Marco Polo & Pancakes

I've been able to make a little progress with both Family and Not for Nothing (NfN) this week. For Family, I've started re-reading Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking to brush up on my technical kitchen terminology. I have also told the chef de cuisine at work that I want to help prepare family meal once a week. This first hand experience should serve me well and help me improve my cooking. This Friday we're shooting for pancakes.

I've also requested a couple CDs from the library by Akwid, a Mexican hip hop group that we occasionally listen to at work in the mornings. These boys are tight. They've got a nice flow, but what I like most is how they sample classic Mexican beats into their music. In each song they celebrate their past while embracing their future. Pretty cool.

I've also started a preliminary outline for NfN and have requested a couple books from the library which I look forward to reading. One is a modern history of China since 1850. I'm thinking of setting the story there. To that end, I see a potential parallel with the story of Marco Polo. The other book I've requested is about him.

You're speaking too loud, I can't hear you

In high school I played left bench on the varsity basketball team. We had an assistant coach who was a good player, but had a hard time getting his point across. He once told a player that his passes were too crisp. Maybe he wanted the kid to slow the pass down a bit to entice a defender into committing. He also told someone once that they were speaking too loud and that he couldn't hear them.

To that end, sometimes I come up with ideas that are either so obvious or so intricately convoluted that no matter how loud I make them, no one can hear them. For as much as I adore the premise of Not for Nothing, the story was too loud. Last night, though, I think I found a way to deliver the story without making anyone deaf.

Am I giving up on Family? Hells no. If anything, I'll probably work on both. I can't wait another two years to start another project.

Done...again.

I just put the finishing touches on Any Color You Want. I also sent it to a writer I know and an old friend who is an agent. It's in their hands for now. If any of you want to read it, holler.

I now look forward to moving onto new projects. Amen. Hopefully I can make significant progress before Spring Training starts in 90+ days. ;)

Final Read (11/09 edition)

Just because it's been a couple weeks and because a certain team from the Bronx continues to play ball into November doesn't mean I'm slacking over here. No, sir. I successfully got the new printer cartridge before the rain, printed the fucker out and have re-read it all making notes along the way. I am now making the corrections and hope to have it tied up by week's end. Then I'll pass it along to some folks and start the next project.

That's a Smith and Wesson and you've had your six.

Once the pen I'm using runs out of ink I put it in a drawer with all the others I've used up. Along with various notebooks, I take pride in the pens I've gone through and the ink I've poured over the last 11 years or so. I take an empty pen as a sign of accomplishment.

An empty printer cartridge, on the other hand, drives me fucking bonkers. Such is the case today. I have finished all the latest corrections and just want to print the fucker out so I can read it over again. But nine pages into printing there goes that blinking light signaling a trip to the store. Wish me luck making it there and back before the rain hits...

Mush

I've made good progress in typing up the latest round of corrections and edits, but figure even once that's done that I'll give the whole thing another read from start to finish to make sure 2+2= something around 4. While the furniture I assemble at home routinely ends up with a bunch of extra screws and pieces laying around, I need to make sure that the moving pieces of the novel all jive. Because frankly, the more I think about this book the more my brain turns to mush.

It ain't over till it's...

There are a few words I refuse to use in writing; always, never, perfect and my own personal tetragrammaton, l-v-, among others. Why? Because I sincerely doubt the first three exist. And the fourth? Well, Robert Frost once said that a poet should never use the word "beautiful" more than three times...and that he now had two opportunities left. Well, Bob, I'm Italian and we can't get enough of beauty. (I truly believe that Italians' morality hinges on that which is beautiful versus that which is ugly as opposed to the old good versus evil dichotomy.) Rather, as Yehuda Amichai described in his poem, Stewardess (below for good measure), I more often than not vote with the conservative party of l-v-rs and I pretty much refuse to dole the word out like it might feed the starving. But that is all material for another book.

As for this blog and this book, I'm tempted to add "done" to this list of words. Yes, I edited the final 8 pages and smoothed out the ending, but there are many ts to cross, is to dot and many more eyes to read it all before anything is "done."

Stewardess by Yehuda Amichai

A stewardess told us to extinguish all smoking materials

And did not detail, cigarette, cigar, or pipe.

I answered her in my heart: You have beautiful love material,

And I did not detail either.

And she told me to buckle up, bind myself

To the chair, and I answered her:

I want all the buckles in my life to have the shape of your mouth.

And she said: You want coffee now or later,

Or never. And she passed by me

Tall to the sky.

The small scar at the top of her arm

Testified that she will never be touched by smallpox

And her eyes testified that she’ll never fall in love again:

She belongs to the conservative party

Of lovers of one great love in their life.