I Could Write a Book

   ...and I did actually. Way back in the University of Minnesota days I started a fiction about a couple of 70's rockers who became responsible professors at the U of M but decide to cut loose when school lets out in the summer of 99', the last summer of the century. I love it and occasionally glance at it but it has a major flaw and therefore spends its time collecting dust, waiting for me to get old and finally rewrite it. The problem is that I started it when I was a twenty year old punk-ass junior in college and finished when I was a twenty-five year old punk-ass party animal, wannabe rockstar in so-cal. Which is to say that in those five years my writers voice changed as I did and consequently the book with it.
    When it was finished I brought it and all two-hundred sixty two pages of it's literary glory to an agent who hosted workshops once a week. She basically tore it a new asshole and said that normally she gives an author thirty seconds worth of reading before she decides to move forward or onward but this was worth about ten seconds of her time. She cut to the quick and said the characters are about as developed as a tuesday papers cartoon. But then right in front of the rest of the group she picked me back up and gave me a pearl of her much possessed wisdom. The gist of it went like this.
   "At the risk of spoiling you before your time I have to tell you this. In all my years in this business i've learned that the true gift of writing occurs at birth or before. You got it or you don't. Judging by your ability to create dialogue and storylines, you've got it. But you can't crap out two hundred pages and expect the world to love you for it. You have to write and rewrite and repeat process. Just like it takes a thousand flowers to create an ounce of perfume this is what you must do."

   Needless to say I was a bit defeated and even looking at my novel for weeks following was exhausting. I didn't abandon it but stepped away until further notice and then life, guitars, girls, work, surfboards, etc. occured and the writers writings became simpler, as in songs. I began my most intense period of song writing to this day and the book still sits.
   Where am I going with this? Simple. Life is still occuring, evolving, unfolding like a book or this painting. It's wild, it's beautiful, hectic, sad, joyful, rewarding, unfair, perfect, perfectly fucked up, what have you. It's hard for me to even use the word "I" these days because...
 like a setting sun when
 everything starts to blur into one
and the day is replaced by night and stars
when people go home or go out to bars
we are left with a memory, of another day with a thousand names and hopefully wake up with another just the same. Good night!