Alright, I'll Come Back...

My poor, beleaguered agent has probably given up with "Think Fast" by now. Those who liked it said they can't deal with the length (it's novella-sized), and those that didn't like it at all were probably the honest ones. And in the end it's the typical phenomenon with me; I can't stand to look at it let alone read it anymore. So I hardly care about it by now. But I temper this with the fact that I always feel like that. I think I've said before.

But things keep coming out down my fingers onto a keyboard or out of my mouth and into my Mac version of DragonDictate when I especially need dialog, so there's always a project working. I'm going to try and make his life easier and give him something more traditional and much longer. It's not urban, it's not a genre-bender, and it doesn't seem to have one profanity in the whole thing so far. In fact that would probably be totally out of place this time. It's actually more like magic realism than anything else; which is totally new for me though I love reading it when it's done well. Think Garcia-Marquez, Mahfouz and Paolo. It's a simple premise and still manages to fall into my usual study (solitary individual alienated blah blah etc.). This guy goes off into the Sahara with his life's possessions. He stumbles upon an unknown well that he turns into an oasis and people think he's a holy man or something, but there's a white hyena who knows the guy is full of crap and doesn't miss a chance to tell him so. Working title "The Well At al-Khiba’" - al-Khiba' being Arabic for a star constellation known as The Tent. Anyway maybe he'll have a better time trying to sell something a bit more traditional and mainstream than the usual crap I do. It's not that I'm going in this direction on purpose, just to please somebody. Not at all. It's pouring out of me and I throw away 80% of what comes out so I know it's just like normal. Only a different style. Don't know where it comes from.

But it's been a whirlwind fall so far and it's going to get crazier. The Reunion is over and was dull and downright anti-climactic when compared to the gathering I hosted of the old theater department. And an offshoot of that is that on November 8 I've been invited back to the school to give a short speech and introduce Rocco, as he will be entered into the Ring of Fame or whatever the school calls it. I'm honored to do it because we were in a couple plays together and I've been watching him ever since I saw him in Donnie Brasco with Pacino and Johnny Depp.

The catch here is that one of the reasons I told myself I stopped trying to pursue an acting career (outside of the fact that I stunk) was that I developed a severe and ever-increasing propensity for stage fright. Awful, staggering, murderous stage fright. It got to the point where I didn't want to do anything simply because I didn't want to feel that way any more. So here I go next month back in front of an audience and I'm strangely not petrified right now. I imagine I will get there starting the night before, so there is that. I don't know how I was convinced or why I agreed to do it. Probably off the euphoria of the reunion stuff. I don't know. Anyway here goes nothing. I hope to put a picture up on the blog afterward. If I survive.

My wife just got back from Tennessee where she and her brothers are finally settling their father's estate. The auction is in mid-November and they each stand to get a nice sum after everything is finished. I have been assigned the task of finding the best uses for the bulk of it, investment-wise. Another interest I never fully pursued? Well not really true, I did read the book Warren Buffet considered to be the Bible standard of investing, the one he utilized by the man who was his professor. And I have been able to keep our head above water in this market - in fact I've been buying pretty much all through 2008 to now. Of course everybody took a hit and I'm no different, but I didn't cash in the chips and things are coming back if you pick your stocks right (always compare book-value to the market price, if it's less than what it is selling for in the market you MIGHT have a value buy. That's just the first step, not ALL the steps. But it is where I always start). Anyway this will probably constitute the last influx of resources into our family from outside our own household so I can't screw it up. I'm suggesting a vacation first. That always makes paying off a credit card or two easier to swallow. :-)

So I'm blithering and it's 4 in the God damn morning. I'll cut it right here. Except to say that I'm trying... really hard... to get back to everybody's blogs and to post regularly. I spruced up the joint a little bit. I don't know what it means.

But okay... I'm coming back to the game.