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The Broken Bones of Age

Face plant. I feel the pebbles of the pavement on my cheek. Thirty seconds ago I was hitting it hard, my fourteen pound titanium bicycle and I were tearing up a short, punchy hill.

Slow motion and silence… again.

I lay there on the pavement. I do a quick inventory. First it is about time. Did I pass out, without looking I know my helmet is broken in two. I don’t think I passed out. Next a quick check on what hurts, what is bleeding, what is broken. Shoulder is dislocated, another collarbone. Fuck that hurts. A few ribs, fuck ribs, I spend half my life with broken ribs. [Read more…] about The Broken Bones of Age

The Publish Button, Complete With Sireeeeens

So, here we are at the very end. This is where things start to get interesting. After six months of bitching and complaining about friends and editors and marketing people, after all that screaming and blaming the universe, I am now down to the last 300 printed pages to read myself, out loud, Shari’s orders.

This mess of a manuscript has been professionally edited three times, it has cost me all my friends. It’s been read by 25 beta reader and corrected it a thousand-thousand times. It now comes down to this. [Read more…] about The Publish Button, Complete With Sireeeeens

Our Hero Meets His Match…

Settling in and enjoying the heady aroma of my book burning in the fire pit, I remember I have to call Rob. You know Rob by now, the guy with the sound advice. The guy who actually helps me and wants me to succeed? The guy who’s advice I finally decided to take? I call him, the conversation goes like this:

Rob: “How’s the book coming?”

Me: “Firepit, I think I see page 278 going up now. That was a good page, I’m gonna miss it.”

Rob: “Why don’t you calm down and let us edit it.” [Read more…] about Our Hero Meets His Match…

Self Publishing Becomes Self Loathing…

And so self publishing becomes self loathing… I hate this book. I hate me for ever starting it. I hate every word. All 128,000 stupid, fucking, misspelled, incorrectly punctuated, echoed, passive words.

I hate editing. I’ve read this nightmare 12 times. No one should have to do that – ever.

I hate Frankie, I hate his friends. Somedays I want to rewrite it just so everyone dies. Maybe end it with a nuclear war so that no one is left except the cockroaches, but then a cockroach would say, “Great job, but there is a typo on page four.” I hate the cockroaches. [Read more…] about Self Publishing Becomes Self Loathing…

In a mood, what is wrong with me?

Last night I was in a mood, I was looking for it. Looking for trouble.
This happens when I’m in a situation I don’t like and I’m mad about something totally unrelated to the current situation.

I don’t like me in that mood, I scare me when I’m in that mood, it is so strange, it’s almost like watching a movie starring me, playing a role I just don’t understand or want to play, but I’m drawn to it. There is a very real part of me that is scared of this part of me.

I’m old, older than dirt. Nearly every bone in my body has been broken, some more than once. There was a time when I would have multiple things broken or fractured or dislodged and any one time. It’s annoying. It was as common to me as a head cold.

I have no business going toe to toe with big guys half my age, but I did and I have done it before and will probably continue to do just exactly that, for reasons that, at best, completely mystify me; at worst scare me.

Herein lies the problem.

They back down and that feeds this thing. This need. This desire to challenge people, apparently the bigger, uglier, dumber, drunker and smellier the better.

I mean, I’m looking up and into this idiots nostrils and I’m saying shit like, “so, am I in your way, should I move” and I press in further. Then he backs away and it feeds this bullshit in my head. It reinforces the myth that I know is a goddamn lie. I take my anger and frustration out on the big guys half my age and they let me.

They just feed the myth that even I don’t believe, but I insist on perpetrating.

I’m simply asking one of them to grow a pair. Don’t back down, I’m old as fuck. That is really, exactly, what I need. I need one of these man-mountains to wipe the blacktop with my face. Then maybe I will get scared and stop this nonsense.

Or maybe, they just feel sorry for this loud mouth old man. They know they could kick my ass without spilling their beer.

Someone said it was therapeutic to write about this, hmm…

Next up, next week: Self Publishing Becomes Self Loathing…

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