Monday 2/26/24
There's a flair to storytelling. That's not the same as an ostentatiousness. The flair is in knowing, "This will get 'em going," and how--and crucially when--things are delivered. It's showmanship without the artifice. And it's another vital part of the writing art that can't be taught by anyone to anyone else.
Getting back on track is not the goal. Doing better than previously is part of what should be the goal. Resumption may play a part, but if resumption is also a form of halting--because one deems that it's enough that things have been resumed--then resumption is faltering or not serving as it can serve.
Still, we must start. I find it helpful to start with small things. In the doing of small things there is nonetheless motion and energy, and motion and energy help with the next things and bigger things. Motion and energy gets put to further use. It's like building. One thing gets us to this, and the later "this" may be bigger, but it owes something to that earlier start.
One thing I will be reminding myself more often about is my cause--that is the big thing--and something that would be one of the many results of the realization of my quest, like getting my house back again. I want to run everything I do--every last thing--past a kind of roadway checkpoint in which I ask, "Is what you're doing contributing to the cause?" and "Is this helping you get your house back?" That can be many things, big and small. Having a cup of hibiscus tea for my heart satisfies the officer at this checkpoint. So does writing an op-ed. Finishing a story. Doing an entry on here. I want everything I do right now to satisfy that criteria. Every single last thing, no exceptions.
Yesterday I walked three miles and did 100 push-ups, which also marked 2786 days, or 398 weeks, without a drink. I don't take the not drinking for granted. As I am going through an even harder time of this thing that is worse than hell, I find not drinking harder. Which isn't to suggest it's related to how I feel, because this is always absolute torture. Absolute pain. A person could not conceive of what living like this is. It's so far beyond what someone else could endure. Anyone else. We are not built to live like this, in a situation like the one I'm in. And while alone.
Drinking, for me, equates with giving up. Being done in my life. Dying. I talked of the rope. How hard it has been of late to not let go. If I let go, I will die. I don't want to make it sound like I sit here tempted by the bottle. I know that many people--thousands--in publishing would love nothing more than to read of my death, or to come on here and see that I was drinking and was some alcoholic mess. That's a hell of a thing to know, but I do realize it's true. That it is true motivates me. Drinking for me is more about the rope than it is drinking. If that makes sense. But when people just assume it's easy for me, not worth bringing up ever, because they don't associate my strength or me with anything mortal, they miss the point that I try to be careful not to ever miss. I don't take it for granted that I noted as I just did how many days and weeks it's been since I last took a drink. I note it for a reason. Because I am earning those days by not letting go of the rope. And you cannot imagine how hard it is to keep holding on.
Did 200 push-ups and ran 3000 stairs on Saturday. While doing so I added a bit to the cover for The Ghost Grew Legs--the second idea I had for it, actually, which I think is the one. It really is ingenious. And so simple to execute. Not for me, of course, but for a cover artist. Anglerfish has a cover like that. Dzanc didn't bother to do a test copy--imagine that, right?--which is why the printed book has a cover that looks like it was burned in the oven, but I'm doing the book over anyway, like I'm doing them all over, because these books haven't had a chance yet. They came out--once--but they had no chance. They will get a chance, though, and they'll come out again, and I'm making sure that every one of them will be ready down to the last letter for go-time. In the meanwhile, getting more books out there is what matters, with whomever it may be--previous places, new ones, both--even if they don't have a chance right now, because once a chance finally does kick in, it's all going to start over again anyway, but with everything in place and a body of work unlike anyone has ever produced. A new business model is going to have to be tailored to what I'm doing, what I am, what I have, what is coming from me. You can't put me in a group with any of these other people, and you can't apply the same old, same old approach to business for them with me.
I went to Haymarket, which was rather pricey so far as Haymarket goes, given the cost of peppers of late. A dollar a pepper. I get a lot of peppers. Also bought celery and bananas.
Started thinking about a cover for Become Your Own Superhero: Intrepid Exceptions to Modern Fiction.
Watched the BC-Vermont men's hockey game on Friday night in which BC rolled right over them, and then took the second game of the weekend series on Saturday. There's quite a bit of future NHL talent on that Eagles team. Gauthier looks to me like he's going to score some goals in that league. The all-freshmen line just isn't something you see at the DI level.
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