I’ve written more here since I’ve gotten the blog together than I wrote in a month at My Heart’s Porch.  May be something you’ll have to get used to.

The above is Modest Mouse, a band I could go on and on about.  They’re great.  We’ll leave it at that.  The first post here, “The Blog That Ate Itself,” is a riff on one of their albums.

I’ve been skipping over an important part of my life here.  It could be that I’m trying to rein myself in a bit, make this place more formal.  But that’s dishonest to the purpose of this blog, if not the site, and I’ll never be able to confuse my writing with my blogging, try as I might to blur the lines on here at times.  So, without further distraction: I’ve got this lady friend.  We’re counting down the days until we get to see each other–we’ve never met, see.  But we’ve talked for what seems like ages.  We have all the inside jokes of a couple and we complete each other’s sentences and we have trouble sleeping or doing pretty much anything without hearing the other’s voice.  It’s not perfect, but I’m finding it’s much closer to than I’ve ever been before.  We both write.  On opposite ends of the spectrum.  She’s masterful at delving into the mind, digging up pieces of heart, laying things bare.  I…write dirt good.  Which isn’t trying to sell myself short, but sometimes I’m in awe of her ability.  I wouldn’t even know where to begin.  That’s the craft.  And that’s her.  I don’t think I can do much better.  And if I can I don’t want anyone to tell me.  Have I mentioned she’s pretty as the stars at evening?

I made good on my vow and got through 2,000+ words.  The count is up to 8,386.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I wrote so much in a day.  What’s more, I finished off with a really decent scene, ended up surprising myself, tying things in where I didn’t know I could.  I love the work–now if I could just get paid for it.

Which brings me, sort’ve, to my last point of the evening.  I fired off a quick thanks to the editor of The Collagist for the encouragement, and he sent a reply right back.  I’ve had some dealings with editors before, and publishers, and agents.  And they do a good job of making me seem little even when they’re apologizing for half-year delays.  But Mr. Matt Bell has proven to be cut from a different cloth.  So, if I seemed halfhearted in my endorsement of the journal before, let me put that to bed.  Not only is The Collagist a tight piece of work, it’s also run by a damn nice fellow.  Can I cram any down home sayings into this paragraph?  No?  Then I guess we’re done.  Go take a look.

While I’ve got you on the horn, have I mentioned Circumlocution to you?  They’re in need of fiction submissions.  And I can vouch for one of the editors as being something like a saint.  I wouldn’t be sitting here today without his help.

Is this what the lotus does to you?  It’s not quite so soothing as I thought it would be.  Maybe I’m too far from the ocean.

So, I wake up this morning, yeah?  Had made plans to write 2,000 words today, since I’ve slacked the past few.  So, I’m trucking along, plow through a thousand in two hours.  I break for food and some real world stuff (starting off pretty great, too, like the writing) and as I finish eating I get an email.  Long awaited.  But not long for this business.  It’s from the editor of The Collagist.

The backstory to this is that I sent in my one (1 (single(only))) short story to The Collagist in late July.  To my surprise, I got an email back from the editor after little more than a week, during my first few days here in Riverside.  He asked me to resend the story, as I’d lopped some of it off in the sending.  A good sign, no?  So I resend.  And today–of all days, seriously, Sunday?– I get an email back rejecting it.  The good news is that he said there was good writing in it, and he looked forward to more of my work.  Which is honestly a pretty good silver lining.  But dammit, man.  You just had to wreck my momentum.  So, I blog.  I’m reclined on a couch.  Are you, collectively, putting pens to your lips, saying “hm”?

The wordcount now is 7,658.  In the whole of the text there are 114 commas.  I’m not about to go through 18 pages and see how many of those are contained in dialogue.  But.  That’s not so bad, yeah?  I’m nearly through my designated 2,000 words, and I’m gonna shoot for 3, but we’ll see how well that goes.  I might just sulk and watch The Venture Brothers.   Rejection’s part of this industry, and as far as skin goes mine’s pretty thick.  But the first issue of the journal came out and some decent-sized names are in it.  Would’ve gone a long way for things.  Back on the horse–truck.

I am mostly satisfied with the way ITLOTLE looks. I am entirely satisfied with how the acronym for my blog resembles Nahuatl, the name for a collection of Mayan languages. (Yolteotl means heart of God, for instance, and ixtli means face).

But!  I thought I’d ask what you folks would like to see.  Maybe a sidebar picture of me with some witty quote.  I’m thinking of putting in some virtual bookcase, or something to that effect.  How about music?  I know Lindsay wants an audio excerpt of me reading from my second novel.

In other news, here in brief is a list of some misadventures in Riverside thus far:

1. Befriended a Jehovah’s Witness outside the UCR library.  He had long, dirty fingernails and smelled like dill.  He mentioned that Jesus was in Hell.  I promised him I’d look into the JWs, and I will.  We say hi now when we see each other.
2. Neglected to get the power put in my name quick enough–had power shut off for two days.  Managed to save all of our food by buying ice off of a six year old.
3. Fought with the cable company, which surreptitiously gave me some package that I didn’t want that doubled my bill.  The short version is that I sound like a grizzled old axman when I want, and I was angry at the time.  Apologies abounded.
4. Got suckered into riding the RTA line with Gavin, my Viking-ly housemate, to the Galleria.  He thought he knew what he was doing, and instead wound us up at the end of the line, as far away from home as possible.  We spent four hours on or waiting for a bus, and about one hour at the mall and Barnes & Noble.  Never doing that again.

More to come, surely.

The day before I left one of my best friends came into town to see me off.  She gave me a small glass bottle, and I knew immediately what was in it.  Ohio earth, “with some from Chimayo sprinkled in for the hell of it.”  It was with her that I’d first gone west, first driven down Route 66.  By the time I made this journey, settling here in California, 70 to St. Louis, 55 to 44, 44 to 40, 40 to Amarillo, and on out– those roads had become familiar.

Sitting here now, on the couch in the living room.  Typing away at what feels like an ungodly hour.  I slept poorly last night and I’m on Central time, at best.  I’m subverting writer’s block by writing here.  5,504 words into the third novel.  A week and a day writing it.  It’s been a rough day and a bad night.

About the picture: This was at the end of our

second day traveling.  We’d made it only as far as Missouri the first night, and all through the day I was waiting on the land to turn into this mythic realm I’d been waiting for.  It turned into that very realm about an hour outside of Amarillo.  The land had long been flat but now there were minute valleys carved into the earth and it was ranchland as far as you could see.  We pulled off the side of the road for a minute so I could just look, take it in, and it wasn’t enough.  We took the next exit, one direction of which emptied immediately onto a dirt road.  Took that and stopped in the middle and I looked out at the sun going down and at a nearby windmill.  That night there was a lunar eclipse and I got up at 5:00am to see it from the hotel balcony.  During that trip I continued a trend– bring and read Blood Meridian wherever I went.  The start of that comes from a time that I ran away from home (at the age of 21) and found myself in Nebraska.  But that’s another tale entirely.  As if I haven’t gone off a narrative path already.

I’ve been avoiding certain subjects for weeks now.  Before leaving Ohio my uncle died of cancer.  I was there when he passed and up until that point I’d largely been sheltered from the death of loved ones.  Without him I would have no recognizable writing.  If I had gotten anything written it would have been something else entirely from what it is now.  He was  a Vietnam vet, a combat medic.  He beat his initial prognosis by over a year.  Time and again we were called in to begin our goodbyes and he’d turn around.  Between him and my father–a firefighter for 24 years– I’ve been convinced of a familial disposition toward immortality, now of course diluted to a more human damned toughness.  Besides that, I’ve never lived but 20 minutes from my family.  There is a lot I left behind.  A lot that the death of my uncle forged.  A lot that I’ll miss beyond that, even.  Rooted in place, in home, in Ohio.

Place counts a lot for me, and being here after everything has put me somewhere between a state of shock and detached sensitivity (yeah, figure that out.  I’m full of contradictions lately).  I love looking east and seeing the squat mountains, pale with haze in the mornings.  I love walking to the house in the evenings, looking at those same mountains.  The palm trees I’m ambivalent toward.  So different, so picturesque.  At night I always think it’s raining, and I’ve come to realize it’s the sound of the palms in the breeze.

I’d like to bring that bottle of dirt with me to a few other places.  Monument Valley, White Sands, to Nebraska.  Places that are important to me.  The largest portion will always be Ohio.  But hopefully by the time I leave here I can do so with a little of it with me.

New blog, new habits.  Maybe.  I’ll try to post somewhat often here.  Shorter posts, maybe, than what I did back on the Porch.

That being said, here’s a very short one for you:  For the 3,296 words currently in my third book, I have six commas*.  I’m pretty proud of that.  For you non-writers, take a look at the number of commas in this post, then count the words.  I am a comma wasteland.

In other news, here’s fodder for another day: the role authors must play in selling their own work, and the role they play as a commodity of their own.   That dynamic is and has been changing from the dynamic we’re used to–the one of the writer-as-recluse.  Now we have to be connected.  For now I leave you with more learned and experienced folk’s opinions on the matter.  Nathan Bransford and Sonya Chung each consider this topic.

* comma count only valid for prose, dialogue not included.

Those of you who followed me from My Heart’s Porch, thanks for coming along.  Those who just found their way here, welcome.  Bear with me while I try this Wordpress thing, and try not to repeat an incident this morning which completely obliterated the site.  I’ll have real content soonish, and I’ll be tricking the place out as best I can along the way.