Blogging is just not a priority right now...

...but dammit, I'm gonna do it.

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I've been trying to push through my final revision of The Story Thief. I got a few readers who are gonna take on this massive text as soon as I'm finished. It's summer, so I guess the timing is right. I'm writing a query letter for it--I've been working on one for three years. Letters are harder than writing novels. But I think I got something decent...we'll see.

I didn't watch TV once today, though I might pop a flick in after an hour of revising and blogging it up. I've got some many poems to type up and a story to revise that I'm itching to finish and submit to McSweeneys (I'm swinging for the fences on this one...it's that good, or at least I think it is...). Then I'm never writing another short story again. Actaully, while writing my book-long lyric essay (I only write in spurts, maybe once a week, sometimes once a month), I wrote about this. With short stories, for me, I think that if I come up with an awesome character, why the fuck would I want to end the story in 10-25 pages? I want those characters to be a novel, or novella, or fucking epic fucking BOOK. I don't see the point in writing short stories, when all I want to do is take it further. I'd rather write half a novel, not finish it and move on, then write a story and try to revise it, till its "publishable." Does that make sense? Here's a better way to explain my way of thinking: I DON'T WRITE SINGULAR POEMS. Why? Because what the fuck is the point of that? If I'm gonna write a poem about divorce, there's no fucking way it will cover all of what I want to say, so I write as many as I can, till I say what I want to say. That's usually a book. But look at Levis, he wrote the same project for years. Look at Sharon Olds taking about sex and her father (how many books?), look at any poet, and you might find that. That's why collected poems suck (but that's a whole-nother rant). The best books of poems are the ones that are projects. They don't have to be narrative or anything, they just have to transverse the same place. Look at anything Oliver de la Paz has written: narrative or not, there's a project at work.

That said, when I write a poem it's for a project. If I write a poem and it's not for a current project, it becomes its own, and by the end of the week, I have at least the start of something new. In a way, a lot of my writing, from fiction to screenplays to poetry to non-fiction are dealing in the same themes, some more magical than others, some more rooted in realism than others, and some more out of left field than others, but you'll find connections...I don't think you even have to look. My poetry is blantant with that. My fiction...depends on what you've read of mine. The Story Thief and Bumping are worlds apart, but thematically they're dealing with a lot of the same things: loyalty, family, community, etc.

So, here and now, I say, "I will not write another short story, without it existing in a project." Though, I may change my mind, I have the feeling I won't have the chance.

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Have I said this yet? WE'RE HAVING A BOY. I'm going to be a father and it's going to be a boy. Either way I would've been happy, but I thought it was a boy, and I was right. That's cool. Em says, "All men think they're having a boy, that's how their brains work." Sure, she may be right, but whatever, I was still right.

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This is a picture of a little shack in Marymoor Park (in Redmond). It's cool and there's graffiti all over the insides. Em and I took Indie and my dad's girlfriend's son, Nolan, to walk around on the trails there. It was a really nice day, and we walked for a while. Nolan threw a sticky vine on me and I swore it was a snake coming to eat my face off. Everyone laughed at me. I'm kind of a baby about that stuff.

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I realized, while walking, that I need to get back into shape. I'm a fluctuator. I get skinny in the spring and summer, fat in the fall and winter. I'm getting too old for that. So, I'm gonna keep working out--I've started--with no excuses. At least run everyday. When I get job and some money coming in, I'll get a gym membership. There's gonna be a time in my life, where I can't shed the wait I put on in the winter. So, this is where I start working out and keep it going!!! CHEER ME ON!!! Here's the thing...I LOVE WORKING OUT. I LOVE RUNNING. I LOVE LIFTING WEIGHTS. I don't love sit-ups and push-ups, but I do them anyway. So, I don't know what my problem is? Maybe it's that I love TV, film, reading, and writing more. Maybe it's that I'd rather bum around with Em and Indie, than go out and sweat at the concrete or the treadmill. Well, I'm tired of shoving my body into medium shirts. I'm tired! By august, I will be where my 32-32 jeans and medium shirts with room to spare. I will be working away this gut I've been pampering for too long. I will be healthy. I want to be healthy, because I don't want my kid to learn how to be fat from me, how to be unhealthy, how to be lazy. I want my kid to see me and go, "My dad's in good shape." So, when he's learning to ride his bike, I can run next to him and cheer him on as he goes, I can be quick and strong enough to catch him when he's about to flip over his handle bars, and of course, good enough to beat him in all sports he tries to take me in...after all, isn't that my job as a father?

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OK. I blogged a good amount. I'm gonna edit, watch a flick, and go to bed. Later dudes and dudettes,

Joshua