Everything old is new again, it seems. I mentioned in a previous post that I found an old notebook detailing out a potential novel, yeah? Here’s the thing: I’m going to go back to that process rather than rely on having all my notes be fettered to the PC. Why? Because I said so, that’s why! Oh. You want more information than that. Fine. Fine. You people are very demanding.

Okay, first, what is the notebook? The notebook is one of those little muscle-bound Five-Star 5 1/2 inch x 3 1/2 inch jobbies. Hard plastic cover, sturdy ring. The notebook pages are themselves an amalgam of my crazy note-taking (scrawled in handwriting that only I can decipher, handwriting with all the grace and elegance of the arterial spray from a stuck pig) and actual print-outs. Yes, I print things out in columnar format and literally tape that shit into the notebook. It’s caveman, I get it. But you know what? I did this notebook ten years ago (“TEN YEARS, MAN! TEN! YEARS! TEN YEARS!”), and it holds up. Sucker’s all dirty and ratty, like it’s been dragged through sewers and blood, but you know what? The notes are all good to go. Totally legible, totally clear.

Now, yeah, computer files are ultimately far more legible, them being… well, on the computer and not subject to my madman’s shaky scribble. But, my computer is chockablock with notes. And I don’t have as accurate a collection of backed-up files from 10-years-ago as I’d like.

Plus, here’s the thing. It’s nice having a hard solid object in my hands (insert masturbation joke here), something that allows me to pop outside, sit on the chair while the dogs gambol about and try to pee on each other’s pee spots (seriously, they play some kind of oneupsmanship game with urine), and flip through notes. The novel notes are contained. They’re insane, and not necessarily logical, but it’s like I’m holding an artifact, like I’ve got Proof Of Concept right there in my sweaty grip.

In the end, that’s the deal — it comes down to an ephemeral idea: I get a creative thrill from flipping through the notebook, and that’s immeasurable, that jolt, that spark.

So, it’s what I’m going to do going forward. I’ve got a number of novels kicking around my head, and maybe I won’t write them now, maybe I won’t write them ever, but I’ll do a notebook for each. Shaky chicken-scratch handwriting paired with scissor-cut print-outs crudely taped to pages (which gives the notebook a satisfying, chaotic bulge, like it just ate a big meal).

That’s that about that. Now, another thing:

Short stories.

I’ve mostly given up on short stories as a means to make money — the market is thin, really, and it’s a good way to maybe get your work out there, but it can be distracting from the big prize. It’s like, I’m reaching for the brass ring over here. I want to sink or swim in a big pond. I want to play for the Majors in my Big Boy Pants. I think I’m mixing metaphors. You get the point. If I take a week or a month to workshop a short story, it’s a week or a month I’m not hammering on something bigger, y’know? Nothing wrong with that, exactly, and short stories are great to hone your craft (they enforce the idea that brevity is key, guaranteeing you stay on your toes), but I’ve been writing for publication for many years, now — I think it’s time to stop practicing. (Some might take this as an ego-thing, that I’m saying I don’t need to improve my work or hone my craft; I do, I really, really do, I just want to take the foam off my sword, you dig?)

But, but, but — I have a backlog of short fiction. Some of it is okay, but I read through some of it last night and found it surprisingly solid. It holds up. Light editing will earn me not-to-terrible fiction.

So, some of it, I’m going to put out there and see if I can’t get it published. I know the market is thin, and a lot of the old fiction market sites I used to look at (Gila Queen, f’rex), are gone-baby-gone, replaced by robot sites with unrelated links like, “Wicker Lampshades! Premature Ejaculation! Real Estate!” Some of it, I’m going to post on here, with some FREE STORY page or whatever. I just have to find out what I’m going to put up, and will have to plunk it into the page editor to make it web-worthy.

Oh, the picture above? It’s of the Crazy Novel Notebook I worked on 10 years ago, slapped together in a hasty collage. Please to enjoy.