new year

did i get your attention? i hope so. i figured my blog needed more sex appeal, and nothing says sexy like a half naked woman in a completely contrived pose with dirt on her. 'cause, you know, she's a dirty girl. and she needs to get clean. that's what the goggles are for.

so it's a new year.

what's in store for me? well, nothing much except the status quo. just keep doing the things that i've been doing for the past six months. my life has a pretty good momentum right now, and i want to keep it going through the new year. my writing and my job have both been going very well. the only hiccup was the brain fart my social life endured for a two week period during christmas. i pretty much exorcised those demons during the last couple of days of 2005. basically it was a girl i was trying to get over, and someone asked me what was it about her that drove me so crazy. i had no answer for her. i couldn't pinpoint one single attribute that made me want her so badly.

this girl was the genesis for many a writing fits. first, there was desert sessions, where there is a scene of a young girl in a bathroom, scrubbing the blood and dirt off her hands, which is supposed to be her. then I went and wrote this is hardcore because i was trying to find a way to deal with her. however, i assure you that only the first dozen pages or so are about her, the rest is just made up. what i'm wondering now is, what will my writing be like now that my primary cause for drama over the last year is now virtually gone?

one word: disney. no, not really, but it's a nice thought, now isn't it? i mean really, what good is a writer without an affliction, whether it is depression or drug addiction or tragedy? in terms of writing, the goal is to go full on with cooler than. i plan on drowning myself in my writing, virtually throwing whatever time i have that is not spent on watching movies into my writing. cooler than will be the hippest piece of political writing ever. well, maybe not, but i'm gonna give it the old college try.

three parts to cooler than: the first will be just a prologue of sorts. this will introduce the characters. there will be no title to it, sort of like the first couple of minutes of a tv show before the theme song rolls on screen. the second will be called wicked days, where you'll see unfettered carnage and destruction and the best of the best; mayhem. the last section will be called revolutionaries wanted, which some of you will know as the original title to cooler than. what you'll see there is precise, surgical malicious intenent. oh, and someone will overcome something or other. sometimes i just can't resist the cliches.

ever since i wrote this is hardcore, i've started to like the idea of having different sections of a book being... well, different. in this is hardcore, you get two sections that are written fairly similarly, and then you get the third act which is different. with cooler than, i'm gonna have the two sections be fairly different. the first will be like the fucking wild bunch, and the second will be like to live and die in l.a. two great movies that have influenced me like none other. for instance, the chase in this is hardcore is bit of an homage to to live and die in l.a. the keys to a good chase scene: 1) location matters 2) must be integral to the plot 3) must involve some wierd/new/strange element. in to live and die in l.a., the chase is on a freeway, going down the wrong way. this stuff is done all the time now, but back in 1985, this was a first.

oh, the name to the book just changed as i was writing this entry. it is now cooler than the millions. it will probably change several more times until i get it published. it just seems to be the way this book is going. i think the title may get even longer. apparently i enjoy long titles. it's the live and die in l.a. thing i suppose. man i gotta go buy that movie.