January Journal Juice

1/3/20 – Sitting here in the basement, surfing the net, wasted time. I must wake tomorrow with a great purpose to move forward as a writer/author. Weigh-in today 152, down two pounds from last week, better, not as much as I thought as I have done well to live with a close-to-Keto diet the last five days. Good Laurelhurst walk, ended up getting in like 3.5 to four hours work with Spenser, like fifty bucks worth, and a bunch of laundry done though I have to get the last load and deal with it. Pretty much empty-headed and flat-brained all day. Really nothing going on upstairs here. Again, I hope to push through to another door and pathway tomorrow. Frustrated with no book sales yet, lots of people don’t read, I honestly don’t think people get loyalty. Makes me want to holler, but I guess opportunity to grow as guerilla hawker. Most important work is for new story ideas.

1/8/20 – Loading up for what I hope will be splash dashed crazy writing here and all around my places tomorrow.

1/11/20 – Ten of nine, fresh out of the shower and bad time-wasting on this machine. La machine. Made the decision and I need to hold to it to do a complete fast the entire day tomorrow – help re-set some from way too much after meal nuts and chocolate, especially since the meals have been much more Keto focused and carb depleted. Everything feels better other than the post-dinner overeats. So, let me get through the day tomorrow without food, there will be lots of coffee and some for sure during the book signing at Papaccino’s. Let me see if I can go do any work on the new story, or the idea for an even newer story, which will involve a boy after his high school graduation, that summer, waking one morning and deciding to swim to Portugal. What feels like and becomes an imperative. Got a girlfriend and there will be make out scenes in the car. The decision that cannot be swayed by her or friends or parents or maybe mental health counselors if I go that way, which is possible, perhaps an inpatient briefly at Bridgewater State. He lives where? Chatham? Fairhaven or Marion? Falmouth? This will invite crazy running riffs about boats following him and kids at parties and mom falling apart or maybe not, maybe there is no mom or maybe she’s already in a state hospital, so of course people think it’s in the genes. The gist getting to coming out of the ocean in Portugal and somehow getting to the authorities and being shipped home – money sent, money raised, friends, whatever. And when he gets home he is slightly off, and of course that’s a pretty normal plot, being possessed, no longer really him, so how do I do it differently. How can I stretch my mind to some other place? The thing is, Buddy, I can just start typing, because I think that is the key, just start typing, type everything that shows up, it’s the first draft stupid, not even that, it’s getting the words to flow because maybe they pull out unforeseen ideas, and something worthy comes of it. That could happen. For an alchemist.

1/12 – No fast today, punked desperately, but only dinner though as per usual too many post-meal snackers. Fucking A, one of these days I’ll find the will to end meals and be done ‘til the next meal. No book sales at the signing, not even one look at a book. Susan and I did have the space looking sweet though, table covered with the beautiful flowered covering I bought her at the San Diego farmer’s market on India Street some three years ago. Looked real nice and there were sun breaks throughout our two hours there. Simply more grist for the mill with the newest story, which I have titled “What Will Phil Do With All Those Books”, yeah, in the ‘Lucida’ font I’ve come to love. Two more full days before the long trip east, lots to do and a clear head necessary.

1/27 – Wow, loving that last post, had forgot it. I’ve placed two new posts in the Blog the last two days, so I cannot say I haven’t been writing, though mostly I haven’t been, also taking into consideration both of the posts came directly – if slightly amended for clarity and engagement – from the Morning Pages. I’ve had lots of ideas for writings come gushing into my head sitting in the morning recliner sipping coffee and reading, going off daydreaming and then wham a stream of words, which I have not bothered to jump up and record and subsequently they have traveled on. I guess echoes or images of creative wording have followed me down the stairs, hence the Pages Blog posts. Fact is, I have got to get back to this kind of mania on the keyboard to move forward with the “Phil” book and get that mother done. Because it is good and it is therapy and will up the “edge” quotient for “Strays”, so please, Lord Dedith, glue my butt to this very chair tomorrow for extended stretches of all-in key banging. And thank you.

1/28 — Thinking, take 25 seconds, people, to say something nice to someone about something they have done, about their expressed journey, about dreams they have and have shared. Twenty-five fucking seconds out of your day. Patricia Zimmer, one of my paying Patrons and with whom I attended and graduated Wareham High School, class of ’67, wrote me a brief note somewhere through social media last week when Susan and I were in Florida. In it she said this – “‘Get in the Car’ is a great book.” I can’t adequately express how that made me feel. Like affirmed. Like valued. Like counted. Connected. And I bet it took her no more than eight seconds to type. It ain’t about “Oh, I wrote a great book, or a good book, or any other review, it’s that she took the time to acknowledge the doing. Which matters, it really mattered to me. It made my day, and I saw it early in the morning. I’m glad I have a consciousness to do this for people myself, take a few seconds and say “Cool”, “Far out”, “Good luck”, “Dreams rule”, “Nice picture”, anything human which more than anything else says, “I see you.” So, that, and now get it together cause there’s another book waiting in the wings. Oh, thanks Pat.