Another Month of Madness

Well, it's February 28, which means I am once again one day away from madness.

This coming month of madness in March is called National Novel Editing Month, or NaNoEdMo, and is the annual, worldwide challenge to perform fifty hours of editing on our manuscripts within the 31 days of March.

I'll be editing A Double Yellow Line, my February novel effort, a book about a burnt-out personal success coach reinvigorated by a new and unlikely client. I think with proper work, this story has the depth and potential to be worth shopping around. The thing I'm most pleased about is that I still really like the story, even after the brutality of writing its 50,563 words in only 21 days. Even today I'm still coming up with ideas for punching up dialogue, improving various scenes, and deepening the complexity of the characters. This is a good sign to me as the author who has to keep working on it, and also gives me hope of finishing as I enter the March madness (a different kind of madness, not basketball).

I must say, however, that the time commitment of the editing challenge in March is greater than my time commitment to the writing challenge in February. It took me only forty-three hours to write A Double Yellow Line...now I have to step up and do fifty hours of editing. Considering, however, that I'll have 31 days to do that, while I wrote it in only 21, there's some cushion in there. Still, being a fast typist, I can write a lot faster than I can edit. So this will be in some ways a bigger challenge. It means a daily commitment of more than an hour and a half, without fail, to complete the challenge. Perhaps I'll get lucky, and find that I complete my editing process in fewer than 50 hours, in which case I can quit early. I may not have officially won the challenge of putting in 50 hours, but I will have won the tangible, meaningful challenge of creating an original piece of fiction that is ready to shop to agents or publishers. At that point, I'll begin working my way through my quota of 100 rejection letters, and be finally on my way to publication as an author!

If I ever get that far...

Because I'll be spending April working on a business idea of mine, and if that doesn't take off right away, I'm scheduled to write a fourth novel in May. So perhaps in June I can pull A Double Yellow Line back off the shelf and steward it through the next set of gates, that of getting it into the hands of a good agent.

Well, that's the news from here. Wish me luck as I dive into March. It's going to be another wild ride. I'll keep posting here about the adventures and misadventures of being a writer, so stay tuned for more.

Thanks for reading.

Write on!

Letter From The Front - Feb. 21, 2005

VICTORY!!!!

Well, Mom, we did it! It's V-Day over here, with lots of hootin' and hollerin', soldiers pouring beer over each other's heads (we don't have any champagne), and the locals cheering us along the road, throwing us kisses and flowers and shaking patriotic signs that read:

----------------
-- We Love --
-- You, Esé! --
----------------

After killing 50,134 enemy combatants, the defeated unwritten-word dictatorship signed an unconditional surrender late tonight, just before midnight. Our commanders met with their leadership in the capitol city, Blankpage, for the signing of the surrender, an event covered extensively by the press. (By the way, the city has been renamed from Blankpage to 'Bestseller', an exotic, high-sounding name the Administration chose to serve as a constant reminder to the local citizens of the unending possibilities they can now enjoy as liberated words on the page.)

We certainly did our job as warriors. We kicked some major unwritten-word butt. But quite honestly, the literary war we fought left a landscape of relative chaos and disarray across 293 pages. So now we'll turn it over to the nation-builders to come in and clean up the mess we made and make it a respectable country again. Rumor has it the U.N. nationbuilders will arrive on March 1st, with an aggressive goal: to completely turn around this war-torn (but liberated) country into a functioning, revenue-generating book within the 31 days of March.

Well, I'm gonna stop writing now. Better to hurry up with my outprocessing and get home as soon as possible. Then I can tell you all about it in person, instead of in a letter.

Can't wait to see you and the family!

You know, right after I got called up, Dad promised me a new computer when I got home from the war. Has he ordered it yet? I trust he has. I'll be ready to celebrate the victory by ripping out the flight simulator as soon as I get home!

Well, gotta run. I'm gonna go cheer on some of my buddies, who are still making their way to the raging party going on here at the main Army base in Bestseller, before we all ship out.

See you soon! Get that cake ready!

Love,
Your boy

Letter From The Front - Feb. 19, 2005

Hi, Mom.

Sorry I haven't written in a few days. Things have been busy here, and we're all getting pretty tired. War kinda wears you down after a while, you know?

Anyway, it's all mostly good news. We've had some fits and starts in our offensive the past week, but still we've been making steady progress, and the commanders told us today that we are over 80% complete with our objectives. According to the casualty counts, we have now slain 41,389 unwritten words. Only a mere 8,611 unwritten words stand between us and complete victory.

The commanders have been stepping up the attacks, anxious to put an end to the conflict and be able to win political points by sending us home as early as possible. They say we'll be running sorties nonstop over the next couple days, and my own unit will conduct at least eight more 30-minute raids, in just the next two days, so that we can get this mess mopped up and go home. So we've been working pretty hard, and we're pretty tired. But I guess I already said that.

The other good news is that only a couple days ago, as we were closing in on our final objectives, the whole grand strategy became brilliantly clear to me. I understand in wonderful detail exactly what the main characters were supposed to be doing, how they would get there, and how we would know when the story had ended. It's hard work fighting a war not really knowing what the big picture is all about. Not knowing where your orders are gonna send you next. You see some pretty crazy stuff out here, and you can't always tell whether it makes any sense or not. But like I said, when I finally got the whole picture, I could see how brilliant this February offensive is going to turn out, despite my ignorance throughout most of it.

We're so close to victory now, it feels like a perfect certainty. Now it's just a matter of how quickly we can clean up the last pockets of resistance so we can pack up our gear, head for the helos, and chopper our way out of here. I had hoped to be home by the 21st. I won't make it. But if our final raids are as successful as I hope them to be, we will have completed our objectives on Monday, the 21st. We'll probably have a couple of days of clean-up and outprocessing out of the country, then I'll be home to enjoy the rest of the week with you, Dad, and my sweetheart.

Well, it's late and I need to get my sleep. The next two days may very well be the hardest and most demanding of the war, but they will be our last!

See you soon! Get that cake baked! Junior's comin' home!

Love,
Your boy

Things That Make You Go Hmmm....

Down the rabbit hole we go. Read the following passage:

"First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.

"If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

"On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite - just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals."

Would you like to know who the author is? Carl Sagan, perhaps? Isaac Asimov? Click for the answer. And apparently, he's not alone.

Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, wrote an intriguing article back in April 2000 for Wired magazine, "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", that cites the book by Ray Kurzweil that cites the passage above. Joy, a leading computer architect, is also deeply troubled by the ramifications of unlimited development of robots, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology, and he suggests some frightening scenarios that could result.

Personally, I think our drifting into complete machine dependence is virtually inevitable. We've been doing it for years, and I don't see us ever stopping. We just can't resist the benefits, or the competitive necessity. I also think increased and perhaps total integration of machines into our bodies is virtually inevitable (here's why), something I took for granted in my last novel, Asteroid Burn.

But I'm also not sure it's a bad thing. Sure, being wiped out in a matter of hours by a nanotech accident in New Mexico is a bit alarming. But the evolution of humans into cyborgs over the years? Not so troubling. Joy cites his alarm that "on this path our humanity may well be lost." Lost in its current form, yes. But lost completely? No. Not for a long, long time. It will change, evolve. If this is the evolution of humanity, it is what we chose for ourselves. The shift may happen faster than I think (as Kurzweil argues), but I still think we won't be able to say no seriously enough to avoid it. Bill Joy and Freeman Dyson may criticize the scientists for succumbing to the irresistable seduction of more power through knowledge, but consumers, corporate managers and government planners are just as guilty, if not more so. They create the market for the scientists to play in.

I do have to say one thing, though. Will you futurists, technologists and armchair theorists PLEASE STOP SAYING TECHNOLOGY WILL FREE US FROM WORK?!??! I'm so tired of hearing that. Technology MAKES work, people. Every invention that "frees" us, whether it's a fax machine or a cellphone, increases the productivity demands that are placed upon us and the overall complexity that we must manage on a daily basis. If that weren't enough, you also have to maintain each fancy new invention with things like a renewable power supply, file and resource management, preferences, updates and patches, repairs, and all the rest of it. This is why I think, as the writer up top suggests, we will eventually be reduced to the status of domestic animals. We simply don't claim for ourselves what we work so hard to get, namely time for ourselves and for our lives as humans. Truthfully, we'd all rather be robots.

We envy their efficiency and productivity. We wish we could see the world with as much certainty and authority as they do. We envy their ability to get the job done, no matter how mundane or dangerous, without the trouble of fears and anxieties and office politics and last night's dispute with the spouse getting in the way. We love the entertainment that we get from them and other forms of technology. In short, we admire them, and even if we knew how to stop their march across our species, I'm not convinced we would want to.

I have many more thoughts about this subject, and could write for a couple of hours about it.

But the battery in my Palm Pilot is running low, my email icon is flashing, and I want to create a new playlist for my iPod. My hard drive will be sluggish unless I defragment it, I need to replace the printer cartridge, the fax machine is beeping for a paper refill, my cellphone will die if I don't plug it in, my computer has reminded me to scan it for spyware, and Windows wants to install a new security patch. Oh, and at some point today, when I get a break, I need to eat lunch. (While I'm doing that, I'll relax from all this techno-slavery by downloading a new ring tone for my cellphone.) Oh, and it's a good thing I have a good-paying job, or I wouldn't be able to afford all this maintenance!

Sorry, folks, I would like to write more, but duty calls! (But isn't this an amazing time we live in?!)

What do you think? Leave a comment...

Why Humans Will Become Cyborgs

Given the choice between chronic leg pain for the rest of your life, and a bionic leg that's stronger, more durable and more flexible than the original, give me the odds on your saying, "No, thanks, Doc. I'll stick with what I've got. It may be disabled and painful, but dammit, it's human!"

Nobody seems to have heartburn over pacemakers, the pun notwithstanding.

Come to think of it, who needs pain or heartache to upgrade their bodies in the first place? People don't need pain or damage to monkey around with their body. Can you say 'laser hair removal,' or 'Lasik surgery'? People will do it because they can. Why? Because people simply can't resist improvements.

It's only one small step to go from walking on crutches to strapping on a prosthetic leg. And it's only another small step from wearing a plastic prosthetic leg to permanently attaching a "smart" bionic one. And yet another small step from putting bionics in the leg to putting them in the brain. ("Hey, Junior, do you see that Susan B. Anthony on the other side of the stadium? Look! Upper deck, by that white Reebok sneaker. See it there, underneath the empty popcorn bag? Run over there and get it for Daddy. Quick, before somebody else catches it!")

Why do we count Robocop and Star Trek's Lt. Cdr. Data among our modern heroes?

This is why I think the cyborg future is not only inevitable, but we'll mostly enjoy it, and wonder how we ever lived without these marvelous inventions.

(Just before the computers disconnect our brains permanently and take over, of course. Muahahahahaha!)

100 Things About Me

I favorably mentioned the Tequila Mockingbird blog in a previous post...the author, Julia, filled out a list called 100 Things About Me, and posted it. It was entertaining to read, so I thought I'd give it a go.

100 Things About Me

1. I am opposed to filling out lists like this because I don't like to confine myself to labels.

2. I enjoyed filling out this list.

3. I find this contradiction amusing.

4. I think Chris Tucker is funny.

5. I wish I could spend my life as a famous novelist. But that would require me to write for a living, so...maybe not.

6. Right Said Fred's album "Up" is grossly underappreciated.

7. I never thought I could love so much until I became a father.

8. Philosophy runs in the males of my family.

9. I think Jerry Stocking has profound things to say.

10. NLP frightens me. It is a form of black magic.

11. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Which is as good a reason as any to take guns off the streets.

12. Actually, people don't kill people. Bullets kill people. You can have any gun you want as long as I can ban the sale of ammunition for it. But then, we all know that won't work.

13. I love my iPod. It is one of the greatest inventions ever.

14. I am very open-minded musically. In fact, the only kinds of music I don't like are country, smooth jazz, elevator music, reggae, zydeco, New Age, folk, bluegrass, Cajun, punk rock, Celtic, Gospel, Latin, R&B, disco, oldies, some heavy metal, and almost all contemporary hip-hop. I don’t understand people who limit their music listening to specific genres.

15. I don't know how to play any musical instrument. This does not mean that the members of Insane Clown Posse can fairly be considered musicians.

16. I am a loving, open, tolerant, supportive, caring, conscientious, and spiritually sensitive human being.

17. Except when I am being a hateful, vengeful, judgmental, selfish, sneaky, lazy, cheating sonofabitch.

18. I don’t always know which one I’m being.

19. I used to be an evangelical Christian. I gave it up in favor of love and forgiveness.

20. I played two leading roles in high school.

21. I am a lesbian trapped in a man's body.

22. I think Austin Powers is funny. (Groovy, baby, Yeah!)

23. I like Planes, Trains and Automobiles. No, not the movie. Planes, trains and automobiles!

24. I like to read political thrillers.

25. I think it would be cool to live in Seattle.

26. I wish I understood classical music better.

27. I believe that everyone has something to learn and something to teach.

28. I believe that men are conditioned to play masculine roles that deny them their humanity and do incalculable damage to their relationships with themselves and others. I’m blessed to have found a group of men who agree.

29. I find it difficult to come up with one hundred things to say about myself. I think this is a blessing.

30. James Bond rocks.

31. Political Correctness made me a better racist.

32. I want to learn to speak Italian someday.

33. I am not sure what death is, or what happens afterwards.

34. I don’t know if there is a God or not. Interestingly, this does not prevent me from believing in one.

35. I’m not sure my spiritual beliefs are for Her sake anyway.

36. If you see me holding onto a belief for too long (e.g., five minutes), please throw cold water in my face. Then be kind to me and hand me a towel. Then be kind to yourself and run like hell!

37. My picture has appeared on the front page of a local newspaper three times. None of those appearances were for alleged war crimes. (Then again, the pests and insects were never consulted.)

38. I have never stolen anyone’s identity. To my knowledge. Well…define ‘identity.’

39. I think life on earth is a huge cosmic joke. I only wish I could remember the punchline more often.

40. I really dislike cooking. And drawing. And gardening. And knitting. And stamp-collecting. I could go on, but what’s the point?

41. Summers in Chicago are some of my most precious memories from childhood.

42. I lived in Washington, DC for six years. Or so the parking tickets say.

43. Arizona is a state that still likes people. Well, white people, anyway, and isn't that a start?

44. I happen to know that snakes feel dry to the touch, not slimy.

45. Google is my favorite search engine.

46. I am terrified of being stuck for even a moment without something interesting to read or do.

47. I loved Crystal Pepsi, and am deeply troubled that it’s not being made anymore.

48. The Big Lebowski is one of my favorite movies of all time. (The Dude abides…)

49. In moderation, gumdrops are delicious.

50. I don’t know why doctors are called quacks.

51. I don’t know why psychologists are called shrinks.

52. I don’t know why cops are called pigs.

53. I think I know why cops are called…cops. Constable On Patrol, pig!

54. I hate watching the bus or train pull away from the platform just as I arrive.

55. I think Bob Newhart is funny.

56. I love all-American food. Meat and potatoes, baby!

57. I got two parking tickets last year. Both in front of my own house.

58. I drink enough Pepsi to pay for the company’s annual advertising expenses.

59. I would have made a superb diplomat.

60. I have never in my life consumed illicit drugs of any kind.

61. It is REALLY HARD for me to come up with 100 things about myself.

62. Flagstaff, AZ is my favorite city.

63. I have broken a few hearts. Yeah, I feel bad about it.

64. I love cool logos. Especially on jackets, sweatshirts, t-shirts, and baseball caps.

65. I once held a banana-clip assault rifle in my hand and let it rip. That sand dune never knew what hit it.

66. I was a junior varsity basketball player in high school. Because of my raw talent and skill, my season play consisted of two minutes in the last quarter of the last game of the season.

67. As an adult, I discovered I was a pretty good softball player.

68. My bowling score rarely tops 120, but I still enjoy the game.

69. I love books and music. I have way too much of both.

70. I stole money from my parents to buy candy. I have not paid them back, because I was stealing, after all, not borrowing.

71. Once when I was five or six years old, I ran away from home with a friend. The guy who took us back home was the cop sitting in the bar that we went to.

72. Boston Legal is my favorite TV show. Desperate Housewives is cool, too.

73. I want to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout someday. It’s much faster than QWERTY.

74. I do not understand why our days in secondary education were filled with geography, chemistry, history, math, English, and the like, instead of wealth building, decision making, creative thinking, interpersonal relationships, and running a decent meeting.

75. I never thought I could write a book in a month. I was stunned when I actually did it. I just might do it again.

76. I never thought being a parent would be such hard work.

77. I consider myself an introvert.

78. I can name every member of The Wiggles.

79. I am almost entirely opposed to war. I also think jet fighters, submarines, aircraft carriers, and special operations forces are cool.

80. Careers I have contemplated at one time or another: police officer, jet fighter pilot, actor, concert promoter, and novelist.

81. Careers I have not contemplated at one time or another: all the ones I’ve actually had.

82. I was a volunteer firefighter in Manassas, Virginia.

83. I invited President George H.W. Bush and his wife Laura to my college graduation.

84. I am a college dropout.

85. I once applied for a job at the CIA. I think the fact that I lied on my résumé is why they never called me.

86. I studied the Russian language for four years.

87. When I die, I want my ashes to be scattered across the Russian earth.

88. I once wrote a complete curriculum for a college-level class on Russian military power. I didn’t deliver it anywhere, I just wrote it. Yes, for fun.

89. I find astronomy and physics fascinating, even though I don’t understand any of it. I don’t read about it because to read something I don’t understand for no tangible purpose in my daily life seems like too severe of a waste of time.

90. When I was at the lowest point in my life, it was A Course In Miracles that pulled me out of the depths.

91. Whatever you may think of what I’ve written here, it has nothing to do with me. As it turns out, this is a blessing for us both.

92. I am terrified of dying before I “figure it all out.” Subjected to the scrutiny of a court of law, however, I’m not sure I would be able to satisfactorily explain what that means. I think it has to do with feeling satisfied about my life.

93. I love my family.

94. I am hugely grateful for my life and the people in it.

95. If you didn’t understand something I wrote here, good for you! I’m stuck thinking I do.

96. I am learning that I am in love with my “stories”. They are more precious to me than my health, my family, my ambitions, and my money. And if I’m not careful, they will kill me one day.

97. I am a night person.

98. Strip clubs are fun places to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live in one.

99. When I need to drown my sorrows or blow off some stress, my drug of choice is nicotine.

100. I don't think J. Krishnamurti is funny. On the other hand, I do find him to be profoundly wise and insightful.

Letter From The Front - Feb. 14, 2005

Happy Valentine's Day, Mom!

Is Dad going to take you out to a nice dinner tonight? I guess, after you remind him what day this is, right?

Things are going just fine on the writing front. Not too much to report. We lost some ground over the weekend. Didn't write at all, mostly to give the troops a much deserved rest after our rousing success with our thirty-minute writing raids last week.

But we're back on tempo, and last night the enemy's casualty count of unwritten words had risen to 30,131. Although we've taken a few casualties of our own, my commander says that we've crossed the critical threshold of 30,000 words laid to rest on the page. That's 60% of the battle, and he says it's all downhill from here. I hope he's write...er, right. (Ha-ha! Freudian slip!)

Seriously though, I've written a lot of theory and background exposition, but the story still lacks a clear, tangible direction. But my commander reminds me not to try to fight the whole war by myself; let the politicians and senior officers worry about the grand strategy. My job is to just nail at least 1,786 words to the wall each day, and I'm very confident I can do that. Being that today is the 14th of a 28-day month, Pentagon timetables say we should have at least killed 25,000 unwritten words by now. Considering we're already over 30,000, and exceeding our quota nearly every day, the Administration is very pleased and has lots to crow about back home.

Because of our slippage over the weekend, we might not finish by the 18th like I'd hoped. If things go well, and we work really hard, we might be able to regain the momentum we lost. But sooner or later, I'm coming home, Mom, and in one piece, I promise.

Start planning my coming-home party. I want yellow cake with chocolate frosting; you know that's my favorite. Don't need a lot of people there. It'll be good enough to be safe at home again, having fought another brutal and relentless literary war, and to have come home with one more medal for bravery, and one more printed manuscript, to show off to the grandkids I'm sure I'll have someday.

Don't let dad forget to take you out tonight! You deserve it! Give him my best.

Love,
Your boy

Discovered A Wonderful Blog Today

If you like good writing about the funny stuff of life, you might want to check out the tequila mockingbird blog.

The blogger, Julia, tells some delightful stories about 30-something life in busy Washington, DC (a place I lived myself, so I can relate). She's also developed quite a following from telling her amusing tales, and she deserves it. She does it very well.

Write on, Julia!

Letter From The Front - Feb. 11, 2005

Dear Mom:

Sorry I haven't written in a while...It doesn't mean things are going badly. In fact, things have actually been going quite well on the writing front.

Our literary forces are marching right though the middle column of the enemy's forces. Although we started out a little short-handed of equipment and ammo -- the enemy caught us pretty flat-footed at first, and it got downright scary at times -- the supply ships must have arrived, because we've been firing nouns, prepositions and adjectives without interruption for a few days now. We've been slaying unwritten words right and left.

Of course, they're not telling us their casualty counts, but we're keeping our own score, best as we can determine. Our commander last night told us that, so far, we have killed as many as 26,459 unwritten words. Intelligence reports say the remaining forces number only a little over 23,000. We're more than halfway to overcoming all the opposition! Our commander says if the war keeps going as well as it is, we could mop up this mess by the end of next week and be home early. That would mean I would be home in time for us to celebrate Washington's Birthday together on the 21st! (I can't imagine not being home for that...the family readings of the Federalist Papers, the turkey dinner, the ritual chopping down of the apple tree...I can't wait!)

Unfortunately, I won't be home in time to spend Valentine's Day with my darling fiancee. I haven't even been writing to her. She's a strong, valiant woman, but the truth is, I can't bear to share with her the brutality I'm witnessing out here. When I look at the paragraphs strewn across the pages and the staccato dialogue being shouted back in forth in the middle of this messy, chaotic storyline, well I just...I don't want expose her soft, feminine constitution to that.

What's that saying, Warriors know the preciousness of freedom in a way civilians never will? Writing is glorified all the time. People read Stephen King or Tom Clancy and dream about being novelists, strutting through town with sunglasses and a pair of six-shooters. But let me tell you, this is nothing but a messy, ugly, dirty business. You look around and all you see is hanging prepositions, misspellings, characters flattened into pancakes by falling Muses. If I had a nickel for every time Microsoft Word fired green tracers of grammar correction at my sentences and phrases, I'd be a rich man.

Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing fighting this war, risking my life and being away from my true love for Valentine's Day, all for some silly story about two imaginary people living in Seattle.

God, I love my woman; she knows I can fight this fight and cheers me on. And when I come home she admires me and wants to hear the whole dramatic story, from beginning to end. She's a great supporter, but I just want to get this cockfight over with and go home. I'm not scared, Mom, understand, I just got other good things waiting for me, you know?

Well, as I said, the good news is that the war is going well. Our commanders have devised a new tactic which seems to be working wonders. They call it the "thirty-minute raid." Basically we get all ammo'd up, huddle in a circle, and on a particular signal, the sergeant yells, "GO!" Then we all storm out of our foxhole, run maniacally across the battlefield, ripping words out of our machine guns just as fast as they will go. We wreak as much havoc as we can for thirty minutes, then we dive back into the foxhole to safety. As I said, the tactic is working wonders. We've killed way more of the enemy in the last few days since we started doing it, than it took us days to kill before. And the good thing is that, under the adrenaline rush of those insane thirty minutes, it's over before you know it and you were too juiced to even notice you were scared the whole time. We run these raids two or three times a day, and we're just mowing the enemy down.

Well, don't want to say much more about it, lest I give away national secrets.

Gotta go now. Sarge is telling us we need to shine our keyboards and polish up our thesauri before the next raid.

Wish me luck. I'll be home before you know it!

Love,
Your boy

FebNoWriMo Excerpt - A Blog Exclusive!

Here's an excerpt from my new novel, A Double Yellow Line, for your viewing (vomiting?) pleasure.

(To set the stage: the book is a drama about a burnt-out personal success coach who gets reinvigorated after taking on a new and controversial client.)

Chapter 1

“So, when you jumped out of the bushes, dressed like a clown and blowing a stadium horn, you didn’t mean to scare her. You were just trying to show her that you love her.”

Blake Talbot’s lips were cupped in his palm as he listened, his relaxed posture supported by the armrest of the soft leather couch. He could feel Dr. Richards gazing at him over his glasses, and Blake sighed. A clock ticked quietly in the room.

This whole thing was ridiculous. Blake was one of Seattle’s hottest commodities. And his popularity on the national circuit was now growing quickly, with the release of his critically acclaimed book. He coached million-dollar athletes, singers, actors. Hot-rod CEOs of multinational companies. He was the best at what he did, and he made his living helping other people do their best. He had everything he wanted…the houses, the cars, the trips. He’d turned his life – and hers – into a personal Disneyland. The only thing he lacked was a wife that appreciated any of it. Or him, for that matter. It just goes to show that if you give a woman a mile, she’ll take you to the moon.

“Blake?” Dr. Richards prompted, interrupting the stalled air. “Have I got that right?”

The chill from Bianca, sitting next to him, was palpable, and Blake kept his gaze carefully away from her.

“I was being spontaneous,” he finally replied. It was almost as if he could hear his wife’s head shaking in disgust.

“Blake,” she said, “I don’t want spontaneous. I want dependable. Not surprises. Stability. Someone who takes the time to know me and actually gives me what I want. Not fancy, colorful baubles that only advertise how out of touch you are with our life.”

Blake rolled his eyes, and fought down the burning urge to get up and walk out. How could you give something to a woman who didn’t like anything? All she knew how to do was criticize.

“Wait a minute, Bianca,” Dr. Richards warned. “It’s Blake’s turn. So, Blake, you wanted to be spontaneous, to give her something nice. A trip to Paris, a couple fun days at Disney, and you were trying to create some fun for the two of you. Bianca, do you hear that from Blake?”

She didn’t say anything, and Blake wasn’t paying attention. He peeked at his watch. Five more minutes of this drivel. Then it was a quick drive on 90 across Lake Washington to downtown, for a brief lunch at Qwest Field with the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. The Hawks had won the division but lost the conference, and their fearless leader wasn’t feeling so fearless. Then after lunch was a quick pump-up session with a VP from Microsoft, some usual busywork at the office, and the rest of the afternoon was his. The weather was gorgeous, and Blake planned to take his boat out on the Sound with a few of the girls from the Seahawks cheerleading squad. They were a barrel of laughs, and they loved going out on the boat. He sure didn’t mind taking them. But he didn’t get to think anymore about it.

“Now, Blake, it’s your turn to notice Bianca,” Dr. Richards interrupted, then paused as he realized how far away Blake was. “Blake, would you look at Bianca, please?”

Blake kept his face passive as he brought his head around. Bianca’s stunning figure sat primly, properly on the couch. Her red hair fell straight down the sides of her narrow but fetching face as she looked at him. Her clothes fit her perfectly, the quality of the fabric undeniable.

“Bianca is trying to connect with you,” Dr. Richards continued. “But she feels like you’re checked out most of the time. Is that true?”

Blake looked at him. “I’m very busy,” he sighed. “Our lifestyle doesn’t come free. I can’t be there every minute of the day.”

“I’m not talking about every minute of the day,” the counselor replied. He spoke slowly for emphasis. “When you are with her…how present are you? How available are you to seeing and hearing her as she is?”

This guy was a joke, Blake thought. He couldn’t talk a dog into eating hamburger. Being a world-class success coach, Blake knew something about motivating people. And this guy had the uncanny ability to take whatever last, wilted frond of hope you might have inside and rip it right off the stalk. Sometimes you just had to be blunt with people like this. People like him and Bianca. No frills.

“Doc, let me tell you how it is. The only way Bianca knows how to connect is to criticize.”

Bianca flared. “And the only way you know how to connect is to mold people into your fantasy personality. You can’t accept people for who they are.”

Blake spun his face toward her. “I can’t accept people?! You can’t accept people! All day long, its, ‘this isn’t right, that isn’t right, you forgot this, sue that quack.’ I have done nothing but love you, Bianca.”

“Love me?!” she shrieked in astonishment.

“Love you and provide for you and give you the best damn life you could have ever imagined.”

“With a man I don’t even know,” she murmured to the side.

Blake threw up his hands. “There you go again. The moment I point out something good in your life, you knock it down. You know what your problem is, Bianca? You don’t want to be happy.”

She looked at him with amusement. “I don’t want to be happy…”

“That’s right, you don’t. You can’t tolerate one iota of joy in your life, because it’ll wreck your whole carefully constructed, grim-faced Boston propriety.”

Her face slid into disgust. “Oh, don’t you pull that lecture-circuit bullshit on me.” She looked at Dr. Richards, her palm held outward in the direction of her husband. “You see what I have to deal with? The man is so driven to make people better, he can’t love the people he’s with.” And before Blake could rebut, she threw another shot across his bow. “Believe me, Blake, I know how to have fun. But I live a lonely life in an empty house with a man I don’t know. You think I want more trips, more diamonds, more parties. More spontaneous clown costumes,” she added with naked contempt. “Yes, I liked your playful nature when I met you. I still do. I like to have fun too. But you just never take the time anymore to find out what I think is fun.” She locked his eyes with a glare. “You are not there for me.”

“Uh, we’re nearing the end of our time,” Dr. Richards said with a softness out of character with the argument. “What I want you to do, Blake, is to write down a list of five fun things that the two of you shared together when you were still in love. And then I want you to write down five things you would enjoy doing with her today. They can be the same things, but they don’t have to be. And Bianca, I want you to do the same thing. But don’t show each other your lists. Just bring them with you next week and we’ll see what you came up with. Ok?”

Blake stood up, faster than Bianca. The end couldn’t have come soon enough for him.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Bianca said.

Dr. Richards waved and smiled benignly at them as they left.

Blake strode three paces ahead of Bianca as they left the man’s office, anxious to get to his car and rocket across town to the stadium. Maybe he’d borrow a helmet and pads and go knock down a few linemen himself. Show those bastards how it’s really done. A little marital counseling is all you really need. Heck, maybe he could even get Coach Holmgren to add it to the practice drills next year. The Seahawks surely wouldn’t lose a conference game then. Or maybe they could rig the JumboTron to paint a picture of each guys’ wife on the opposing player’s face. The linemen would just naturally mow ‘em down. Blake walked quicker. He was on to something here.

“Do you mind waiting for me?” Bianca asked behind him with irritation.

His stride broke imperceptibly, but he kept going. He held up the face of his watch behind him, as if she could see it from that distance. “Late for a meeting,” he called back without looking. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Bianca stopped walking, and shook her head as she watched him leave.

What The Critics Will Say, Part II

Ha!

I just came up with another few reviews for my upcoming, critically-declaimed novel, A Double Yellow Line, coming soon from Bantam Books:

"What talent...Miller manages to take a unique and intriguing premise, and turn it into the most predictable and excruciating drivel of the year."
- Kirkus Reviews

"If an aspiring writer wants to know what not to do when writing a novel, A Double Yellow Line is the perfect desk reference. Miller covers all the bases."
- Writers Digest magazine

"If you read only one book this summer, make sure it' s not A Double Yellow Line. It is amateur writing at its finest."
- Boston Globe

"Reads like coffee grounds taste!"
- Wired magazine

What The Critics Will Say

A fellow FebNoWriMer invited us writers to imagine what promotional statements we might expect to see on our books were they to be published. You know, those quippy quotes from magazines and famous people that tout the book?

Well, I gave it some thought and came up with a few. I enjoyed them so much, I wanted to share them with you.

The ultimate thrill ride into the dark, hopeless depths of literary failure. If you don't jump off a bridge after reading this incomparable work, please push someone before they throw more good money after such trash."
- The Washington Post

"Unprecedented...Consummate...How Miller got any publisher to spend money distributing this crap astonishes the most jaded of critics."
- Publisher's Weekly

"A foolproof barometer of one's status as a productive member of society. If you can get past the first chapter, it's clear that you need a life."
- People

"Having someone like Judd Miller join this elite family we call published authors makes me want to bring back segregation. But instead of No Coloreds, it should be No Hacks Like Miller. Make 'em ride at the back of the bus, eat at different restaurants, the whole thing. I just want to go be a pimp now. That is so much more an honorable community, than sharing a profession with this creep. And Stephen King agrees, by the way. And he likes creeps!"
- Tom Clancy, in an interview on Larry King Live, August 14, 2005

"If he writes another one like that, the United States should do the right thing and execute him. Everyone expects the Americans to write the rules, mostly. But this kind of thing makes Abu Ghraib look like a charity drive. I can't believe the Bush Administration allows this to happen. Bush should be impeached for it. I risked my life to vote, and he is free to write that kind of garbage? My daughter read four lines and threw up. And now because of the war, the hospitals are too full to treat her. It's a terrible, terrible situation."
- Nasser Al Azzud, an Iraqi citizen, interviewed on Headline News, August 9, 2005

Letter From The Front - Feb. 6, 2005

Hi, Mom. Me again. How's things at home? Has Dad fixed the threshing machine yet?

Things are long and tough-going here. Just slogging through day by day. The blinking cursors continue to rain down around my writing desk, and it's all I can do to muster enough words to fire back and keep up with the daily assault.

Here's a quick replay of what's been going on the last few days:

Feb 2nd - Feel good, but really stymied about where to go. Think I'm trying too hard to "make it good," rather than just crank words out. It's taking me a really long time to write.

Feb 3rd - I feel awful. Have no idea what to write next. Don't even want to try. It felt so bad I didn't even write today.

Feb 4th - Ecstatic! I decided to give up trying to write a good novel and instead to be a really good amateur writer. And then I got the idea to put my writing agony in my character's hands to deal with. Which is to say, the scene I wrote today introduced my next major character, just as she's writing a story that just isn't coming together; she hates it and doesn't want to continue. Hey, I know that! (She did what I want to do -- she gave up. Well, for the day, at least.) Anyway, my decision to be a really good amateur writer, and the scene idea that came with it, broke my deadlock wide open. I feel great!

Feb 5th - Struggling to keep up with writing; put it off today til the last minute, but I got a good, solid writing session in: 2500 words! I also stumbled on some research stuff that gave me a bunch of new material to work into the story.

Feb 6th - Still struggling to write, because I don't have a good enough handle on the story or characters to know what scenes to write. But I did a very productive brainstorm on the character arcs, and most of those notes account for the day's quota.

So far, writing this book has been an odd experience. I have no idea where to go, and I don't have a clear sense of my characters. So when I sit down to write, I really don't know what to write about, and what I do write doesn't seem to have any overall purpose. If this were a movie, the whole thing would be on the cutting room floor.

And yet, with each scene I write, the overall story starts looking really good. It's like I have no idea what I'm painting, but every time I paint, the more exciting and compelling the whole picture becomes.

It almost seems like I'm going to have to write the whole book, just so I can sit down, read it, and go, "Oh, ok. Now I get it. Hey, that's a cool story!" And then I'll have to sit down and start over, having finally understood what my story is about!

The big treat this week: Watching the Super Bowl, uninterrupted (a rare luxury for this father and husband).

Total word count so far: 12,892 (25%). I'm 2,178 words ahead of schedule, and the intelligence reports tell me that the war will end on February 23rd if I can maintain this pace. (FYI, I'm also deducting 2,350 words that I wrote before FebNoWriMo started, so the overall victory will be even greater than the Administration has been advertising.)

Reflecting on the battle I fought in November, the whole thing was such a trip. I was like any rookie, panicked and juiced for action all at the same time. This time, I feel more circumspect. In November it felt crazy exciting. This time, it just feels plain crazy. Guess that's a sign of maturity. Well, ok, not maturity, maybe, but experience.

Well, give my love to everyone. I know that somehow, some way, I'm going to come out of this war alive and live long enough to tell about it. (Do you think a publisher would be interested in my dramatic story about writing dramatic stories?)

Love,
Your boy

P.S. Sorry for the extraneous sentences in this letter, Mom. I was trying to up my word count.

P.P.S. Did you order those extra words from EBay yet?

Letter From The Front - Feb. 1, 2005

Well, Mom, I made it here in one piece. I know it's only the beginning, but when you hear the guys telling those scary stories about helicopters crashing into each other on the way over, you're actually relieved to get to the war zone. How's that for twisted?

Oh, wait. I'm not in Iraq. I'm still in California. Sitting safely, though tiredly, at my computer, penning a blog entry about my first day on the front lines of FebNoWriMo. Well, it's nothing like being in Iraq, I'm sure, so I won't even go there. (Cheers to you out there.)

But for my first day in the word wars, the view is still pretty good so far. Between the wee hours last night and some time today, I got a couple of good solid writing sessions in, for a total of 2,957 words. I wrote a couple of scenes, one completely, the other 95% complete. And then I wrote a little snippet of dialogue that will fit in somewhere in the book, just not sure where yet. Tomorrow, on Feb. 2nd, I'm sure I'll put aside this excited, scatter-shot approach and get down to the business of writing, grinding it out chapter by chapter. It ain't pretty, but it's the way I know to make sure that when you start reading Chapter 1 and and finish reading Chapter 28, you will have read a single, cohesive (if imperfectly told) story.

I especially like the way my book begins: "So, when you jumped out of the bushes, dressed like a clown and blowing a stadium horn, you didn't mean to scare her. You were just trying to show her that you love her..." Ha-ha. I don't think that one's been done before.

With the other pieces I've scraped together, I can already start to see a flow coming together for the book. I'm also pleased to report that I was much more relaxed with my main character today...I actually let him engage in conversation with a couple people. (When I started writing Asteroid Burn for NaNoWriMo 2004, I didn't even let the main character out of his own head for the first day or two.) Anyway, I'm playing it a little more fast and loose, letting my character drive the car a little bit. Feels good. Could be fun.

Well, Mom, it's late and it's almost lights-out. The blinking cursors will start falling again tomorrow, and we'll need our strength to fire back all the nouns, adjectives, and prepositions we can muster. Hope all is well back home. Give my love to everyone.

Oh, and P.S. Please send cookies. Even if it's those awful macaroons. I can trade them for cigarettes. Or better yet, a thesaurus. Rummy may expect us to write a novel with the words we got, not the ones we wish we had, but me and the boys can use all the help we can get out here. (Maybe you could buy some extra words on Ebay and send them to me? All we've got out here are some cheaply made pronouns and buckets full of useless acronyms --- Hey, it's the government, remember?)

Love,
Your boy

Word-Count Calculator for FebNoWriMo Participants

For those of you participating in February Novel Writing Month (FebNoWriMo), I've updated the wonderful "report card" calculator originally created by Erik Benson for FebNoWriMo 2005.

You can download it here.

If you notice any problems or errors, let me know.

Write on!