All This Violence Makes a Statement

I am using Mindless Self Indulgence lyrics as my title. Oh no.

After many months, I figured out how to turn the volume up on my mp3 playing program on my computer. This is very nice. This is very significant. Before tonight, the volume was too low. This made me incredibly annoyed at work. I guess the makers of free mp3 playing programs try to make your life incredibly annoying if you don't buy the paid version.

I have been too burnt out to blog lately. I am being pretty prolific novella-wise, which burns me out. The summer is here and the night shift at my work is really slow. This is very nice. The college students are no longer around. They are not stopping for junk food on the way to their drunk driving deaths.

I am one chapter away from being halfway through the second act. I plan to finish the second act before the Juniper Writing Program starts on the 22nd. I think I will be successful at this.

I do not think I'm going to work on my novella tonight because I only got like six hours of sleep, although I'll probably write the first couple of sentences of the next chapter to make it easier on me tomorrow.

Instead of working on my novella, I will write about my trip to the library this morning.

Last week, I went on a crazy "ordering books from other libraries" spree.

A couple of days ago, I received one or two email notifications about books coming in.

Yesterday, I ran out of books to read.

So I went to the library today to get a few books and pick up the ones that were on reserve for me.

I found these books in the shelves and checked them out:

Stephen King's The Gunslinger: This is the first book in the Dark Tower series. I tried to read it when I was younger. I could not get into it. I liked the other Stephen King books that I read though. They were my substitute for R-rated horror movies since my parents did not let me watch those kinds of movies. When I got older, I started to hate Stephen King. I thought he was too long-winded and his novels were filled with filler. But I'm very interested in this Dark Tower series. It sounds very interesting. And I read a prequel in the form of a comic book limited series, which was written by Peter David who I like. The comic was pretty ok. Everybody in the comic talked funny though. I think I will need to get used to this. Also, The Gunslinger is only like 300 pages, so it is probably less long-winded than most Stephen King books. I read the first couple of pages on Amazon and they were pretty ok.

Raymond Carver's Short Cuts: I keep thinking his name is Richard. I don't know if I've read this already. I will figure this out, I hope. I think I've read two of his story collections. After I finished them, I said to myself, I really like Raymond Carver, but I do not feel the need to ever read another Raymond Carver book again. But I'm more interested in minimalist writing now than I was back then, so I'm going to give him another read. I feel that he and Barthelme are the most influential story writers. I find it strange that I prefer Carver since my writing has more in common with Barthelme. Although I'm not sure about my recent writing. I think it either leans towards Carver or neither of them. I have never been able to make it through Sixty Stories. I think it's because I keep checking it out from the library and rarely feel in the mood to read it. I think I will buy it on Saturday so I can read it at my leisure. A local bookstore is giving away five dollar off coupons that day to celebrate the anniversary of their existence or something.

J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey: I am a little interested in Salinger's fictional Glass family. I just finished Nine Stories. It was ok. It seemed like the type of book that would be assigned in an English lit class. I would have liked it more if it was assigned to me in an English lit class. The Catcher in the Rye was my favorite book that was forced on me in high school. I haven't read it since then. Maybe I will reread it.

So I went up to the check out desk with these books and told them that I should have one or two books on reserve. Turns out, there were five books waiting for me.

Damn, that's a lot of books. Hopefully I'll be able to finish them all. The librarian asked me if I still wanted the three books that I just wrote about. I said, "I guess."

Here are the other five books:

Chuck Palahniuk's Snuff: I am halfway through. It is pretty entertaining, but not very good. It is like Chuck Palahniuk is writing a Chuck Palahniuk parody. The plot moves extremely slowly. This doesn't give the characters very much to do besides tell each other morbid facts, which Chuck Palahniuk characters are prone to do. The morbid facts are interesting, but this is not supposed to be a morbid fact book. It is supposed to be a novel. I think Chuck Palahniuk should write a morbid fact book. It would be the greatest morbid fact book ever written.

John Reed's The Whole: John Reed is my Goodreads friend. He liked my novel. This book sounded interesting. It is published by MTV, who always uses interesting, highly-readable layouts.

Richard Brautigan's The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writing and Sombrero Fallout and Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork: Richard Brautigan is my favorite author who still has books that I haven't read yet. These are the only Brautigan books that I haven't read yet, except for a few out-of-print poetry collections, but I am not crazy about his poetry, so I will not buy them. I also plan to read his daughter's memoir.

I usually like to write nice endings to my blog entries. I am not going to write a nice ending.

People are starving.