart grow fonder.  This is the story of why orange soda and I are quits.  Enjoy.

( Orange You Sick Yet? )

I'm off to take one of my incredibly decadent bubble baths but before I go lounge around in warm, frothy goodness, I thought I'd paint the town red.  Literally.  I've got a story here to share with you all, and I hope you find it... well, interesting, at least.

Why You Should Read This:  this story was written in the space of about one hour back in 1995 and survives to this day with no changes whatsoever.  Usually I am a complete bear when it comes to editing and rewriting (and rewriting and rewriting ad nauseum) but "The Job" has survived nearly eight years now in its original form and I have never had the urge to go back and spruce it up, as I have had to fight with so many other stories.

It came about one day in Creative Writing class at the infamous California State University at Chico because my creative writing professor, an affable old guy by the name of Clark Brown, told us to write a first person story that started "with a bang."  He wanted a scene that would "capture the reader immediately."  Logically, therefore, I felt a gun in a kid's mouth would do the trick nicely and that's where I started.  The rest came from watching the movie Reservoir Dogs later that night and bitching to a friend about not ever being able to see the jewelry store holdup sequence.  He recommended I write it myself and, in a way, I guess I did.

Also, this story was read aloud for my classmates' benefit during the next week, and I was morally sure that they were going to ostracize me, no doubt thinking a potential Charles Whitman was lurking in their midst.  This made the rest of the dark fantasy that people were writing in the class look like the story of Pollyanna.  Strangely, though, everybody really enjoyed it.  It was eventually published in a local magazine in that town and got an extremely favorable reader response, which both thrilled and chilled me.  Go figure.

If you are highly offended by blood or swearing or immorality, turn back now.  However, if you are reading this page, I rather think you'll like it  ;-)

( Regulators, Mount Up )

You know it, my devoted peeps.  That's right, I'm too tired to post something new (although I have a lot, but it's all lengthy) and since most of what it is right now is negative, I wanted to post something kind of humorous.  LJ seems to be a magnet for negativity, and I want to try to get away from that.  The last post represented this perfectly, although I still stand by my fevrent wish for Rob Williams to get a horrible disease.  Nothing fatal, you understand... just terribly painful.

Why You Should Read This:  written in early 1998, this unpublished episode of The Lint Trap was my own attempt to share with the public my feelings concerning the whole "it's not you, it's me" dance that is done when it coms time to give somebody the boot.  It later appeared on my old web site, which has since been taken down but will rise again.

Anyway, here's one of my literary pokes in the eye with a sharp stick.  Enjoy.

( How The Other Half Dies )

Not lately.

Okay, it's time for a trip to our favorite place, Asshatland.  No, sorry, the archives.  Been a couple days and I'm on a split from work right now, so I thought I'd share this.

What Makes This Interesting:  Well, it was written ten years ago, and at the time I had only five novels under my belt, so it's a lengthy trip backwards.  Also, it serves as an interesting vantage point of a young writer who even then was realizing that he was not all that and a bag of chips.  You have to step up to the plate and take a few fastballs to the kidneys before you learn how to hit home runs, so this was my attempt to share some of those lessons.

Yeah.  One unpublished writer sharing tips with others.  I doubt anybody profited from my wisdom.

Oh, and back when I wrote this, I was using the Internet pseudonym "Jester Vicar," and shockingly, there is still evidence of this name on the Net today.  How fleeting, fame...

( Time To Play The Game )

You guessed it; time for a trip to the archives.  This one is so old that it mentioned Windows 95 as being a highly advanced piece of software, if you can imagine that.  As a possibly-interesting side note, this column was used as ammunition in one of my many arguments with a college professor.  He stated that it wasn't necessary to buy the extra warranties and such that were offered for electronics, computers and the like, whereupon I cited this story as a perfect example of how you were an idiot if you didn't.  It could have had a much different, much darker, ending.

Professor Bleske thought about this for several seconds, then said, "You know, Jesse, you're right.  I agree with you."  For the record, I believe that was the last time he ever agreed with me.  Oh, well.

( What Price Your Sanity? )