A real live American Bald Eagle

Overheard today while at a matinee of (the extremely hilarious film) The 40 Year-Old Virgin, when a PSA for the Jimmy Fund or some such thing comes on with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson:

Girl 1: Oh, I fucking love the Rock.
Girl 2: Yeah, he's awesome.
Girl 1: He has no neck.

Every morning around 6am, when I wake to get up and feed my dogs, I walk out of my bedroom and always see a small brown doorstop on the floor in the wife's office. I almost always have to pause and look again because I think it is a dog turd.

I'm tired, just finished doing some tech edit read-throughs for a book publisher and sent them off, read some blogs and thought a lot about writing the novel or working on another short, but I'm getting bleary-eyed and my stomach is actually making sloshing sounds because I just drank two cups of water in a row.

So I'll just tell you this: The wife bought some cans of dog food that we use as the occasional emergency supplement to the dogs' usual BARF (Bones And Raw Food) diet. And the name brand of this canned food?

Turducken.

At first, I thought that was like some family name that a person actually had to live with, and worse, was proud enough of it to put it on a can of dog meat. Then I looked it up and found out it's a truncation of Turkey, Duck and Chicken. All the fowl that's good for mutts.

Still, that's just one consonant way from the worst coprophilic pr0n EVER (in a can).

This is a wacky, happy Sunday... my entire set of in-laws, including the three-year-old nephew who eats nothing but is still almost seven feet tall, were here this morning, we whipped up a BBQ and ate our fill (except for the kid, who has to be bribed, cajoled and threatened into eat four bits of pure-beef hot dog) and they took the wife (who in this case we will call Autie Squanto) to go visit the local dinosaur museum to look at skeletons.

So I get to sit here and make some various updates on my latest short story. The changes are based on edits I noted yesterday while reading the tale aloud to the Wife as we took a ride out to Hornell (she drove, in case that wasn't obvious). She surprised me by, in fact, liking it—a lot. She practically gushed over it. I expected her not to care for it for some reason, which shows how in tune we are after 16 years together. She even liked what I consider a very abrupt ending. I thought it needed more... something, but she pointed out, "if it was a movie, that's how it would end and no one would be bothered." And she is (as usual) right. So I might punch it up a touch, but not much. (Also, I'd like to get it down to 8000 words from 10k, but that's probably not going to happen. Sigh.)

We went to Hornell yesterday to gather to celebrate the two week return to the states of my friend Major Bill of the US Army. He's been in Bagdhad for the last eight months except for one trip to Texas for a meeting (because that's good use of travel resources by the military, send a guy over an ocean for a meeting. At least while he was back he got to see Batman Begins on the screen—his bootleg DVD was missing a half hour.)

We joked (for probably for the thousandth time for him) about how he was probably "freezing" in the 85 degree weather. He's had it go as hot as 140° in Iraq, sweating so much even in his feet that his boots are caked with salt. He was quite happy with 85°, but got his first sun burn of the year while home because he was not wearing his usual long-sleeved uniform shirt. He, unfortunately, returns to the Green Zone in a week for at least four more months. Probably more. As a "lifer" in the Army, they can screw him over as much as they want. What's he going to do, no reinlist?

The get-together was great on a number of levels, but maybe the happiest for me personally was seeing my friend Keith, one of my closest friends from high school, who I have not seen in 13 years (since Bill's own wedding in '92). Keith has become successful—he owns one of the few, if not the only, print businesses left in Hornell— and I was just so happy to see him and here great things are for him. I mean, he might be the only person I am friends with a CEO title.

Gathered with him and his wife Jen, and Bill, and my friends Mark and Sean, and my own Squanto-licious wife, it was three hours of sitting around and telling stories, reminiscing, and observations, most delivered via lightning-quick barbs and witticisms tossed like razor-sharp lawn darts. I felt bad I didn't talk more with Bill's folks, or really say hi to his brother's at all, but I was basking in the glow of the group, awash in all the actual good stuff that high school was about. It just happened to be 17 years later.

Eventually we had to leave and drive out in the first rain I'd seen in weeks to get the dogs, see the 'rents and nephews and my brother (who, by the way, got a bill from the city for his new deck since he didn't bother to get a permit ahead of time).

I felt kinda light and high about the whole day during the ride home, just happy, to have shared it with the wife and my friends. It was all good.

When we got home, we watched a really good movie called "Criminal " staring the magnificent John C. Reilly. Good flick.

(Have I not yet bitched about the crap-fest that is "House of Flying Daggers?" Well, the Batman TV show with Adam West had better fights, and made more sense. Terrible.)

Well, time to get back to sticking in the missing words (easy to find) and excising the extra words (a whole other matter) in this latest manuscript, while I digest the copious amounts of hamburger, spiedies and hotdog in my belly.

I have been feeling like I was a whack-job (not the good kind) in the last few months as I've so deliniated in my head what I can do on my desktop computer (writing work for my job) and on my laptop (writing work for me, me, me). It's not completely arbitrary, but really, if the wife barrows Maui the laptop for the day (like she did Friday), does that really mean I should have a mental block on being able to work on my sort story?

I was thus incredibly pleased to see that my literary writing hero Neil Gaiman -- who I have actually broken bread with, and traded emails with, I'm so god-damn cool -- can't write certain kinds of stories without the proper color of ink. We all have our crosses to bear.

All this and only one shot of Ned Beatty? And he's not even bent over... (Requires QuickTime.)

Anyone who knows me also knows that I'm just all about the self-improvement. Whether its learning new languages (Hablo the Englash? Danke, Mon-sewer), taking up rock climbing as my primary form of exercise, or creative endeavors like carving my storage shed from an imported redwood tree trunk, well, obviously, I do my utmost.

Which is all lies to put in perspective just how enormous a move it was for me to actually read The Elements of Style this week.

I've owned it since college. I dunno why, but I've never been able to get past page one of that "little book" as both Strunk and then White called it. I knew that advice on page one cold, however: If you need to do a possessive and name ends with "s," you put on an extra "'s." So it's "Louis's car," not "Louis' car."

It is arguably the most recommended book on writing ever. Yet the rest of it was a mystery to me.

Working this week on a new short story (I'm 8,000 words in just since Sunday), I saw the little book up on a shelf in the Wife's office and I took it down and just sat there under her ceiling fan—which I did install myself, so I'm not completely worthless—and started reading it. I was pleased to see that much of what is in there is stuff I know. Not to say I'm not breaking the rules all the time anyway, but at least I know my quotation mark, semi-colon and comma placement. (Even though many people consider them "Satan's punctuation," I love semi-colons. And so did Strunk! So eat shit, semi-colon haters!)

(Strunk would not have approved of the term "So eat shit...". His rule is "Avoid in writing the use of so as an intensifier." So, uh...oops.)

I was reading the third edition of the book, published in 1979. I found that five years ago, a fourth edition was published. So I went to B&N on Sunday and picked it up [damn, there's "so" again!"]. The new edition even mentions word processors in the "revise and rewrite" advice... the previous edition suggested taking scissors to your manuscript.

Reading this book made me realize I've forgotten more parts of speech than I currently know. I couldn't effectively diagram a sentence's structure if required by law. (Is "structure" in that sentence a gerund? I just don't know!) I'm not sure I really need to know it all, however. I've been a professional editor and writer for 13 years and it hasn't been a problem. That either means I've got inherent talent, or I should go buy lottery tickets.

Even reading a book this important is a delaying tactic in polishing off the rest of this story. I'm afraid I've written something entirely non-commercial for a variety of factors; on the other hand my protagonist really grabbed hold of my balls and told his story. (Hellow, semi-colon!) I don't see anyway to change things for him at this point. He's kinda screwed. And not in the good way.

Getting a first draft is the key though, and then I'll pick away at it and maybe Strunk and White will help me out this time around.

I've been unsure about whether to blog about this all day, as I don't want to jinx anything. But I suppose it should be said for the record that today at 1:30pm Eastern Time, I, Eric Griffith, being of sound mind and mushy body, did for the first time in twelve years (maybe 13, I dunno) submit a fiction story of my own creation for publication to a magazine.

Of course, I expect rejection. Not because the story deserves it. It's just that, that's what writing is all about, at least at first, and there are few exceptions. For example ...

That sure knowledge doesn't prevent me from picturing my numb reaction on that day in the fall when my own self-addressed-stamped-envelope appears in my mail box, though. How I'll look at it and see my own hand-writing, as if my evil-inverse-twin from the mirror universe (where I have no beard and I eat only health bars for food) is writing to me, but I'll know that this is actually my own handwriting, and my own stamp, and inside is probably a form letter telling me that my story isn't right for them at this time. There won't be any criticism or comments, there will not be time for any editor to gaze upon my four to five months of writing and editing and cutting and rewriting those 13,800 words and say what makes it great or what makes it suck or why it did or did not grab them by the (metaphorical) testicles and did or did not let go. Those editors are inundated by submissions and I'm lucky that I've sent the story in to a place where I'm at least sure it will be read. I expect no special attention.

Still, I harbor that dream... that instead of the form letter, I'll get an e-mail (which is in my cover letter and the top page of the manuscript) from the editor asking me for an electronic copy so they can print that sucker, as is, in fact, they want to devote an entire issue to the characters I created so they'll just print it four times in one issue!

Or maybe an e-mail where we, editor and writer, can start a creative dialog where they explain to me improvements I can make that will guarantee purchase and publication, if not fame and riches.

I'd settle for an e-mail telling me why it didn't grab them by the (still metaphorical) nut sack.

I stood in the Post Office today with the manuscript stamped and ready to mail and went over in my head every reason, from the editors' POV, why the story is great and why it sucks:

1) The dialog crackles and is fun-ny, hell yes.
2) But the dialog isn't very literary... they sound like bumpkins.
3) The story speeds along.
4) Or does it plod like little old men in mud up to their ankles?
5) Professionals have read through this tale and helped me fix all the issues.
6) There's always a damn typo, and it might be the editor's biggest pet peeve that I let slip through, causing rage and thrown pages and lots of red pen ink to be spilled.
7) The magazine says it accepts police procedural stories (which mine is)...
8) I don't remember seeing any police procedurals at all in the last few issues...

Etcetera. It's station K-FUK playing full-blast in the head. Usually it comes in clearest while trying to get things down on paper, but this after-the-fact air play was annoying.

Ultimately, I had to believe in the story. I had to know, having read so many back issues of the magazine, that it was a fit. That what I was sending them wasn't a shot in the dark -- it was a what they are looking to give their 100,000+ subscribers. I just had to. So I dropped it in the mail slot.

I now have between 30 and 120 days to receive my rejection or acceptance or feedback. I can't let myself think about it. In that time, my writing must turn back to the novel (which stands at 30,500 words, and I've get a bet with Josh that I can reach 100k words before he does, which shouldn't be hard as he actually edits as he goes along. Sucker! And I'm 5,000 ahead anyway.) Maybe another short story or two, hopefully some much shorter than this last one. I've got more ideas than I do time, especially the time to sit at a computer. But I hope to keep plugging away, otherwise I'll never get any closer to turning this kind of writing into my full-time, extremely underpaid gig.

Where is Ed Sullivan when you need him?

Described by some as big enough to be a landing strip for the Space Shuttle...

You know you're in for a fun filled weekend when your brother's next door neighbor asks you if you shave your legs. And yet to you, your legs look like the downy pelt of a silver-back gorilla.

Thus it was I spent my Saturday in the service of my brother, helping him build a deck on the side of his house that would easily encompass the entire first floor of his next door neighbor's entire tiny house at about 700 square feet. The majority of the deck he'd already framed out with some help from my folks, and our goal was to finish framing and then start nailing down deck boards (always nail in my family, never screw. We know the joys of pneumatic tools too well.)

To get framed out, we had to go over the cement patio he'd poured just a year before. Turned out going over would be too big a hassle as the patio had seam in it that would require ripping the boards from two directions. Instead, we took a sledgehammer and performed a reverse John Henry on that patio's ass. It is always easier to destroy than to create, and a helluva lot more fun.

It was fun until I slid on the rubble we were creating at least, and I, in sandals like a numbskull, tore a flap of skin off the back of my heel "big enough to grill as a steak," as my brother Paul put it.

As the day wore on however, the sun came out and it started to feel like real work. I spent the better part of two hours cutting the tops off of sunken posts with my brother's sawsall, which made my hands and arms vibrate until they felt like I'd just pushed a riding lawn mower up a hill. Paul says to me in his infinite capacity for sympathy: "Cowboy up, wouldja? You're embarrassing me."

I was tempted to strip to nothing but my Red Dirt baseball cap to show him true embarrassment. But I was afraid the neighbor lady would somehow see my hirsute chest as smooth as a baby's bottom and want to ask what brand of razor and nair I use.

In the end we got may one-quarter of the deck boards down before I was too weak to go on. I stayed lat enough into the evening to eat some beef and corn on the cob and watch my sister-in-law flail in desperate panic at those sweat bees that might come near, enough so that she ate an entire meal standing up.

Then it was in the car and back home to wash and bandage myself up (also blister on thumb and assorted slivers and a back pain whenever I laugh for some reason). Today hurts more than it did on Sunday, when I basically did nothing except get tricked by the wife into work like cleaning our van even though I told her first thing, "I'm not doing anything today." That never works. I should have just hid.

The latest addition to the house hold, my new desktop computer, complete with fancy neon light inside (held down with fancy, uh, velcro). I should not need a new computer now until at least 2008. I hope.

As the wife was getting ready to leave for her agility class tonight, she asked me about my day. What was there to say? It was my first real day back from vacation (yesterday I didn't work, spending instead 11 hours getting my brand new PC up and running). It was just like every other day. Some are better, some are worse, whether that means productivity, or enjoyment, or whatever.

"Did you think it was going to be any different?" she said.

The problem is, yeah, I kinda did. I have no idea why I should think that. The things I accomplished in two days of writing full time while sitting in a non-Internet enabled lodge in New Hampshire may have inspired me to greatness, but it's tempered severely when you have to do your 9 to 5.

Worse, I felt like I should catch-up on on reading some blogs, so I did that for the last couple of hours, with Family Guy and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law episodes playing in the background. Now, I don't even want to write this... I want to go read another Harry Bosch novel, or watch more TiVo-ed shows from last week.

I'm tired and cranky. Tomorrow, I think maybe I'll try to get out of the house. It certainly seemed to do wonders for me last week.