Novel - Daily Progress

TFK, 88,921.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK, 88,352.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK, 87,800.

Not a whole lot of words today. Focusing on a subtle shift -- and near shifts -- in relationship dynamics. I love character-driven stories and in my writing I am more interested in how a character is affected -- changed -- by what happened rather than what actually happened.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK 87,384.

Wow, what a rush!

Today's thousand words came out neither particularly quick nor easy, but at least some of them felt as right as I can typically get them to be. There is something so exhilarating about manipulating the same thought over and over again, knowing it isn't quite what you want, and then suddenly having the right words fall into place.

In this scene, Randy is taking advantage of a situation that should be too good to be true. And of course it is, though he doesn't realize it yet.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK. 86,366.

Transitional scene, acting as a segue into the next chapter which will go back into the past and detail the last seven weeks of summer. The scene is framed on either side by the present - a few days before school starts -- and reflects upon the seven previous weeks while hinting at some of what transpired; not just between Randy and Donnie, but also between Randy and his other friends, Ken and Andy, as their lives interweave.

Todays writing was clunkier and had less word count than what I would prefer, but I got up later than intended and worked on it in-between errands and chores.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK, 85,644.

Donnie refers to Randy as a boyfriend.

What is the distinction between boys who are friends and boyfriends? It can't be sex, since a couple could not have yet 'done the deed'. And as far as that goes, acquaintances can screw. In a similar vein, boyfriends can go bowling and boys who are friends can likewise do so. So there is no true event marker for such things.

Instead, it seems more an emotional state that is not only acknowledged, but reciprocated by the participants involved; further, because of this, only the particapants themselves can, through their mutual conception, give the term any real meaning.

From working draft of "That Fargo Kid" by JD Fox:

"It wasn’t so much Randy disagreed with such a term as that he had never considered it. Such a term wasn’t part of his conceptual framework of possibilities, so it never crossed his mind with any lasting neuronal firing. Now it lay there smack in the center of his frontal lobe, being processed and dissected a hundred and one different ways.

True enough, they were boys and they were friends... but boyfriend soaked up much more meaning than a simple combination of those two words..."

Complete Senators Voting List, DADT

Those senators who voted "Nay" on repealing DADT should not be holding public office. They do not care whether or not we have the most qualified soldiers in our armed forces. What matters to them is sexual position rather than skillset, and that's something to consider in the voting booth.

Alphabetical by Senator Name
Akaka (D-HI), Yea
Alexander (R-TN), Nay
Barrasso (R-WY), Nay
Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Begich (D-AK), Yea
Bennet (D-CO), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Nay
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Bond (R-MO), Nay
Boxer (D-CA), Yea
Brown (D-OH), Yea
Brown (R-MA), Yea
Brownback (R-KS), Nay
Bunning (R-KY), Not Voting
Burr (R-NC), Yea
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Cardin (D-MD), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Casey (D-PA), Yea
Chambliss (R-GA), Nay
Coburn (R-OK), Nay
Cochran (R-MS), Nay
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Coons (D-DE), Yea
Corker (R-TN), Nay
Cornyn (R-TX), Nay
Crapo (R-ID), Nay
DeMint (R-SC), Nay
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Ensign (R-NV), Yea
Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Feingold (D-WI), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Franken (D-MN), Yea
Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Nay
Grassley (R-IA), Nay
Gregg (R-NH), Not Voting
Hagan (D-NC), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Hatch (R-UT), Not Voting
Hutchison (R-TX), Nay
Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Johanns (R-NE), Nay
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Kirk (R-IL), Yea
Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Kyl (R-AZ), Nay
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
LeMieux (R-FL), Nay
Levin (D-MI), Yea
Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Lugar (R-IN), Nay
Manchin (D-WV), Not Voting
McCain (R-AZ), Nay
McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Nay
Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
Merkley (D-OR), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Yea
Risch (R-ID), Nay
Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Sanders (I-VT), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
Sessions (R-AL), Nay
Shaheen (D-NH), Yea
Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Specter (D-PA), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Tester (D-MT), Yea
Thune (R-SD), Nay
Udall (D-CO), Yea
Udall (D-NM), Yea
Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Voinovich (R-OH), Yea
Warner (D-VA), Yea
Webb (D-VA), Yea
Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
Wicker (R-MS), Nay
Wyden (D-OR), Yea

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK, 84638.

Randy cancels with Ken in order to end up with Donnie. Things go well, just like Randy had planned, even better than he had thought they would, until Donnie does the unexpected.

I enjoy writing one-to-one interactions and do so moderately well. One thing I struggle with, though, is ensuring the world is still there; that is, what's going on in their environment -- details, man, details -- as they are interacting with one another?

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK, 83,749.

Doing x means not doing y. And if y seems to be the better option by those around you, what excuse do you have, or rather do you give, to do x instead? That was the question that prompted today's scene work.

Randy already had plans with Ken; I decided with today's writing that those plans involved Ken's telescope and a perfectly aligned Mercury. Randy is cancelling Ken y so he can do Donnie x, with reasons that actually make x into more of a y; but Randy can't give those reasons to Ken, as least not yet.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK. 82,627.

I intended on writing a scene building up to a kiss between two characters, with a parargaph aside beforehand adding some details about another character's trip to the Grand Canyon with his family. But there ended up being more in that trip than a paragraph sufficiently carrried, so I spent the writing part of my morning and 1000 words on it instead.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK. 81,637.

Didn't quite get the thousand words I prefer in due to time constraints, but overall a decent session.

Habits. One of the things I like focusing on in stories is habits that get established by or between characters. Aristotle has much to say on habits and I think he is on the mark with regards to them. Actions arise out of our habits and our habits arise out of our repeated actions.

In a story, how often does an event have to be repeated for it to become a habit? Am I allowing enough time for its formation? Enough time for it to have the effect I want on a later event?

Today I got 600+ words in, finishing June story time involving Randy and Donnie. I also roughed out in my head some July-August sequences that believably follow from their previous month's routine and seriously raise the stakes involved.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK. 80992.

Had some computer issues this morning, but got restarted and working. Nice session and got 1000+ words in. The censor/critic comes in afterwards saying it's far too explicit, too non-mainstream, hardly marketable, etc. The critic says afterwards you will always be a failure, never find an audience, that the words are crap.

But during the session the critic is blessedly silent and the characters speak, telling their story in the way that feels like the best way -- the necessary way, the only way -- to tell it.

And I am just the messenger.

Update to Blog

Added quote from Andre Malraux: "Do what you believe you must and leave the interpreting of it to others."
Added excerpts from two completed, currently unpublished novels: Film and Space Junk.

Novel - Daily Progress

TFK. 79523.
Good session today, 3 hours, added 1000 words.

Focused on tweaking scenes leading up to elder Fargos leaving for the night and Randy in charge, of the house and of Donnie, once again. Although all writing is fun, some scenes are more fun than others to work on, so I struggle with not too quickly passing through the less fun ones.

Not only can that weaken the story, but perhaps more importantly it can cause a treasure to be missed; sometimes forcing yourself to spend time on a 'done' scene uncover a new detail that actually turns out to be wholly significant later on.

I tend to be minimalist, but there is fine line between minimal and scant. For me, there is a lot of going over earlier, quickly written paragraphs during the session, in addition to writing strictly new material. A very organic, sometimes tedious process that accumlates a story more than builds it.

Supertramp_ The Logical Song

I watched my husband's young nephews engage the world last night, their eager minds full of wonder as they noticed every little thing around them. Our purpose when we are young is simply to experience life to the fullest that are capabilities allow. But as we get older we refine our purposes until they are but narrow bands of coming and going to "get things done". At what age does just existing replace living, and how the heck do we stop it?

March 9, 1996. Our wedding. Still together, faithful, and doing what we can to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

Soda

Cocks came between us. My own erected
a wall; bricks of desire, raw and damaged
by repression and spackled by need. His,
which I never saw, was more like an invisible
fence and me a denatured dog yapping outside

its bounds. We stayed friends, from Junior
High, through college, and into my spiraling
orbit of depression. I dropped out and drank
and worked at a motel, my unbalanced self
balancing the nightly ledgers. He came

through the front door of the office bearing
two cans from the vending machine out
back: Mountain Dew for him, Dr. Pepper
for me. This is important, you see, for he
knew me well enough to know my favorite

drink. And when I think about that night,
I can’t recall too much of the conversation,
being all wrapped up in how beautiful
he looked with his thick eyebrows jutting
over thoughtful eyes. I simply took

the can, cool to the touch and wet. I get
sentimental over that offered soda. Sure,
I would have liked to have been thought of
in a way that would quench my other thirst,
but being thought of at all is not something

to be taken for granted. But I did, as that
was before he ran a light and a semi jackknifed,
erasing him from the earth. He left me
alone that night, and, full of want, I went
into the lobby and put a pot of coffee on.

My Personal Town

My Personal Town

I’m a scared child in a tattered gown
hoping that some day I will get it right.
I build things up, just to tear them down

One of these days I’ll erase my frown
and finally give vision to my sight.
That’s the story of my personal town.

One of these days I’ll become a noun
full of predicates marching left and right.
I’ll build things up, but won’t tear them down.

One of these days I’ll regain my crown
and show them all what it means to fight.
Things get gory in my personal town.

In the real of the world, I always drown
as the sails of my ship are lowered at night.
I no longer build, I just tear down.
That’s the worry of my personal town.

Damaged Fruit

Childhood is a skin you can’t shed.
I saw my own birth.
The doctor in the house cut the umbilical.
The aroma of antiseptic baptized me and I tasted
blood disguised as amniotic fluid. The scalpel tore
me away like a tumor as he said, “It’s kind
of like a boy.” The nurse
blushed, thinking she saw him say something
funny, but
he was just misquoting Richard Hugo, hearing him
give a remarkable reading
at the University of Colorado
Denver
despite being dead.
Come to think of it, It must have been
Boulder, instead.
That’s where
poetry lives
and every writer has a bike.
Some mountains look nice enough to die on
and you know how those Rocksniffers are, always
making us late with their infernal whispering:
I’ll make it fit if it’s the last thing I do.
The rabid squirrels of desire
took our oversized nuts away.
The morning sun left us shivering
so we turned inside out
so bad
even Foxy became all tangled up in intestines
and he’ll have to call the doctor back
from the nineteenth hole.
“Fetch me a ripe caddie,” he says.
“He needs to find my balls
and show me how to grip my club.”
He knows ways of searching he can’t remember.
Ce'est la vie?
Nien! Ich werde jenen Fehler nicht wieder machen
Low hanging clouds applauded our arrival,
marveling at our performance:
claws out, we dug into our skin,
searching for that oh so tasty
hidden morsel.

North by Southwest

North by Southwest

1.
Christ, when did the road
to Purdue become so paved? Did I miss
a memo, a leaflet, a constitutional amendment
that would have given me better directions? Or maybe,
I just cannot read so well, the coffee
and tear-stained map unfolding into social hieroglyphics
foreign to me. I watch
in my hindsight mirror as my best friend
takes a bite of an apple
I can’t taste. Don’t want to taste, actually, but still,
I clutch the wheel like I’m in control and don’t feel
anything inside me. I see
the sign saying 465 Exit Straight Ahead.
Like
an arrow going the wrong narrow way, I think,
but take it, anyway. I always do. Sometimes
you have to go South, after all, in order to go North,
and leaving Anderson is no exception. The bypass
snakes around Indianapolis like intestinal machinery
and craps us out onto 65.

2.
Weren’t there horses before machines? Wild
hopes running, roaming free? Full of fever
I reach
over to touch my best friend’s knee, but instead catch
myself and turn
the radio also on. So many stations, but all I get
is static. My friend hand’s me a cassette,
saying, “Why don’t you play
this?” I
oblige
and the greedy tape deck takes it. How great
it is to be inserting something somewhere! Rush
ushers Tom Sawyer in. I look in the backseat for Finn,
but all I see is a backpack containing my paint
by number SAT scores,
a welcome packet, and other dumb
and dumber academic junk reminding me I was sunk
before I had a chance to swim. Over
to my right, a Deer Crossing sign warns me to watch out. How
odd. The headlights are always on me,
and am I not
the only one frozen?

3.
Good time can be made going no
where. High school
was a similar nothing
affair. A Bloodguard beyond repair
with little worth protecting, the predetermined physics
of my body only outwardly observed the laws
of organic chemistry prevalent in the halls. The need
to be a cookie cutter
made Engineering seem full of bitter
sweet butter. But I wonder,
as I take us off the highway,
to gas up at a red and yellow Shell station
offering a free car wash, what
the real catch is. My friend
comes out of the washroom as I pull
my nozzle out, and stick it back where it belongs.
“Do you have to go?” he asks. “No,”
I say, and get back behind the wheel,
thinking, Where in the world does someone like me
have to go?

Man from the not What You Think Tank

I don’t wear a sheet
and I have all my teeth, back ones too,
keeping me cunning enough
to out grin crocodiles.

I look good in a 3-piece suit and artificial lights
of CNN. I talk in complete sentences
full of eloquence that makes sense to the asses,
I mean masses, of course, but I’ll spin
that line too,

saying that wasn’t what I meant at all, like Prufrock
without the love or song, or I was just
misquoted, just like Jesus

of Washington. I sit on committees, boards,
and am a card-carrying member of the PTA. I pray
to Specious; I’m all about the reasonableness
and always have a seat at the table, ensuring
my voice is heard loud and clear at the black

and white house. I espouse

important things for this grand nation. I’m a good
person, you can tell that by the unread
bible shoved in my back pocket. God mysteriously
works and is willing
to keep things between me and him, both
of us knowing it’s never about him.

It’s a sin, is all I’m saying, and praying
people see the light, that the mighty me
makes right.

Well, I don’t say that, cause I don’t
have to say
that.

I also never say those people
fuck dogs, just that
we need to seriously consider bestiality
as long as we’re seriously considering other things.
Don’t blame me for my listeners’ faulty inference

and I certainly didn’t say

they should have beat the shit out of that Shepard
boy just for existing,
and tied him to a fence, leaving him
to die like Christ, but without
salvation.

It’s just common sense we need
to create a stop and don’t think tank,
and stop the social experiment, stop
the recruitment, stop the anti-family movement,
and protect the children.

I’m all about the children. We know

they all start out okay and we need
to keep it that way, ensuring their souls
are kept pure as hate. Yeah, sure,
some may get damaged by our graceful state,
but I’m willing to pay the price,

and besides, if some young cock
sucking, fudge packing, God mocking
sissyfag fairy finally
jumps
off Heaven’s pearly bridge connecting

Hell to holy Hell

whose goddamn fault
is it?

Repurposing

Due to (lack of) funds, I have been repurposing a lot of things lately, such as: An empty Tidycats litter tub is now a kitchen wastebasket and an empty coffee container is now a sugar canister.

Something I've been thinking about a lot, way before the above two examples above, is how we often think of things in static form; we slap a noun on it and it enters some relatively inviolable state of being -- like chair or soul -- until it is no more. But thing X is really only X when we conceive it as X. This isn't to say it stops being X when our focus is elsewhere, but to realize it never "was" an X in the being sense that non-being would imply.

X and not-X are categories of conceptual convenience rather than metaphysical constants.

Defining Outside the Fox

Outside is the space not occupied by JD Fox; 'the rest' of the world. Here I hope to comment on current events, promote gay pride, and be a progressive voice that seems to be lacking by the left and right, which are just two sides of the same worthless coin.

Outside is where the writing and art ends up in some medium for non-JD Fox entities to see.

But...

Outside is also in many ways a misleading term. Inside affects outside and vice versa, simultaneously, making such distinctions mere convenience. Even mind is as much "out there" as "in here". Don't believe this too be true? Answering the question already proves it.