Saturday 8/27/22
* Worked on the Elvis piece some more. It's 3400 words now. Worked on a short story called "Same As I Don't." Here is the plan for right now, bare minimum, chop chop: finish Elvis, all tight and perfect, put up entries on here, get Halloween essay done or close to it, outline all written up for The Curse of the Cat People.
* Some people are going to be unhappy with what is about to be posted here regarding them. I know what it will be. They don't. Soon they will see it, and many others, but already, knowing what is to come, I anticipate the simple but unavoidable rhetorical questions which say so much, versions of which they will ask themselves: Was it worth it? What did you achieve?
* Ran 2000 stairs Thursday, did 200 push-ups. Walked five miles yesterday and did fifty push-ups.
* I never used to think that writing a 3000 word piece would be just one of many things written in a week, something that was thought of as a piece that got knocked out. Once I would have viewed it as an ordeal. It would take a long time. I never thought it was possible to write this much. I didn't think it wasn't. I probably would have. I didn't think about it. But I would say that if you told me fifteen years ago I'd be doing this, and I could do it, that it was humanly possible for one human, I wouldn't have understood how that could be so. I don't mean just the volume. I don't mean just the range. There's no "just" about those things. But also at that level. And done. Not in progress. Done immediately or almost immediately and at that level.
* What is going to happen soon is I will be working on novels every day. If you give me a week to work on one thing, like if I was just working on one of those novels that week, and I'm doing it every day, then we are going to have something huge and amazing at the end of that week. That's just the reality of me sitting down and putting the time in with anything.
* Right now, keep crossing things off the list. Get these essays and features done. Blog-wise, I know the next twenty or so that are coming. They are written in my head. Someone was talking to me yesterday about Nate Brown. This particular individual witnessed what went down with Brown and "Fitty." We've talked about it. This guy who had no ability to take a story, just started talking down to me. This talentless, bulbous growth, who has done nothing in his life. My friend hates this guy like you wouldn't believe. I won't even try to go into that. As I've said, I personally don't have the luxury of hate. Do you understand how that would vitiate my purpose? I have thousands of people here discriminating against me, trying to hold me back because of what I can do, with their evil, their envy, and their bigotry. Where would I start to hate? If I'm hating 2000 people at once, that's taking me away from what I am doing. What I have for these people is something far beyond hate, where you won't even let yourself hate. You'd have to think about it. This friend, of course, loved that entry Wednesday about residencies, with the stop off at American Short Fiction and Nate Brown. As he said, "What can you do? It's like a tornado coming through your house. You can't stop it. Everything was true. There is no counterargument to make. It is so obvious how dirty these people are and how dirty they are doing you. How would you even begin to describe the differences in quality between what they are putting out and what you write? And then you put them side by side. It's hilarious. Think about all of the people who see that. The people who know him. They might figure out a way to move forward, where that other person doesn't mention it, but they're always aware of it. Or think about his students. That's going to be your professor and you see that? Or you're already a student and you listen to this fool stand in front of you and brag about himself, then you learn what he really is?"
* Texted my mom just to tell her I love her. I haven't really talked to anyone save a couple people in almost two weeks, because I've had my head down--metaphorically--and you should tell someone who is important to you that you care about them, no? A little thing, or not so little. Years ago when I entered this lowest section of hell, I'd notice when I walked that I always had my head down. I'd look up, and catch myself looking up in a window. In the reflection. Like if I looked up to cross the street. And I made a conscious decision, as bad as things were, and I've stuck to this as they've gotten even worse. A lot worse. My decision was that I was never going to stare at the ground. I would walk with my head up, no matter what evil was being done to me, or the pain I was in. I promised myself that. Like I said, it's a small thing, but that stuff adds up. It all makes a difference, man. And it will make a difference in my outcome.
* I looked at Curt Schilling's Twitter a few nights ago. He was trending. I've seen it before. What a nasty man. I'm not talking about his politics, per se. Almost everyone's politics are crude and simple-minded. The anger this person has. He's dumb, for starters. But that's most people. The raging display of that anger, though, in everything he says, no matter how benign the subject, is something to behold. Even when someone asks him an innocent question about baseball, he answers like a jerk. He has such a disagreeable way about him. Non-stop truculence. This isn't someone who is smarter than everyone else pointing out truths, but also wishing that people knew and that wasn't necessary. I mean, I'll see things that are wrong that are put to me, which warrant correcting. I wish they didn't. I usually try and handle that as tactfully as possible without making anyone else feel bad. Of course, if they're attacking, or up to something, that's different, and that person won't like how things subsequently go. Reading Schilling's tweets I am left thinking that he's incapable of not fighting with anyone, let alone kindness. Great pitcher, though. Smart pitcher. The only time he sounds intelligent to any degree is when he's talking about baseball. Not about any other sport. His comments on any sport that are not baseball make him sound like an idiot sports radio caller. He's uneducated. By that, I don't mean in a college sense. One does not learn anything in college, unless it has to do with, say, doctoring. You don't learn about ideas and humans and life and nature and art in college. But you can tell he'll read the back cover of a book and nothing more and try and bluff/tough guy his way through an exchange in an attempt to intimidate the other person. You can also tell he's insecure where it matters most. One of those people with no self-awareness, in part because he's too scared to try and be self-aware. A general tip: if you're always going on about being left or right, or liberals and conservatives, you have it wrong. Schilling reminds me of the human version of a callous. He's just so much dead, hardened, protective skin in his thinking.
* I pitched ideas on Ray Russell's 1962 novel The Case Against Satan, the 2008 basketball Redeem Team, and Paul McCartney and Revolver.
* At the top of the "need to" list right now is to go from having eight books out to twenty. Fast. Very fast. Very very fast. Twelve available books--which I all have here--must be spoken for and on editorial calendars. This jump from eight to twenty is important. We got the Billie Holiday book, the Curse of the Cat People book, the jazz writings book, Cheer Pack, There Is No Doubt, the two essay collections, Musings with Franklin, Longer on the Inside, S/He/R/Me, Become Your Own Super Hero, and on it goes. It has to be spread around with a lot of publishers, but it's all so different. Eight to twenty. Fast. Then twenty to thirty.
* Work on Glue God and begin assembling a book of your writings on literature.

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