on 2008

Today, I'd like to say how grateful I am for 2008. Sure, the year has ended up a little weird, with the financial crisis, downsizing at publishing houses and so on, but there were some pretty great things about 2008, too.

Like my first book, Ghost Medicine coming out, and all the great reviews and notices it's received. So, I just have to say that I am greatly looking forward to 2009 being even more exciting, as I await the publication of my second book, in the path of falling objects.

Last year at about this time, I posted a piece on Advice for Writers, 2008, and this year I am going to post a short series of graphic blog entries on Advice for Writers, 2009. Don't take them too seriously, though. It's all in fun.

Day 15

shortest day of the year

I hate shopping.

I know that's not the most acceptable way to begin day 14 of The Gratitude Experiment, but I couldn't help myself. This morning, I went out to breakfast with the family, and, afterward I was presented with yet another lady-or-the-tiger dilemma: I could either go shopping with my wife and daughter, or I could shovel snow out of the driveway.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd rather do the snow thing.

With a chopstick.

Okay. So I'm out there shoveling snow, getting all sweaty and stuff, and I'm thinking to myself, isn't getting sweaty in the snow like the one thing that Bear Grylls and Les Stroud always warn about? Maybe I should stop for a while and have a beer. Why is it that those guys can build a freekin igloo and get a fire going inside it in like 45 minutes (and a chopstick would be a luxury), and I have yet to uncover one square yard of driveway concrete?

And I'm not even going to get into the Bear Grylls vs. Les Stroud argument, 'cause it's a no-brainer who could kick whose ass.

Okay. I must be getting delirious from all this shoveling and sweating in the snow. Time to sit down and have a beer.

Even though this is the shortest day of the year... two females shopping is good for a good six hours in my estimation. I wonder if Survivorman would concur.

Ever since I embarked on this writing career thing, I've made some really cool friends. Today, I would like to say I am grateful for meeting and becoming friends with a very talented author, Lewis Buzbee. Not only are Lewis' books amazingly good (The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Steinbeck's Ghost, After the Gold Rush), --

Note to self: I have to ask Lewis if he is a fan of Neil Young. I bet he is. My wife is somehow convinced that we conceived our son at a Neil Young concert, so I'll have to take her word for that.

-- but Lewis is actually the kind of person who takes the time to write incredibly thoughtful and insightful emails... kind of, I'd imagine, the way that some people used to actually correspond by writing letters. I love getting emails from Lewis because he writes so well and he really takes the time to consider the questions I (being the inexperienced nobody that I am) ask. And many are the times when his calming responses have talked me back inside from the ledge.

Not that I have a ledge, but I probably could get a wicked sprain if I jumped off the upper deck.

Well, I'm done sweating now, and that goddamned snow isn't going to shovel itself.

Day 14

the headless snowman

No, this is not a wintertime horror story. Yesterday, before dinner (supper, as they say in some parts of the country), my little girl went out back to build a snowman.

She's very creative, into crafts, painting, sculpture, and such, but yesterday she took on the challenge of actually creating a man. I was pretty surprised, too, at the size and detail of her finished product.

During the night, his head fell off.

I had to explain to her that sometimes these things just happen naturally (not like what happened to my head the other night). Well, she took it in stride and is currently outside making a new head for her man.

Today, I'd like to say how grateful I am for books. I am on my third book (reading... I don't write that fast. Yet.) this week. The first book I read was great... probably one of the best books I have ever read. Top five, at least. The second book was terrible. In fact, I can't believe I finished reading it because I really didn't like the protagonist (and I know it wasn't the writer's intention to elicit such a response from a reader), and the ending was a complete letdown. I mean, nothing changed at all from the first page to the last. Usually, I won't finish reading a book like that, but since I was stranded, I had no access to my "to be read" stack. Ugh. I will not recommend it to anyone, and am going to bury it at the bottom of a desk drawer or a box or something.

The third book, the one I am reading at the moment, seems to be very good. Not one I'll toss out, to be sure.

I almost never rate or review books online. Sometimes, I feel like writers don't have any business giving public reviews of books. But I will sometimes mention another writer's work if I am totally blown away by it, or if I think it has an important contribution to offer its audience.

So I will say I'm looking forward to reading a couple books that are due out this spring: Killer Pizza, by my friend, Greg Taylor (it sounds really cool), and The Heights by Brian James, because I am very intrigued by the summary blurb I read about it.

Anyway, I am grateful for books... past, present, and those future ones that keep you looking forward to the next season.

Day 13.

finally home

Okay. I will say, first off, that I am so grateful to be back home. I had been snowed out for two days, and this was really stressful and frustrating for me because, well, I like being home.

So I have to make up now for two days of missed posting, and missed expressions of gratitude. So here goes:

Well, on day one of my ordeal when my son and I were caught in the lowlands and my wife and daughter were up at the house, getting hammered by about 3 feet of snow, I decided we'd spend the night in a hotel. The roads were shut down, anyway, and where I live is so remote and un-commuterized that they just don't often bother to plow the roads.

Note: While the following events took place, my son was happily enjoying the plasma TV and Room Service menu upstairs. No worries.

So I am very grateful that some of my best friends: John, Dave, Casey, and Brian (who live down below) came out and met me at the hotel bar, where we all decided to try our best to run up the biggest bar tab I've ever picked up. I'm pretty sure we did, too. Then Brian, Casey, and I walked to yet another bar, where we got pretty silly... well, I did, at least.

Vague recollection of tattoos... but I don't know what that means.

Anyway, grateful for my buddies. I had a blast.

The next day I spent a good deal of the morning looking for my head. I was certain it had somehow become detached. I am grateful it, in fact, was not.

When we tried to drive home, our little winding mountain road was still closed. But, I am exceedingly grateful for the sympathetic Highway Patrol Officer who allowed me to drive beyond the ROAD CLOSED barrier (since I have 4WD) and just cautioned me to "be careful."

So, yeah... I finally made it back home. And I am never doing that again.

The driving out in a snowstorm thing, I mean.

(Days 10, 11, and 12)

december with teeth

Well, it's not technically winter, even if it feels like it.

I'm going to make this quick because it's been a long and hectic day. But working on this Gratitude Experiment as I have for nine days now really has had an effect on me. Not that it's changed my attitude in any noticeable way. I'm still cynical and aloof. But what it has done is really made me focus on things for which I am grateful. And I find it hard to narrow in on just one when it comes time to adding it to a list.

So, today I am going to say that I am grateful for horses. I know... that's like the girliest thing I have ever said, but it is true. And my horses contributed so much to my writing of the novel Ghost Medicine.

I have three horses: Reno (he's very kind and noble, with an incredibly patient and accepting personality, just like the Reno in the novel), Arrow (stubborn and cantankerous... sound familiar?), and Dusty (not much like the Dusty in the novel, although a silver buckskin... but very prissy and self-centered).

So, pretty much everything the characters say about horses or horse medicine in the book is true: horses do have their own personalities and they are spiritually powerful. I know that idea may be hard to grasp for a non-horseperson, but it is really true.

Day 9

on cake and horses

Well.

I have a lot to be grateful for today, on day 8 of The Gratitude Experiment.

I woke up this morning very early, as always, because that's when I write and go running and stuff like that. This morning, I saw that it was snowing like crazy.

Normally, I'd like that, because it would mean staying at home by the fire and watching it come down all day long. But not today. Now, I have a responsible teenager living with me.

Could anything possibly be more revolting?

He insisted I drive him the 26 miles down the mountain to his high school because he was doing an important Physics experiment.

Oooh... save the world, Einstein.

(Side note: in light of a recent post of mine complaining on the over-emphasis of math and science at the expense of creative writing and the arts, let me clarify that my son is quite a talented writer, even if he does like physics, a subject for which I have absolutely no tolerance or patience.)

So, driving him down was like the freekin' Donner Party. I even magnanimously offered that if I died first, he had my permission to eat me.

Okay. I know I'm getting a little worked up. So I would like to express how grateful I am for:

1) Four-wheel-drive

2) My responsible son's dedication to his schoolwork.

I do have pretty great kids. But I didn't even get to write about the cake and horses.

Maybe tomorrow.

Day 8

(no words) my bad