some book talking

my goal for the month of february: print out the three short stories that are part of my novel.

sounds easy, no? but just getting the damn things into one file was hard enough. they were a series of bits and pieces, five pages here, three there, and some parts are still missing.

but I figure if I can get it printed out, I can start editing. I can look at it in a way that I can't see things on the computer. I can look at it without flipping over to myspace or google from time to time for an "eye break,"

from time to time people ask me about how it (the novel they say, with emphasis) is going. I don't think anyone realized that last semester, I didn't have to take a writing class, but I knew it would be better for me if I did, that it would force me to write, and so I produced a good portion of the Tower story last semester.

I wrote the Tower part around an event, a birthday party. Then I realized the coffeeshop part is written around an event too. The liquor store stuff isn't, but I wonder if it should be.

I need a good reader, someone who doesn't know me or clark street, someone who has good feedback. I want it to be someone who doesn't know me because then I'll be more likely to take what they have to say as simply what they have to say.

I gave some of my liquor store stuff to my co-worker val and more than anything I wanted her to say it made her laugh. maybe I'm still too attached to my stuff, like it's some personal affront if the person doesn't get it immediately.

the interesting thing is, the more I talk about it (the novel) the more realistic it becomes, the more plausible it seems, and somehow, this excites me, that it is less of a thing that is in my head and more of a thing that actually exists in reality. maybe that's why printing it out in one big chunk is so important to me, because then it'll have a physical-ness that it lacks now...