storm warning

It is raining cherry slushy. Driving to my Whatchamacallit stand where I sell the delicious candy to incredibly wealthy men was highly disturbing.

The electricity on my cart just went out.

It just went back on.

I am reading a book called The Art of Seduction. I am embarrassed that I am reading it. I am reading it because I LOVED the author's first book: The 48 Laws of Power. I am reading it because my hymen has grown back.

Someone needs to write a book called How to Get Beautiful Women into Bed if You Are a Recluse and Only Leave the House to Go to Work and You Are Afraid of Women Who Use the Internet for the Purpose of Meeting Men Because That Shit Is Highly Suspect. I would buy it. I once wrote a flash story called "How To Get Beautiful Women into Bed" (and a zine called Olympus Found published it), but I would be breaking a lot of laws if I followed my own advice.

The next issue of Bust is filling up fast. Maybe one or two slots left. This NEVER happens. Maybe I will have a few months to "chill." Maybe I would make Bust quarterly instead of bi-annually if I could spare the cash. But I cannot. Although I am a very wealthy man, there is a limit to the amount of money that I'm willing to spend on publishing literature that excites me.

I'm flying back to the states on February 2 to do a reading in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the Dire Reading Series.

(Don't read this unless you're Mike Young: It is on a Monday instead of a Saturday as I had originally thought. My housemate does not know if he can drive. I hate driving in the city, so I will not. It is not during AWP.)

I am going to start working on my novella (TV Snorted My Brain) again. It has been too long since I worked on it. I have not worked on a proper book since June. I am no longer waiting to work on it. I am excited. I think it might result in a short novel rather than a long novella.

I will probably wait until I have a day off from selling Whatchamacallits to incredibly wealthy men. It's sort of a ritual/excuse to be lazy of mine to wait until I have a day off before I start on anything major. In the meantime, I will reread what I've written so far to get back into the voice of the protagonist. I also need to edit a synopsis for a comic book submission.

I am writing the novel for a specific company. I hope they like it. If they don't...

I wish there were more options for me as far as submitting my books for publication.

What I write is not literary fiction. It is not genre fiction. It is not experimental fiction.

It will probably be too short for a glitzy NYC publisher because glitzy NYC publishers rarely publish novels under 300 pages.

The small press is an ideal place for short books. The small press tends to specialize in literary fiction and genre fiction and experimental fiction.

Lately, I have been writing entertaining, humorous, absurdist, surrealist stuff. I guess "fucked up commercial fiction" would be a good description of it. Or Bizarro Fiction.

I guess it is a little similar to the works of Christopher Moore or Jasper Fforde. But not really. And those guys write long-ish stuff. I think I would like their books better if they were short-ish. I think I would like most books better if they were short-ish. Most novels published by ritzy NYC publishers seem to have dull filler so they can meet the ritzy publisher's 300 page requirement. Take a page count from a novel and subtract 200 from it. This is often how many pages need to be cut before the book is a decent read.

On second thought, I've gone a little overboard. I blame my tendency to write books that are 200 pages or less. I think 300 page books are usually ok. Anything more=too long.