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Thursday, January 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008 
Confession time.
I spend a ridiculous amount of time in bookstores. So much so that all I need is a nametag and sweet old ladies will be asking me to help them find the latest Sue Grafton mystery. (What's she up to now, the symbol for Pi?)
I find silly reasons to go. The library only has one copy of the book I want and it’s always checked out—let’s go to the bookstore! I have a half-hour to kill while my daughter is at her dance class—let’s go! It’s Tuesday…again. Let’s go!
Actually, I do find myself there “doing research.”
When I was shopping for representation, I looked at the acknowledgment pages of books by certain authors to see if they thanked their agents. (Kristin got a lot of praise, by the way). When I had to get a book-jacket photo taken, I was that weird guy standing in the aisle flipping through dozens of books and only looking at the authors’ photos. Somewhat akin to looking at Playboy for the articles.
For what it’s worth, Alice Sebold has a very dramatic portrait where she’s looking off-camera. James Patterson has sold 80 million books, but for some reason he still looks angry. (Though I hear he's extremely nice). Nicholas Sparks looks so cute you don't know whether to pinch his cheeks or smack him with a wiffle bat. And Stephen King, well, Stephen King still looks freaky, beard or no beard.
I’ve also flipped through books looking for strange things, like how other authors handle italics in foreign languages. HOTEL has a few bits and pieces of Chinese and Japanese phraseology and my dyslexic use of italics was messing things up.
And of course, I’ve done what every aspiring author has done. I’ve gazed longingly at the shelf where a book with my name on it might be stocked––someday. Yes, I did it while HOTEL was just a glimmer in my eye. Right there. Next to some guy named Richard Ford, whoever he is. Pulitzer something.
Ah well, maybe people will think we’re related.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008 
Borg is the new black.It’s 12:04 A.M. as I write this. For some this is yawningly late––while others are waking up, slipping into club-wear and heading out for the night. I guess I’m somewhere in between, minus the booty-shorts.
Back in college, I waited tables in Seattle’s U-District then caught the bus back to my dorm on Capitol Hill (There's no Capitol there, in case you're wondering). If I slung crab-legs until 11:00-ish, that meant I’d be starting my homework after midnight and working until 3-4 in the morning. Then I’d roll out of bed and head off to 9:00 A.M. classes.
Four or five hours of sleep seemed to work just fine. I’d catch a nap on the weekend and all would be right with the world.
This college work ethic continued into my newspaper and advertising careers. Deadlines were never creatures to be contained in 8-hour workdays. As a salary-man, I became an employers wet-dream––regularly putting in 65 hour work weeks.
One brutal December, I worked 285 hours. That’s about 70 hours/week, even with time off for the holidays. I worked every weekend, and literally slept at the office a few nights. (A couch in your office isn’t that sexy when you’re sleeping on it).
The joke was that if I kept up this pace my kids would start calling me Uncle Daddy––so I scaled back on the work schedule. I moved to Montana where my commute became a four-mile bike ride. Even my clients worked less. It was literally and figuratively a breath of fresh air.
But it was still in me to work. So when the kids were comfortably drooling on their Spider-Man pillowcases, I’d sit down and write for a few hours. I still do, though with my emancipated work schedule I’m able to write in the mornings more often.
I remember Orson Scott Card saying, “If you want to write, it helps to get your life in order first.” That’s what I had done, without really knowing it. Because if I hadn’t unplugged from my frenzied work-schedule, I doubt I’d have had the creative reserves to write. I would have completely assimilated into the corporate Borg. In my case, escaping to a smaller town enabled me to spend time in Storyland.
What about you? How’s that putting your life in order thing working out? When and how do you go about the business of writing?
Fellow author and blogger Carleen Brice talks about taking care of herself as she marches towards her next dealine. I think she's on to something.
And who knows, maybe creative-types are just tilted this way. I remember reading an interview with Berkeley Breathed, the creator of Opus and Bloom County, in which he explained that he normally completed an entire month’s worth of his daily comic strip in a giant binge-like work session. He’d work for 4-5 days straight, often without sleep. If I did that I’d have to be on meth, but hey, to each their pharmaceutical-enhance own.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008 
But, while other authors are squirreled away in their luxurious offices or even just quiet corners of their homes, I’m here. It ain’t much, but it works. And while I was taking a break I noticed I’m sitting smack dab in the 300 section. For you Dewey Decimal enthusiasts out there, I just realized I’m sitting in a secluded corner of the library, surrounded by sex books. I think the Dewey Decimal System classifies this section as "social processes"--or as William Shakespeare so eloquently put it, "Making the beast with two backs". Whatever you call it, there are more books on social processes to my immediate left than the local porn emporium (so I’m told).
As I’m writing this I keep imagining that the library must have a special security cam just for this section. (Waving).
Anyway, the clean-up edit is just about done. And my non-fiction reading list just got infinitely more interesting.