Juuuunk Fooood!

I finished writing the second act of my novella on Wednesday night. Now I'm probably going to take a vacation from fiction writing until August, which is when my mentor has the free time to send me notes on the third act section of my novella. Hopefully I won't lose my protagonist's voice in the meantime. I guess I could always reread it from start to finish in August, obviously.

Although I'm doing the writing program thing a week from Sunday, so maybe I'll have daily fiction writing assignments for that.

Maybe in the meantime I'll start working on my memoir-y thing that I want to do.

And I'm going to blog more frequently. I miss blogging.

I want to go to a particular bar near me to celebrate. I want to go there because it opens at 5 am. But I probably need a ride to get there.

The Amazon sales ranking for It Came from Below the Belt went above a million a couple of days ago. That's never happened before. It's pretty pathetic. It means that no one has bought it in a while. I used to look at books that were ranked over a million and either say "HA HA!" or feel sad for the author, depending on whether or not I was feeling cruel that day. Now other authors can look at my book's page on Amazon and either say, "HA HA!" or feel sad for me.

Hey, people who have been meaning to buy it! Now would be a good time. It would help me feel better about myself. I don't know what I'll do if the sales rank doesn't stop being pathetic. I am afraid of what I'll do to myself. I am afraid of being by myself. This is a desperate cry for help. I think I will have a hissy fit if the book's ranking stays above one million for much longer. I am afraid of having a hissy fit.

Doesn't this awesome review make you want to buy the book?

http://sfreader.com/Home/BookReview/tabid/55/Default.aspx?book=1066

Yes, yes it does.

This blog entry is pretty lame so far. I need to clean my room. I need to invent a robot to clean my room.

A group of zombies came into my store last night. It was annoying. I don't like zombies.

zombies = customers who take like half an hour to pick out the junk food that they want, who wander around aimlessly, who are frequently under the influence of marijuana.

Fuck those zombies because they prevent me from getting my tasks done so I can do whatever the fuck I want after I'm finished.

I usually only get a couple of zombies at a time. But groups of zombies are the worst because they are usually loud, which makes it difficult for me to read.

The group of zombies from last night were loud. They thought my store was a bar or something.

Kelly Link wrote a story about real zombies going into a convenience store. It is called "The Hortlak," although I originally thought it was called "Some Zombie Contingency Plans." It appears in the collection, Magic For Beginners. I need to read it again. I remember liking it a lot, but not much else. I think the zombies were harmless and coming into the protagonist's convenience store because they used to do it in real life a la the zombies flocking to the shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead. I think that Kelly Link has probably worked at a convenience store. Kelly Link is good. She lives near me.

I found an audio version of the story here: www.kqed.org/arts/writersblock/episode.jsp?id=11707. I will listen to it.

I met TTB yesterday morning. Or maybe I should say his alter ego? He works at my store now. I asked him to do his TTB shtick. He refused. He said something like, "There's a time and a place for that, and this is neither the time nor the place." I think I really mangled his actual response. He might end up getting stuck with my night shifts while I take a week off to do my writing program.

I finished Raymond Carver's Short Cuts. I think it might have been the best short story collection that I've ever read. I guess it's more of an anthology since it just collects stories that appeared in earlier collections because they were used in the Robert Altman movie of the same name. It has some really good selections.

I also read and finished Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. That one wasn't as good. I've also read it before. I was only really impressed by a couple of stories besides the ones that also appeared in Short Cuts.

I finished the first book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It was very good. I am usually anti-Steven King, but this book was very good. I will read the next one in the series. It was sort of how I wanted Cormac McCarthy's The Road to be like. Although I wish Stephen King's dialog was as good as McCarthy's. That's the only thing I like about McCarthy: his fantastic dialog.

I gave up on The Road after reading like twenty pages.

I get bored easily.

I also get frustrated my run-on sentences when they read like their author is using them to be lazy rather than for stylistic reasons.

I really liked the movie, No Country for Old Men. Everybody liked that movie. I tried to read the book. I was horrified by the unnecessary run-on sentences.

I think Cormac McCarthy should write movies and plays only. He may be the greatest dialog writer who has ever existed. Too bad that's not a good enough reason to read his books.

Here is a run-on sentence that I once wrote in a story. I used it for a stylistic purpose. The stylistic purpose is that the protagonist is supposed to have written the sentence after snorting a massive amount of cocaine.

I mean the rancid drip in the back of my throat is unpleasant but I don't mind it so much with the helium rising into my brain cells which is kinda neat and I like how I didn't have to suck in a balloon to feel this way and I don't understand where the balloon went and I'm really thirsty and did a mention a balloon and OH FUCK this is really neat and did I mention this neat feeling already to the readers of No Girls Allowed Magazine because if I didn't I'd like to tell you how neat I'm feeling but not neat as in a tidy room because my place is always a mess but sorta fucking incredible and did you say something because I was talking about my dislike for cleanliness and mother has a cleaning man come every week but I hated how I had to wake up early whenever he came when I was younger and I take another breathe and another and another and see mom I'm going out for some fresh air and I put my hand over my chest and it goes BOOM BOOM BOOM really fast and sometimes I forget about the BOOM BOOM being there and it's going faster and faster and I'm traveling into the future at a slightly faster pace than I usually do when I'm just walking around and have I mentioned that I'd like to make a movie about traveling into the future and blowing dinosaurs up while ignoring the existence of going to the bathroom and it would be pure fucking gold as I tell Jerry Bruckheiny while he smiles without eye pupils and the sandwich in a rented video cassette nods its approval then that thing inside goes BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM and I take another whiff and the BPM gets cranked up more and more until my heart