That’s what writing is like for me. Not all the time, not every story, but the ones that really matter, the ones I know are the stories that I was born to write, those feel… real. And it’s like, every emotion evoked in the story, from every character, or by the reader, happens at once. Every plot point, every wonderful and terrible thing, all happen at the same time, and they come from me, they happen to me. If I haven’t written the story, even if I haven’t figured out what the story is, I can still feel it all. They are already there, because eventually I will find them within me. Everything I will ever write is here, locked away, waiting for the door to briefly open.

When the door opens, I try to memorize everything, because it is so huge and complex. But at the same time, it is simple. It’s feelings, thoughts, images, and behind them is something yet simpler:

Meaning

No, I don’t mean some stinky water. What I am talking about are patterns of thought. I have conditioned myself to think in a certain way.

It happened like this: A long time ago, I was an aspiring writer, but not a writer. I dabbled, sure, but I really only had one idea. I wrote that book, and had other stories revolving around the same idea, but I wasn’t a writer. I didn’t have the patterns established.

What are the patterns, and what exactly does that mean? It means conditioning (that thing that Pavlov did to those dogs). The most important pattern is thinking like a writer – which is a lot like being in love. When you can’t go five minutes without thinking about writing in some way, you’re a writer. That is the most important pattern to establish,  because if you don’t think about it constantly, when you actually sit down to write you will waste time “warming up.” If you’ve already got an idea developed in your brain, all you need to do is spill it onto the page.

Which brings me to the second pattern, the spillage. It’s the harder of the two. Programming yourself to write consistently is important, because it is the key in finishing that novel. But it’s tough. You’ve got to make the time. The best thing to do is to set aside a set time everyday. This establishes the pattern, makes it habit. I usually force myself to write for an hour at the least, whether I’m feeling it or not. Tired, hungry, frustrated, discouraged, whatever, just write. I have trouble keeping up the habit, but I’m getting better.

There are other patterns that have to do with the craft. I’m not going to go into those. There are plenty of other blogs and books out there that would do better than me anyways.

My problem now is breaking a habit, the one I talked about a few blogs back: brainstorming. I stumble upon several ideas every day for stories. I try to fold what fits into the stories that I’m already working on, and reluctantly letting go of the ones that don’t.

It’s hell.

That’s because I love it. The endorphins are triggered every time I get an idea that I fall in love with. I can’t help but come up with clever twists and turns. I get excited. My pulse quickens. It’s a wonderful feeling. But when you never finish those story ideas off, it’s an empty feeling, a temporary high.

I will continue to fight the habit, and develop new ones.

This is Roy the Royal. He is a 1957 Royal Quiet De Luxe portable typewriter. He’s been living in a basement for at least 20 years, but has been recovered and is now my partner. I say partner because although I am operating and maintaining him, what I type has as much to do with him as it does with me. In fact, it is in that spirit that I decided to let him take control of me, as I take control of him. Seems only fair. And it also seemed appropriate to give him an outlet. I intend to use the work he helps me produce in my publishing adventures, and in return, I will produce a blog for his own work.

Here is the first post he had me type. I elected to use Tumblr, since I will be taking pictures of his work and NOT retyping them on a computer.

Visit typewriterroy.tumblr.com for more.

I will be pounding the keys, but what comes out on paper are his words. I know it’s a little strange, I’m trying to get used to the idea myself. Leave a comment on my twitter or on this blog if you want to talk to Roy, ask him a question, etc. He will reply.

This is a special kind of book club, in that we are featuring NOVELLAS ONLY. Anything more than 200 pages need not apply. The reason is, of course, to show the world the merit that this form of literature has. And the beauty of it is, you can finish these things in one sitting, so one per week can fit into any schedule!

Every Sunday we’ll post on the Temporary Infinity blog (and on twitter) what book we’re reading for the week. Then, on Friday, you can come by each of our blogs and see what we had to say, and join in the conversation. I want to hear your thoughts, too. In fact, I want to hear them more than Andrew’s, because his are always wrong.

This week is The Woman Who Wouldn’t by Gene Wilder. Pick up a copy and read along!

Let me back up a bit. I might have mentioned this before, but I have a bit of a problem. I think too much. Specifically, I think about stories too much.

If you’re a writer, you might know what I’m talking about. I have ideas for novels on a weekly basis. Weekly. Most I chuck into the wastebasket in my head, some I write down to come back to later, and others nag me incessantly.

Picture me, minding my own business, happily chipping away at some novel. Take yesterday for instance. I was opening up Scrivener, completely ready to continue working on my latest money-making scheme, when another idea jumped me. Typically I get frustrated, try to force the first idea, end up losing interest in it and not coming back to it for months, or years, or ever.

There was my original grand epic chronicle that I started working on back in high school, with this guy. That remains the only time I actually finished a book, start to end, editing and all. It was shit.

There’s my pseudo-sci-fi, semi-satire trilogy that jumped me one day while I was watching Doctor Who. I spent hours jotting notes down, and got a fair way through the first book before it slipped out of my grasp.

Oh, there is the YA book I was going to write about Mark Twain battling an evil author, somewhat inspired by my own flash fiction story Hype Machine. That was my first NaNoWriMo attempt, and my first NaNoWriMo failure.

There’s a book inspired by a song, which is an idea that I absolutely love and intend to return to someday. There’s the other one inspired by a song about a lighthouse, also something I want to work on. Another book idea I had was going to be this indie movie-like coming-of-age/finding yourself book. I think I was infatuated with Garden State at the time.

And there is, of course, the current WIP, which is ambitious, if I do say so myself. Ambitious because it’s multiple novels and far more complex than anything else. It also has been unbearable to write so far. Pure agony, every word. Whoever says that writing should be fun all the time doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

But I’ve made tremendous progress. I’ve done a crap ton of world building, heaps of character background, research, and general soul searching. I pretty sure what the first book is about, I think. Wasn’t pleased with how it started, so I restarted Chapter One and then -

Hey.

Hey you.

What? Me?

No, the other douche with a keyboard. Yeah, I’m talking to you. You should take a look at this stuff I got.

Oh. No, thank you, I’m fine.

No really, look at it. Real smooth stuff, gets the blood pumping, if you know what I mean.

No, I don’t know what you mean. Was that an innuendo?

Inyourendo, heh heh. And no. Come on man, I’ll give you a free sample. Just a taste. You won’t regret it.

Well… maybe just a little…

And that’s how it starts kiddos. Just a little. Just a tiny bit of experimenting, and next thing you know, you’re staring at the screen and that flashing cursor, spacing out and drooling on yourself. Your mind’s been ensnared by that most wicked, most wonderful of drugs: an idea.

Yeah, I got an idea. A new book. One that is really annoying. Like, screaming neighbors annoying. Like, obnoxious coworkers annoying. This idea is so annoying, if there was an Olympic event for most annoying, it would win the gold.

So I’m going to do it. I’m locking the brain down. Any idea that crosses my mind is getting shown the exit immediately. Sorry, come back later. This brain is occupied.

I am not going to write a single other thing until I finish this book (it will be a novella, so hopefully it won’t take too long.) And once it’s done, it’s back to the epic WIP that is several… books… long.Ugh.

This brain is closed until further notice, please consider an alternate route.

Flooded cities. Wars over scarce resources. Virtual reality/the internet consuming people. The future kinda sucks. Or at least that’s what I’ve been lead to believe by lots of science fiction books and movies.

I yearn for optimism. We get enough pessimism per news cycle to turn anyone into a misanthropist, Debbie Downer, nihilist or religious fundamentalist.

Remember when Arthur C. Clarke thought up the geosynchronous orbit for satellites? Or when Isaac Asimov thought up robots that would be our truest, most faithful companions? Or when Jules Verne conceived of flights to the moon or ships that travelled great distances underwater? Yeah, those were the good old days.

I’d like to start seeing sci-fi novels that tackle the challenges of today in new ways. Writers are (supposed) to be the most creative bunch around, so who better to come up with crazy solutions to impossible problems?

The thing about impossible problems is that they’re only impossible if you give up. And the thing about crazy, fictional solutions to problems is that even the wildest idea in a science fiction novel might one day be realized.

There are signs of hope. Cory Doctorow routinely surprises with imaginative, optimistic sci-fi. Kim Stanley Robinson’s upcoming novel 2312 promises to present a hopeful, semi-near future. Same with Alastair Reynolds’ new novel, Blue Remembered Earth, where the tippy-top of human civilization has become, of all places, Africa.

A bright future doesn’t mean a future without conflict. A novel without conflict is not a novel. It’s not hard to stay grounded in realism if you are writing realistically about people. But if we’re talking realism, look also at the real, positive things people have accomplished in the last one hundred years.

Science fiction, more than any other genre, has the ability to light a fire under our collective ass and inspire new ideas and technologies. So get to it, geeks.

I write to music, and I don’t mean leaving iTunes on shuffle while I’m writing. I’ve talked about music and writing before, and I’ve seen other people blog about it, but it has become such a helpful tool in my writing repertoire it bares repeating.

You can use music as a tool to focus your novel. If you’re anything like me, you can get overwhelmed with ideas in the course of figuring out what your novel is about, where it ends, and everything else in between. It can be like going for a hike in a new place and discovering a dozen different trails leading in different directions. You don’t know which one to take, because each one looks interesting. But then again, there might be something wrong with one or more of those trails. If you pick the wrong one, you could waste a lot of time backtracking and trying to find where you went wrong.

That’s how I feel, or felt rather, about the current WIP I am doing battle with. All these possibilities opened up, and instead of being stuck without an idea, I was stuck with too many. That’s where the music came in.

When I start writing a story of significant length, one of the earliest things I do is make a playlist. I spend a lot of time doing it, too. I start by scanning my entire music library, finding artists or albums that tonally match what I want the book to be like. For instance, I was writing a story about suburban angst and went to Rocky Votolato’s albumSuicide Medicine for soundtrack material. I say soundtrack, because that is what you’re doing, creating a soundtrack. Here’s a few tips based on my process.

Know what your story is about – Building a soundtrack is about reinforcing your story. If you want to write a story about the unbreakable bonds of true love, you don’t want to pull from an album full of breakup songs, or the latest Marilyn Manson cd. Know a general tone you want to strike, and maybe some of the themes, too. If you’re not too sure yet, that’s fine. Think about the basic premise of your story and start listening to a bunch of music. Put the player on shuffle. When something matches up, it will feel right

It’s a sound track – Lyrics matter, unless they don’t. I have playlists for stories that are supposed to be epic, but the songs are about relationships, or driving on a desert highway, or something completely outside the realm of the story. It doesn’t matter, though, because I included the songs because of the music. A sorrowful piano waltz, a hard, marching drum beat, a joyful choir background, these are the sorts of sounds that enhance emotion.

Picture the movie – All writers dream of a movie deal. If they say they don’t, they’re lying. You picture your story in your head as if it were a movie, casting actors as your characters, seeing the set pieces, hearing the dialogue. What music is playing behind these scenes? You may think that you should write a scene and then select the music to fit, but I do it the other way round. I start staking out parts of the book with songs with the right feel or meaning, then write scenes to sync up with the soundtrack. I had only a vague idea about what my WIP was about and how it ended, but after finding some songs that spoke to me, the plot became much clearer.

Pace yourself – Be careful. We all like those cathartic scenes at the end of the movie or tv show with the sweeping orchestral tones or the poignant acoustic ballad, but those moments only mean something because of the moments that surround them. Don’t pick 25 songs that all rise in decadent crescendos. Your book is going to be made up of all kinds of scenes: quiet introspective ones, noisy ones, scary ones, happy ones, confusing ones. Finding a good pace is vital to your book. If you pace your soundtrack and remember rising action and that jazz, you’ll make a more complete playlist and hopefully, a more complete book.

There are a couple of things I’d avoid. Stay away from movie/TV show soundtracks, and songs that you’ve heard with movies, unless you absolutely can’t live without those tracks in your playlist. You don’t want to use stuff from the LOTR soundtrack and end up writing scenes that are a little too familiar. And don’t set the list in stone. You’re not writing the book based on what songs you choose. The songs are meant to support, influence and focus. If something starts feeling weird, pitch it and find a song that works better.

So there you go. I wrote a lot more about this than I intended to, but I feel it’s a great tool in the long slog that is writing a novel. Just like my tip on finding the one perfect sentence, a soundtrack can focus wild and wily stories into tight, coherent narratives.

Oh and by the way, Temporary Infinity is looking for novella manuscripts to publish. If you have one, drop by the site and see our guidelines, then submit!

- Z

Two days ago, I started writing a book. I’ve been doing a lot of researching and soul searching for this book, because I want it to be the best possible book I can make. Not that I wouldn’t say that for anything else, but I am determined to make a splash with this book, so I’ve taken the whole process up a notch from every angle. I not totally prepared yet, but my anxiousness to start the actual writing won out. And I’ve got probably the most important thing you can have to write a great book: one sentence.

It just so happens that I’ve been talking to a young writer friend lately, trying to give him some advice about writing. One of the things I told him to do, as an exercise, was to sum up his book in a single sentence. It’s an exercise that is one of the most important things you can do. If you can hook a publisher or an agent with a single sentence, chances are good you’ll be able to sell a lot of books. New writers don’t have the luxury of having a built-in audience, a standing fan base that knows their worth and will buy their books. You have to sell yourself every chance you get, and sometimes your chance is so small, it could boil down to a single sentence.

Take the most recent literary sensation, The Hunger Games, a series I devoured last weekend. If you distill the book into a single sentence, it might read something like

16 year-old Katniss Everdeen must fight 23 other teens to the death for the amusement of a corrupt civilization.

That is a sentence that demands the reader to at least take a look. Once you’re a couple chapters in, you are gone. It is hopeless. The story fills your attention and doesn’t let go until it’s 2am and you either pass out or finish it. A friend lent me a copy of the first book, I read it in a day and dropped the cash for the other books instantly.

Such a simple, compelling premise launches you like an arrow through the book. It doesn’t just get you to start reading — the premise, that short “thesis,” is so omnipresent in the story that you have to keep going to find out what happens. And the result is 24 million copies sold, a blockbuster film, and a line of merchandise that boggles the mind.

But for the writer just starting their book, that one sentence can serve another purpose. If you can take your story and simplify it into something short yet compelling, then you’ve got your thesis. Just like everyone learned in school about writing essays, a story thesis provides a focus. It gives you guidance in creating something that will be un-put-downable. Because if everything you write in that book comes back around to your thesis, and if that thesis is kick-ass, you’ll be in great shape.

Try it for yourself, writers. It may be difficult, depending on your genre, but try it and see what happens, then go take that sentence and try it on your friends and family and see if they’d want to read a book like that. If nothing else, whenever someone asks you that dreaded question, “Oh you’re a writer? What’s your book about?”, you’ll have an answer. And if that sentence comes out a hundred words long, or sounds bland and uninteresting, maybe you should rethink the whole book.

I’ve got my one sentence in hand, and it is going to reverberate through the whole book, and hopefully send shock waves around the world. Anyone want to share their own thesis?

The Ghost of Ozone Park

I didn’t reckon I could use a typewriter all that well cause after all I am a shitty writer. I make a lot of mistakes, but that don’t really make me a shitty writer. What does? I guess you’d have to answer that by knowing what makes a good writer. What makes a man – or woman – a writer of quality? Damned if I know, cause if I did I might be one. My best guess is that when you’re good, you aren’t really writing but painting a picture, and every word is a brush stroke meticulously planned. Some are Van Goghs, masters of emotion, others are Da Vincian in their pursuit of detail. Me, I’m Jackson Pollock – throwing shit on a blank canvas.
Old Jack insisted on the typewriter though. Something about the click-clacking noise and the feel of the pounding of keys and bars, and the rhythm of the carriage marching along, and that pleasant little ding and swoop at the end of the line. I thought it was mechanical, like being in an assembly line. Jack said it was the only way to go, from thought to page just as fast as you can type. He took one look at my laptop and dismissed it though I think he liked the idea of not having to change pages. But he had a fix for that, too.

“You make your own roll like this see? A continuous ream of paper for a stream of thought. As long as you got a thought you can keep going until you got no more.”

I didn’t have that much in my head though. That was a disappointment to Jack, and not the last. He’d sit me down in late afternoon when I knew the sun was bathing the park in orange and there’d be lots of chicks out, and then later when the sun wasn’t watching no more there’d be clubs to go to in Manhattan, and here I’d be in Queens clicking away on ancient technology for something I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to write, I’ll say it now. Casual readers’ll probably say bull shit, while any writers who see this now will hate me like their own daddies. That’s fine by me. But then, after I met Jack, I couldn’t do anything else with any feeling, so maybe I’ll be redeemed a little. They’ll probably hate me anyways for meeting their hero.

He looked like any other dude, except that he was working some everyman getup with greasy hair combed like he was an extra from some off-Broadway play. I was with this girl, don’t remember her name, only that I was getting more and more sure she wasn’t going to put out, at least not without me shelling out some serious dough at a fancy sushi place. She dragged me by the arm into this flower shop in Ozone Park and while she gazed dreamily at azaleas and baskets adorned with forget-me-nots, I saw this guy outside watching me.

It was freaky, but there’s a lot of weirdoes in New York. I forgot about him and ditched the girl, pretending I got an urgent text. Later that night I was with a buddy at this dive bar we went to cause the draft was cheap (tasted cheap too) and I saw the guy again, staring at me. I was drunk enough that I forgot I was a coward and went over to his part of the bar.

“What?” I said. He didn’t say anything.

“What you want, man? If you’re looking for a dance partner, you’re treeing up the wrong bark.” I was really drunk.

“Do you fear the dignity or shame of your experience?” was what he said. I was drunk and didn’t know what that meant, and I still don’t. I couldn’t really formulate a response, except to grope the bar for a drink till one found my hand and my esophagus.

About a week later, after the weird-ass riddle-spouting dude was a construct of a drunken sexless day, I saw him again. He was sitting crosslegged on my kitchen counter, fumbling with my phone.

“I’ve seen people talking away, all day long, on these boxes. Won’t be long till they just build themselves into boxes and then talk all day and never have to scrape themselves off the ground to someone’s eyes.”

“Who the hell are you man?” I found some bread and a toaster and combined the two.

“Name’s Jack. Jack Kerouac.”

“I know that name. You a friend of Trisha’s?”

“Don’t know Trisha,” he said. My toast popped up and he took one slice, but just sort of stared at it. He threw it down on the counter and crawled out the window to the fire escape and was gone.

I looked him up online and wow. First off, I felt bad cause I had never heard of the guy, and apparently a lot of people think he’s something special. Second, I saw he’s been dead 40 years. I considered whether or not I should quit drinking, and I had myself full and well convinced I’d made the encounters up till then, though how I’d made up a writer that I had barely heard of before I thought I’d leave to the shrinks to sort out.

I bused tables for meager pay, but I made enough for rent on my little place. It wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods, the usual shit you hear on the news, drugs and rapes and papas killing mamas. So yeah, cheap apartment. Which was good cause busing tables is not exactly Upper West Side level salary. Don’t you mistake me for some bohemian type here, I’d stomp on a few faces to make it big time, but people always say you have to have skills. I got no skills. Jack disagreed, in his way.

He showed up at my place one day, a week after the thing in the kitchen with the phone, and dropped the typewriter on my coffee table.

“You’ll need to find tape for it, I ain’t a wizard. Maybe you can use that box and call one.”

“Who are you man?” I knew, but come on. There’s no way the ghost of American creative royalty comes walking in through my door (literally, right through). I wasn’t into the hallucinogenics, then or now.

“Call me Jack, if you’d like, though I’m not partial to one name or another.”

“So you’re the beatnik guy, huh?”

“I’m not a beatnik, I’m Catholic.”

And then poof, like a fucking rain cloud in the middle of a facemelter of a day, he was gone, leaving that typewriter. I didn’t touch the thing, that relic that could have been my grandfathers, though I doubt he was a writer either. It’s not in the genes as they say. I’d go uptown to avoid it, or across the bridge to Jersey to find a couple of old high school buddies who still partied like it was high school. The problem seemed rather cut and dry – either I was taking too much alcohol or not enough. I decided to err on the side of the latter, just in case you know. We’d get these kegs that I swear these guys ripped off, but I ain’t a snitch or anything plus it was free beer to me and that’s the best kind. Then they’d go out to the river and throw rocks or bottles at the windows of empty warehouses. At least I remember hoping they were empty.

And I’d come back home somehow, never really knew most nights though I never ended up in a lockup so it didn’t bug me all that much. And sometimes there’d be this guy, this Jack guy, sitting in the dark on my couch.

I didn’t wake up one morning until it wasn’t morning anymore and the restaurant had left a message saying I’d get my last check in the mail. It’s not like I’d never got fired before, happens quite frequently actually, but still I got pretty depressed about it. So I stayed in bed and ignored my phone when it buzzed about some party somewhere or one of my alleged friends trying to pry me out to go troll for second-rate ass in third-rate bars. It all came to a head I guess, my skull pounding all the time and I remember thinking it was the devil trying to knock down the door and drag me away. When you break a law back in the bible times, they’d stone you right? Or hang you up to dry like the Man. I felt like the former was happening just then.

“You’re about as cheery as road kill,” said Jack from the couch. It was a studio apartment, there was nowhere to hide.

“What are you,” I mumbled into my pillow, “Marley or the one with chains?”

“Marley was the one with chains, flattened-skunk-man. No amount of water will wash that smell from your soul, you know.”

“Goddamn I wish my subconscious weren’t so crazy,” I said, flipping over. He looked like a statue, a fucking Buddha all crossed legs and hands together on the lap, except for that collared t-shirt and blue jeans and greasy hair. And for a second I’d thought there’d be a jangling holy band blowing their horns and that light you see shining from behind and inside a person in the movies, when they were dead or an angel. But then he stood up and looked at me like I was some hobo asking for the Taj Mahal.

“Blind and dumb to everything, aren’t you? Keep your head down eyes straight fingers curled and mind cold. There’s paper here on the table, and tape. I had to find it for you. Am I going to have to write for you too?”

“Write? What am I writing?”

He shrugged and walked into the bathroom. I got up later and looked but he was gone.

I stared at that typewriter a couple of days. I heard the garbage trucks going by at 6 in the morning, sounded like a fleet of them converging on the city to remove the detritus of the day. I heard birds, don’t know if I ever heard birds before in Queens, maybe they were always there and I didn’t know it. I googled birds on my laptop, thinking I’d figure out what kind were singing at me, and I read about blue jays and parakeets, red breasted robin, blackbirds cause I remembered that one Beatles song. I didn’t figure what ones I had heard, if I heard any at all.

I heard car horns. I heard the ear-stabbing mind-collapsing thud of bass from excessive car stereos. I heard airplanes. And somewhere in there I heard my own heartbeat.

Jack came back. He was staring at the little flatscreen tv I had got as a hand-me-down from my cousin.

“Don’t work,” I said.

“Don’t know what that is, but it’s probably a waste of time. You write anything yet?”

“I haven’t got a clue what to write. Besides, I got to get a job.” It was late afternoon, about a week after I’d been canned. I knew a guy who could probably hook me up with another gig, but it’d be as bad or worse than the last one. But rent came due every month, or so I’m told.

“Just write. You got a voice inside of you that wants to be outside, and no one’s going to pay to hear it.”

“They’d pay to read it?”

“Not the point,” he said shaking his head. “You got to be a dumbsaint of the mind, a force for the words that move the mountains. Doesn’t matter what they’re about, long as it’s something, long as it’s the truth.”

He hung around that afternoon but wouldn’t answer any more questions. He’d just point at the typewriter and stare at me, dark eyes clawing with dead weight to my guilt. I’m already crazy, I figured, and three days sober. Might as well pretend I’m J.D. fucking Salinger. I wrote exactly 17 words that first afternoon. Jack took one look at the page, after I had sweated out them 17 words and cried uncle and gave up. He shook his head and walked through the goddamn door.

I got the job, cleaning apartments in Forest Hills, and jesus what a mindfuck that was. Every one I went to was a little microcosm of the world of these ants in their boxes, and all the time it was don’t touch that and you steal this and you’re fired and the cops’ll snap your dick off, or something. I washed away dust and shame for those people, for minimum wage.

And in the red-orange afternoon the ghost and the typewriter loomed. I studied the thing into the night, sometimes nursing a beer and others without a light on though in New York you could do your taxes by the light pollution. It had an off-white plastic shell that coddled the metal frame and the shiny keys, all looking brand new. And every now and then I took a stab at them, and sure as he had said whatever I thought ended up in black burning letters on heavenly white. Trouble was, what I had to say wasn’t interesting, even to me.

“Doesn’t matter, not right away,” said Jack one night after I had thought this. He could read minds too, apparently. Fucking crafty ghost. He had got his hands on my phone again. “Your box doesn’t make much noise anymore.”

“You killed my social life, brain tumor. I’m a neurotic mess, drifting in and out of other peoples homes like you drift in and out of my head.” Old Jack, he smiled.

“See? You’re getting somewhere.” Took me a day to realize he meant I should write that down. I did, just now, here for this little story.

Who knows, this may be my masterpiece. Everything else I write ends up pretty much just like my life. I’m my own character, a puppet I ram into walls thoroughly for dramatic effect. Jack would approve, I think, so long as I tell the truth.

He stopped coming by. Never did find out why he picked me of all people. You all can see I’m not much of a writer. It’s just whatever’s on my mind at the time really. Maybe he’s a little bone of song, and he’ll find other people that he can trip up and ruin with the words. All these words now, that’s all that matters. Cause words move mountains, or so I’m told.