thoughts

I am now a member of a highly-exclusive, secret society with strict qualifications for its members.

It’s a Writers’ Club. You know, like a Book Club, only we’re reading each others’ books (and short stories, and poems, etc).

As with many of the intriguing developments in my life over the past two years, my recruitment began innocently enough with a series of tweets to Britt and Eric Smith. They had been pulling all-day writing sessions in a local coffee shop and posting photos of their back-to-back laptops accompanied by mucho caffeine. I commented a few times on how that would be an altogether fabulous idea to get me back into gear in editing my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel.

That is when the mysterious invitation appeared in my inbox. No location, no details. Just a question – would I be interested in joining the Writer’s Club?

(Luckily, the first rule of Writers’ Club is not that you do not talk about Writers’ Club. Those sorts of clubs are not ones where I particularly flourish as a member.)

I nervously accepted the invitation and then spent about two solid weeks freaking out about other people reading my novel. Not just any other people. Writers. People who take plot and characterization seriously. Some of them have degrees in English.

Luckily, I was at least slightly prepared for their onslaught of literate opinions, but that preparation hadn’t been an easy process.

I spent the early part of 2011 reading and re-reading my novel, not really knowing what to do what to do next. The book had a lot of good bits, but I knew it wasn’t a very good book yet. It was like the skeletal structure of a very handsome person. No one calls a skeleton handsome, but  good bones are a great start.

I just needed muscles and flesh to cover them up with.

I heeded the advice of many authors more experienced than I – I set the book aside for almost a whole year. Then, a year after I penned its first words, I printed the entire thing out on paper and began a serious edit pass.

Why paper? Because, any proofreader worth their salt will tell you they make better edits with a pencil in hand. Also, it encouraged me to read non-sequentially. Taking on each chapter as an individual entity meant I attacked the weak spots much harder than if I had read them in sequence.

Flash forward to two weeks ago. I had a fist-full of tattered pages that have been with me on every commute to work, every visit to the gym – even on the plane to Vegas. Once I was past my authorial nervous breakdown, the time had come to take all those painstakingly scribbled paper edits and convert them into something cohesive and readable.

How did my first top secret meeting go? Just fine (after I first got drunk and confessed to Eric how terrified I was). It turns out, other people do find my book interesting. Even people with English degrees. They also find all the awkward bits I find awkward to be awkward. They also find some fun turns of language and plot that I didn’t even intend, but that make perfect sense.

I am much less nervous about mailing the chapters for my second engagement with the club. Now the problem isn’t fear of sharing – it’s not being sure when I’ve edited enough.

That and the randomly failing keys on my laptop, but that’s a story for another day.

I talk a big talk about my avoidance of television. Friends trumpet their favorite new shows, and I gladly ignore them.

My life is already so exciting and hilarious, see, that I don’t need situation comedies and crime thrillers to insert hilarity and excitement.

Except, lately that a bit of a lie. It has come to my attention that Netflix Streaming has added The X-Files to its extensive repertoire. And while I may be safe from the temptation most new television has to offer, I cannot resist forty-two minutes spent with my friends Mulder and Scully.

(What’s amusing about this is that we have the seven seasons of X-Files on DVD sitting just beside the television, but am I watching those DVDs? No. I am too lazy to load them into the DVD player. I would rather watch a stream.)

At this point I have this shit memorized. Every re-watch is like seven seasons of Rocky Horror Picture Show talkbacks (“You’re a backhoe!”) and Top Ten Lists. (Top Ten Times Mulder Screams “SCULLY!”)

So, every night – usually just after dinner or rehearsal – I say to E, “Let’s watch an episode.” (Top Ten Times Scully Shoots a Perp (or Mulder)) And we do. It’s great. It ends with my lying somewhat prone on the couch, carefully prodding at my laptop

(Top Ten Oblique References to Mulder’s (okay: Duchovny’s) Porn Addiction)

Then, I suggest, “One more?”

(Top Ten Times Scully is Captured)

This is where we enter the danger zone. I cannot stay awake for two consecutive episodes of TV I have already seen and possibly memorized while lying somewhat prone on the couch.

(Top Ten Times Scully is Knocked Unconscious by Walking Into a Wall)

And so I allow my eyes to drift closed, spirited towards fitful rest by the dulcet tones of Agent Scully.

(“Mulder, toads just fell from the sky.”)

It has got to stop.

 

The Las Vegas strip is a relative joy to walk, day or night. Both sides of the street are a wide promenade of adult playground lined with fake classical sculpture, walk-up bars, and slot machines as close to the sidewalk as legally allowed. The sidewalk is filled with milling drunks, bachelorettes, and people dressed as Mickey Mouse and Sponge Bob while double-fisting 40s.

(There is no open container law in Las Vegas. Or, rather, if there is a law, it is one that allows open containers. The next casino over sells drinks in massive containers shaped like miniature Eiffel Towers.)

(There is a strong possibility you will see a picture of me wielding one in the near future.)

Every ten feet of promenade there are hucksters. At first I assumed they must be trying to pull people into different casinos or parties. No. There are 100-foot-tall billboards of Celine Dion for that.

They are hucking girls. Girls delivered right to your room. That is the gist I have been able to discern without actually taking one of their flyers.

That doesn’t surprise or offend me in the least. The disturbing part is the manner of hucking. I do not think they can actually say anything about the girls or what the girls are legally allowed to do with you in the state of Nevada. As a result, the group of silent hucksters are uniformed in neon-colored shirts crammed with text explaining their service model.

Even more prominent, they whip their fistfuls of flyers to and fro, creating a viscerally disturbing smacking sound. Like some pornographic echolocation, they begin to aim the smacking at you from a distance of about ten feet, and if you make even the slightest visual acknowledgement of their existence they will know. Even a sidelong glance at the color of their neon shirt.

Then they are upon you.

The closest I have come to pumping money (or anything else) into their business model was when a particular copse of the silent, smacking hucksters was accompanied by a sole verbalizing huckster.

He was hucking their neon shirts in every possible color.