One of my biggest problems as a writer is that quite often it is very difficult to nail down the genres in which I write. It was easy in the beginning of my career when I wrote Innocent Until Proven Guilty, which was mystery/suspense. But then I started branching out on other types of books and things got, well, kind of confusing. Let me give you a bit of a run-down, and you’ll see what I mean:
Innocent Until Proven Guilty: A murder takes place in corporate America and then an executive frames another for the murder. Works well as mystery/suspense.
Leader of the Losers: A dystopian future where poverty and class distinction has been solved by eliminating the “losers”. Definitely science fiction.
72 Hours in August: During the 1991 August Coup in the Soviet Union, a plan is hatched to start a nuclear war before the coup is over. Suspense, but also historical, and kind of a mystery as well.
Destiny: The Tales of Reagul story that starts the whole series, except it takes place 3000 years after the beginning of the epic. Story begins with a space battle, turns into a fantasy trek across a mysterious land and then ends with another large space battle. Science fiction? Fantasy? Both?
Deadly Deceptions: In South Korea, a counterintelligence agent uncovers a blackmarketing operation that might actually be masking a major espionage cover-up. Guess that’s a suspense novel, or a thriller, or also a mystery.
The Ameriad: A humorous Greek epic that spoofs the Iliad and the Odyssey by turning the icons of American society into the “new” gods. No idea where this one belongs.
Absent Without Leave: A military criminal investigator uncovers a 20 year old crime that started with the framing of his father and leads to the political future of Texas politics. Mystery, maybe? Thriller? Suspense?
The Teddy Bear Conspiracy: A CIA agent, running an operation to defeat the Colombian drug lords, finds himself targeted by his own people, forcing him to finish the mission alone while someone within his organization is trying to kill him and take over the project. Suspense?
Thompson’s Bounty: A time-traveling Coast Guard cutter encounters 16th century pirates and is sucked into a battle between two naval commanders. Science fiction? Naval warfare?
A Season of Kings (my next novel): The first official book of the Tales of Reagul, which tells the story of a planet where science and magic are intertwined. Most of the story is fantasy, but the whole premise comes from an alien experiment, which basically makes it science fiction.
Those are just the tip of the iceberg, and I’m finding it really hard to market my books because none of them really fit into any solid genre. Or few of them do. I won’t even try to figure out where Plato’s Perspective fits in, as it’s a novel with the protagonist named Plato who may or may not be the actual Plato, and the novel’s point in time may be a bit confusing as well. It could end up being philosophy, science fiction, fantasy, mainstream, history, etc. I’m sure you get the idea.
This was once me, at West Point. Boy, have I sure come a long way since then
The last day of work for me was on Tuesday, and it was one of those days that really didn’t have a lot going on. I came in expecting to be given grunt work to do most of the day, but the senior boss decided that I would have my exit interview at 11:30 AM, and then I was finished with the job as of noon. Still got paid for the entire day (or so they say), and then I was kind of on my own from there. I forgot to pick up some medication at the pharmacy at work because I was in such a hurry to leave, so I’ll probably have to wander back there this weekend and do the pick up of that stuff.
So, I’m now in the process of putting together my writing projects and pushing forward on those. I completed and published my novella, The Beast of Begmire, and I’m trying to see about getting it listed for free on most e-book sites. I also put it up on Wattpad this evening, so it should be available for anyone to read free there.
My next project will be to complete A Season of Kings, and during that project I’m still working on completing the first book of the series I’m writing with Marie. Hopefully, we can get that one moving forward, as I seem to have a lot more hope for that series than any of the fantasy ones I’m writing.
Money is going to be tight, mainly because of the way Spectrum Health completes the quitting process. I can’t ask for my payout money from my retirement until the last paycheck comes through from SH, and unfortunately the way they work it out, it will probably be about a month before the last “paycheck” comes through, and THEN I’m allowed to put in the paperwork for that money. Which means February might be a bit crappy when it comes to paying my bills, and unfortunately I’m not really sure what the solution to that is going to be. If it’s not one thing, it’s another….
Another project I’ve been outlining lately is one that I had on a back burner for many years now, and that’s my Return to Camelot series. Every time I write a specific novel, I find myself getting tons and tons of ideas, dialogue, and even scenes from the next novel I’ll be writing after the ones I’m currently working on. For some reason, Return to Camelot has been the one that’s been building momentum lately. All I can do is write down the ideas and hope that I can get to the actual writing soon. My working titles for that series are:
1. The Once and Future King
2. Return to Camelot
3. Le Morte D’Arthur
They’re not massively original, but they’re working titles for now, and they seem to push the ideas of what exists within each volume. I’m kind of looking forward to writing that series, as I wrote the first couple of chapters years ago and still refer to those chapters from time to time because they were so very good. Yes, a writer can admire his own work from time to time. You wouldn’t believe how critical I am of practically everything else that comes through my word processor.
For some reason, every night I seem to be dreaming about work (the old job). I keep dreaming how someone is telling me I have to do something and it must be done on a deadline that has already passed. And then an inner voice tells me, hey, you don’t work here any more, and I kind of toss and turn through that. I guess the subconscious does that to you when you’ve been living and breathing a job for so long, especially one that was becoming really good at developing arbitrary deadlines and then sitting on the results for weeks while new deadlines are thrown at you for new work that will then be sat on as soon as it met its completion. Anyway.
So, that’s kind of where things are right now. And as so few people tend to read my blog, aside from the spider sites in China that seem to access my page hundreds of times a day, it would be nice to hear from people who are actually reading it. Otherwise, I might just have to discontinue it, as it’s turning very much into a diary where I’m the only one who is really reading it.
I have three whole days left of work at my current job. Well, three counting today, which means after this weekend, I only have to go to work two more times and this nightmare is over.
So, today, I got one of those “Where’s the XYZ Project?” to which, I’ll be honest that in the last few weeks with all of the different projects thrown at me to complete before I’m “allowed” to quit, it just slipped my mind. It’s not like I haven’t been swamped with everything else (which, sardonically, is the reason I’m quitting in the first place). So, after being shamed into realizing that I haven’t done it, I got one of those passive-aggressive conversations with the boss, where I just looked at her and thought, I really don’t care, so stop bothering me.
That’s kind of how I am right now. I’m trying to produce the things they need before I go, but let’s be honest, I have no incentive to do anything here other than the personal satisfaction of just getting something done. Before I quit, I was ready to leave the next day, which I didn’t do, and instead, I put in a month’s notice, and like I said, there are two full days left before I finally get to leave.
The sad thing is that I liked this place beore all of this happened. I just can’t work with the person who took over. I tried, and let’s just say that some personalities don’t mesh, and I kind of knew that was going to happen when she stepped up from being a colleague and became the supervisor. I would not be very surprised to see the majority of the staff jump ship right after me. I know one is about to leave as well, although I don’t think anyone suspects she’s on the way out either. It will probably be one of those last minute things, something I was trying to avoid on my way out myself.
But it’s so frustrating because I just want to walk out and leave. I know two or three days isn’t that much time, but when you have a discussion about your last day, where I basically said that’s when I clean up everything of mine and sort things out for leaving, being told “You’re still being paid to work, so what are you going to be doing” kind of gives you the thought of “Screw you, I’ll take a sick day then and you can throw my junk into the street.”
But I won’t go there. Instead, I’ll try to get through these last few days and then I’ll start my journey of writing full time.
One of the longest projects I’ve ever worked on has been a world-building one called Reagul. I originally conceived of the land of Reagul in a computer game I designed back in the early days of computer games. It was called Prisoner of Z’anth, which involved an American soldier during the Vietnam War who comes across a mysterious artifact in the jungle that points to a sinister organization working behind the scenes of the war. As he battles his way through enemies, he comes to a portal they are protecting that takes him to the land of Z’anth, a realm completely in Earth’s middle ages but filled with dragons and strange creatures, as well as humans who know nothing of Earth. The story in Z’anth opens up to a revelation that this land was once linked with Earth many years ago, and that an alien race may have been responsible for why all of these people are on this planet. The game itself concludes with a final battle against an evil sorcerer who wishes to control everything around him and is now intrigued to discover there’s a world (Earth) he has yet to conquer.
A few years later, I created another game called Lessons in Death, which took place in the year 3000, when Earth has been taken over by an emperor who seeks to subjugate the known universe. The peace-loving Eden System comes under attack, and a young female ensign from Eden named Laura begins a quest to destroy the emperor and the empire. It starts out as a space battle and then becomes a medieval sword and sorcery tale on a planet that comes to be known as Reagul. As you might suspect, Reagul is none other than the original Z’anth.
This game eventually became my novel Destiny, which is basically the introduction to the Tales of Reagul, whish strangely begins 3000 years after the saga actually begins in the first series of the Tales of Reagul. Let me explain.
During the early days of the Roman Empire, an alien race of beings called the Minions takes a large group of Roman citizens from different locations across the empire and moves them to the planet Reagul. As you start to discover, this is not the first time they have done this to human civilizations, having done this with the Egyptians before and the Greeks soon after. They have also transplanted creatures from other planets, running experiments to see how different species interact with each other.
At some point, the Minions are called home to fight a war that has been taking place in their home solar system. Realizing they must leave soon, they train a young man in their ways, basically giving him the knowledge of a civilization that is thousands of years ahead of anything ever seen before. His new knowledge makes him so powerful, he becomes the first wizard/sorcerer of Reagul, and his name is Sarbonn. After the Minions leave, Sarbonn attempts to continue their work of protecting the planet, but he also starts to discover that he’s not the first one they’ve trained, as he begins to discover hints of something referred to as the Dark One, a former trainee who has become so powerful that he has gone insane and seeks to destroy all life through a process of chaos and destruction.
But Sarbonn, oblivious to this future danger, trains two young sorcerers who become his “children”. Over the years, all is fine, and the kingdoms of Reagul begin to grow with the usual sorts of skirmishes that happen when humans try to create civilizations in different places but are close enough to influence one another. Then the process begins to fall apart.
One of Sarbonn’s “children” decides that because he is so powerful he should be ruling mankind instead of serving it, so he begins a war of aggression that eventually leads to him becoming the emperor of Reagul. Finally, Sarbonn and his other son must confront this upstart, which leads to a cataclysm like none ever seen before.
Meanwhile, the shadow of the Dark One continues to spread its tentacles, planning and waiting for the right moment to strike.
The first novel will be released later next month, and it’s called A Season of Kings. Later this month, the first teaser will be published, which is called The Beast of Begmire, which tells the story of a mysterious sorceress who comes in battle with the Dark One some time after the events of the first three books.
Last night, I finished the last touches of The Teddy Bear Conspiracy, and it’s now on sale on Kindle and will be on sale in paperback in the next few days (had one more run through the edit check and had to fix a couple of things before I could let it go one more time). Either way, the book is done, and it is now available for the masses to read, so hopefully you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Which brings me to my next projects. Over the next few days, I have some outlining to do for my Haven project, and then I’ll be working on The Tales of Reagul, specifically book one, A Season of Kings. With an aggressive schedule, I’m hoping to have these books released within the next month.
I’m starting to explore new ways of generating reviews, and Library Thing has become my new plaything. I put up ten digital copies of The Ameriad there last week, and then a few days ago, I put 100 copies of Leader of the Losers. Part of what drives a writer’s career these days is reviews, and I can’t even begin to explain how difficult those have been to come by. Which is shocking because the books themselves have sold enough copies that you’d think they’d have lots of positive reviews, but they don’t. It’s like they’re completely overlooked by everyone, mainly because those who write me and say they loved the book never bother to leave a review on Amazon, which would make things so much more beneficial for someone like me. You know, someone who is still trying to get ANYONE to realize he’s actually publishing books.
Well, only two weeks (and one day) of work left in this job before I’m a full-time writer, and I’m really hoping this works out for the best. Right now, I’m not feeling so great about this decision, but it had to be done, which means it was meant to be, whatever that might actually mean in the greater scheme of things.
I think I mentioned that I decided to quit my job a few weeks ago. I put in my notice, and I have a little over two weeks left. A couple of days, I almost quit on the same day I was working, but I’ve perservered, and my last date of work will be December 24th, Christmas Eve. There’s no significance to that day, but that will be my last day of work.
So far, no other jobs have lined themselves up for me. And I’m anticipating that it’s probably not going to happen either. This means I really need to make it as a writer, or I’m going to starve to death. Simple as that. I won’t even get unemployment benefits. I kind of screwed myself on this one, but I’m trying to move forward with a positive disposition, no matter how many dark thoughts keep overwhelming me about this decision and its process as its being carried out.
Monday, I have a release for one of my new novels, The Teddy Bear Conspiracy.
I ran a 2 month contest on Goodreads for this book, and nearly 600 requested a copy of it. I am giving away 10 copies. There’s still a few more days left in the contest, but I’ve given up hyping the contest. Check one of the older posts, or just go to Goodreads if you’re interested in that. I also listed a giveaway of The Ameriad through Library Thing, which I did this morning, and it has about a month before it will complete its giveaway process. I don’t have an immediate link to that one, but you can definitely find it if you just go to Library Thing’s site and search for it under giveaways.
But anxiety is definitely beginning to emerge for me because so far this month, I haven’t sold a single book on Amazon. I’ve sold a few through Barnes & Noble and Kobo, but Amazon, which is usually the one that does the bulk of the selling, has been dead cold for me this month so far. That is not a comforting feeling. Remember what I was saying about starving? Hunger pains are already starting to emerge, and I’m not even at the no food stage yet.
After the Teddy Bear Conspiracy goes live, my next project involves a romance series I’m writing with a female writing friend of mine, and then I’ll be heading for a “sometime in January” release of the first book of the Tales of Reagul series, A Season of Kings. Actually, it’s not really the first book, as Destiny was the first book, but I did something a little strange with this series that not too many other writers do with a series. The first book, Destiny, starts 3000 years after the Tales of Reagul series begins, which kind of makes it an interesting universe for someone following the saga. To explain:
During the period of the Roman Empire, a small group of villages were snatched up by an alien civilization and placed onto a planet called Reagul, where an experiment was being conducted to see how civilizations handle in different environments (the original Rome being the control group, and Reagul being the experiment group). One of the citizens of the new Reagul is a young man who eventually learns all of the alien technology (to be the shepherd of this planet) and immediately after he learns everything, the aliens are called back to their home system to fight a war that is obliterating their people. The young man becomes the prominent wizard of Reagul, as everyone sees his technology as magic, and with such knowledge, it practically is. This begins the Tales of Reagul. 3000 years later, which is about 1000 years in our future, the human empire has spread across the stars, and a coloony comes under attack from the empire. A survivor of the assault leads a mission to destroy the empire by killing the emperor, which brings her to the planet Reagul, where it is discovered that her abilities (the reason she was chosen for the mission) rival those of the wizards of Reagul, indicating a tie between her planet and the strange alien race that contacted them years before (obviously being the same aliens who started the experiment with Reagul in the first place). That loater story is Destiny.
As you can see, it’s kind of complicated, but it’s a great, fun story. The first of that story (aside from Destiny) is slated for release in January.
The next project is a sequel to Thompson’s Bounty: A Ship Out of Time, my time travel adventure involving pirates and the Coast Guard. The new adventure will take Thompson and his crew into the Greek and Roman eras. That should be a lot of fun to write (and hopefully, read). People have been asking for a sequel to this novel for years now, so I finally started plotting it out.
The other distant project is my Deck Const series, which received a bit of fame from a series of short stories that I published back in the 1990s in some of the pulp magazines of that time. They were often referred to as The Soldier stories, and there was always a hint of something called The Deck Const in every one of them. I’ve finally finished the first draft of three novels that I’m reworkiing for publication. It’s a dystopian suspense series of the last soldier who is trying to rebuild civilization while on the quest to find a mysterious talisman only known as The Deck Const.
That’s kind of an update for now. Not sure if anyone even reads these updates any more, but just in case this is being read by soldiers from the future who are in search of the elusive Deck Const, let this be your clue that it exists and perhaps you are one step closer to finding it and rebuilding civilization again. Until then, sorry life kind of sucks for you right now, but dystopian societies can be that way.
Honestly, I never thought the day would come, and to be even more honest, it’s probably not the right time either. But my job hit a point where I realized I couldn’t keep working it any longer. So, on December 24th, the day before Christmas, I will be unemployed.
The job market is horrid these days, which means I don’t suspect I’m going to be finding anything else soon. I’ve got a few irons in the fire I’ve been trying to grab, but my belief is that they’re not going to work out, so I’m pretty sure that in a month from now, I’m going to be facing a new day without any means of survival behind me.
So, I’ve started thinking that perhaps this is the time to finally make a go at being a writer. I’ve been struggling at it for several decades now, and I know enough about the craft to know that my stuff is good. I just now need to figure out how to get readers to actually want to read what I have to write. Part of me has felt my whole life is a Van Gogh perspective, in that I really feel that I have monumental works, yet suspect that no one will ever discover me until long after I have left the planet.
My latest project is The Teddy Bear Conspiracy, which I’m finishing up for an early December release. Then I work on my triple play saga, The Tales of Reagul, a fantasy/science fiction epic based on the world of my book Destiny. I’m hoping to have the first of the series, A Season of Kings, out in early January and then follow up with the other two immediately after. I’ve never done a series before, so that should be interesting.
The next project I’m working on is a follow up to Thompson’s Bounty: A Ship Out of Time, which is a return to the time travel epic for the Coast Guard crew, except this time they’ll be traveling back to Roman times. The title is still kind of up in the air, although I’ll probably go with another “Thompson’s (something)”. I’ve had a lot of people asking for further adventures in this universe, so I decided after some years that perhaps there’s a lot of fun to be had there yet.
Two other projects are on the horizon as well. The first is a rewrite of a novel I wrote some years ago, called 72 Hours in August, which is an espionage, action thriller involving an Armageddon project that emerges during the 1991 August Coup in the Soviet Union, and it introduces my new character who goes by the code name of the Unicorn, because everyone who sees him is rarely believed. He was an idea of mine decades ago when I was working as a counterintelligence agent. He’s what I refer to as an economic hit man, a man who goes into countries and disrupts their economies on the orders of an illusive corporation that benefits.
The other project I’ll be completing is the first set of books in my Deck Const series. The Deck Const is a dystopian science fiction novel where a surviving soldier emerges from one of the last wars on a quest to find a rumored object, the Deck Const, which has been spoken of only in whispers, but may hold the key to rebuilding a very fractured world. The first set of novels takes place in California (from San Francisco to Los Angeles and then to Las Vegas) where communities have become fun house versions of their former selves as the soldier starts to build his army which will one day have to confront the dark one (the other person seeking the Deck Const). Anyway, it’s a huge epic that I’ve planned out, and I’m finishing off the first three novels, of which the series will be continuous sets of three books.
Either way, wish me luck, or wave to me as I pass you on the street with my shopping cart.
There’s an interesting post from Konrath’s site, in which he explains why he never quit writing. Basically, years ago, he was making about 25k a year from writing and felt it wasn’t enough, and now he’s making a ton of money from writing, but felt that if you can’t hack the writing challenges, you might be better off just quitting. And he’s right. But his post also hints at something else: The people who basically are driven to write, and therefore need to make it part of their professional life, if not their entire professional life.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the same sentiment because let’s be honest, my writing career has never taken off the way it was supposed to. When I was a kid, teachers used to tell me that I was a brilliant writer, that they could see a future for me as an intense writer. I loved telling stories, whether in person or on paper. Writing came naturally to me. It felt inevitable as a future career for myself.
Early in my writing career, I latched onto an agent who was going to sell my first novels. She was a well-known, highly placed agent. Everything was looking great. And then she had a brain injury and left the business. And then came back to it years later, but honestly couldn’t remember who I was. Yeah, sounds like a bad soap opera plot. I then secured a second agent who tried for about six months to sell my stuff (or just thought about it and never did anything about it) and then fizzled. Since then, finding another agent has been almost as easy as climbing Mount Fuji by starting in Texas.
And then the ebook revolution took place, and the whole industry fell apart. There are still publishers out there, but connecting with them has become almost impossible, and agents don’t seem to be interested in anyone any more, and everyone that has ever wanted to be a writer, even if it was just for fun, is now a published author selling their own stuff through Amazon and others. Now, the model has changed from good writers getting attention to the best marketers getting the most attention, even if the writing is awful (i.e., Fifty Shades of Gray, although people tell me that once you get past the really bad beginning writing, it actually becomes a much better writing enterprise).
Which brings me back to my original question in the subject line of this post. Why I never quit writing. You see, I really can’t stop. I love to write, and the only way I’ve ever been able to understand and then explain the world is through writing. For me, the act of writing is an exercise in learning more about the universe and why we’re here. Through continuous experiments in writing, I find myself learning more about myself and more about the world around me. Each new novel is an exploration into the process of writing for me, and each new novel is something completely different than what I wrote before. It’s more of a Murakami type of writing, although it’s my own journey, not one scripted out by someone else.
But the business of writing has been the thorn in my side since day one. I’ve never made it successfully, which often leaves me wondering if I should even be able to consider myself a professional writer when my books are read by so few people. Sure, I can take any title I like, but what good is a false accolade in the long run?
But getting back to the question, what I have discovered is that writing is basically all I have. I don’t have a family. I don’t even have a girlfriend. I don’t have a job that I go to where I think “those people would suffer if it wasn’t for me coming in each and every day.” The people where I work wouldn’t notice at all if I wasn’t there tomorrow. They might notice the desk not being occupied, but that’s about it. I don’t do anything of enough significance that it matters to anyone, nor will it ever.
I don’t have a lot of friends, so I don’t have a large group of people who rely on me as their social hub person. I have very few friends, to be honest.
I don’t even have a pet that relies on me for its meals. Not even a goldfish swimming around, thinking, “where’s that strange human who puts food into my bowl?”
For me, writing is all that I have. I construct fantasy worlds, and sometimes I create scenarios where people do horrific things that force them to do all sorts of things they wouldn’t have normally done. I write about people who question their reason for being, their relationships, their place in the grand scheme of things, while I meanwhile ask none of the questions of myself because I have no ties to the material world that my characters inhabit.
So, for me, if I didn’t have my writing, I’d have nothing. Which brings me to the conclusion that if I ever finally realize that my writing is a joke, that my purpose actually has no purpose, I’d probably end everything right then and there.
My novel, The Teddy Bear Conspiracy, which is going to be released in December, is available for free as a contest giveaway on Goodreads. To enter, go here.
Destiny, my science fiction/fantasy novel, which takes place mostly on the planet Reagul (which might be recognized from the upcoming series The Tales of Reagul, which will be released early next year as a three part epic), has been given a new cover and blurb. Here’s the blurb:
The mission was well-planned and intricately carried out. They were going to assassinate the Emperor of Earth. Everything went according to plan. Except one thing.
They failed.
Now on the run from the Empire’s elite guard, Eden System Commander Yeager finds himself on an escape trajectory with a young ensign in his care. Little does he know that this ensign, Laura Bontein, is the reason why Eden is at war with the Empire.
Laura may also be the most powerful being in the galaxy.
They escape to Reagul, a planet in its middle ages and somehow responsible for keeping the emperor alive. Here, Laura begins to discover that Reagul has been planning for her arrival for thousands of years.
Little by little, Laura begins to suspect that her own people, the lost outpost of the Zeus Colonies, may have ties to Reagul going back to the Roman Empire. As the rumors and legends begin to mirror the actions of Laura and Yeager, she begins to believe her arrival on Reagul may have more than a solitary purpose.
It may be her destiny.
Destiny can be found on Amazon (and also in paperback): Here.
During the late 1980s, going into the 1990s, I was in the U.S. Army, and all things considered, I probably had somewhat of a drinking problem. This was the latter part of the era of drinking before people started getting serious about the ramifications of the problem, meaning that we started enforcing drunk driving laws (unlike the past where we swept things under the rug) and Alcohol Anonymous was no longer just a light at the end of tunnels that no one would ever travel through. To understand my perspective on the whole situation, let’s visit the late 1980s and let me share a bit of a story with you.
You see, back then I drank a lot. Every night. It was almost a ritual of service at that time. Work hard during the day and then get plastered at night. Wake up the next day, run PT (most likely throwing up alongside the other soldiers who were all suffering hangovers) and then by the time evening came along, we’d go out and do it again. THAT was pretty much a part of the military lifestyle back then.
I think the apex of this whole situation occurred when a colleague and I decided to take a trip to the Canary Islands. On the plane, we both got plastered, and then when we got to the hotel, we got smashed. And then for the next week, well, I know I had a really good time because I have pictures of me and a lot of very beautiful women cavorting together, but to be honest, I have figments of memories of what actually happened during that week long trip. All I remember was being greeted at the airport on the way back by my fellow GIs, and they had brought beer with them, so we got obliterated on the trip home, too.
A couple of weeks later, I was driving my car back to post (in Germany), and I was extremely inebriated. Some friends were in the car behind me, and they drove up behind me, hitting my bumper and then trying to push my car forward with their own acceleration. I was at an intersection, and as they pushed me forward, or tried to do so as I held down on the brakes, I suddenly sobered up. I was probably still quite drunk, but right at that moment, it suddenly dawned on me that there were other people on this street, that if I just gave in to the fun, who knows what damage (or lives) could have been affected.
Driving home slowly (the other car rushed by me and continued on towards the post), something came over me that made me realize something was wrong. I just was too drunk to really figure out what it was.
The next day was Saturday, so I didn’t have to be at work for a few days, but instead of my usual routine, I decided to skip the club that night. Instead, I sat at home and read a book. My fellow party buddies thought something was wrong, but the next night, I skipped partying again and did something else (don’t remember what it was at the moment but I do know it didn’t involve drinking).
A few days later, I sat down at my computer (one of the early ones…this was the 1980s) and started writing my first novel. In case you’re wondering, it was Innocent Until Proven Guilty, and it was the first work I completed where there was absolutely no alcohol involved. Shortly after that, I began work on my second novel, Loser.
I was reading an article today in Salon, about how alcohol is targeted at women through intricate manipulation and advertising, but I’ll have to be honest that when I was drinking, it just seemed like the thing to be doing. There were no great football beer ads that i remember during this time. Sure, there was peer pressure, but I’ve never been all that susceptible to that sort of thing. For me, all there ever really was involved the “you have to be old enough to drink it” mindset so that when I hit that age, I started imbibing because it felt like a chronological ritual of growing up.
I’ll admit that when I quit partying, it wasn’t the end of alcohol for me; that would come years later, but it did change things for me because that pleasure I received of getting smashed no longer seemed to be of interest to me.
What used to fascinate me was how many of those tests in books I would take that indicated I was most definitely an alcoholic. Do you often drink to excess? I sure did. Do you wake up the next day and not remember moments of the night before? I woke up one morning and couldn’t remember much of what happened the entire week before. Do you ever blackout? When didn’t I? Do you often crave alcohol? And that’s kind of where it breaks off for me, because to be honest, I’ve never craved alcohol. Actually, kind of hate it the more I think about it. I liked the buzz I got, but to be honest, I wasn’t all that excited about the buzz either. I drank back then because it was something to do. I really didn’t like my life back then, and it seemed like a good crutch to fill in the gaps of what was going on and not going on. I’m one of those kinds of guys who never really has romantic relationships, even when I was in the middle of a romantic relationship (if that makes sense). So, drinking filled a void that I basically needed to fill with something.
Fortunately, writing kind of fills that void now. The “thrill” of drinking was the ability to turn off my mind and allow this other sense to overwhelm me. Believe it or not, I get that (and more) from writing. I take myself to another world, and I get to live in that world during the time that I’m writing. It helps me to forget that my current life kind of sucks. Sorry, but it does. I still don’t have romantic relationships, and that part of me has never changed. So, I spend a great deal of time trying to find some way of filling the gaps that basically never get filled.
When I got out of the service, I didn’t quit drinking completely, although I became more of a social drinker. My friend Kat would drink from time to time, so I would drink with her. When we parted ways, I basically just stopped drinking completely because like I said before, it never really gave me anything that I was lacking anywhere else.
And that’s been years for me now. A friend of mine visited me for a week a few weeks ago, and when we were at the store shopping for groceries, she asked me if I wanted any alcohol, and it never even crossed my mind that I might be interested. Alcohol has no value in my daily life, and it’s not something I seek out. At one time, I was going to start drinking red wine, but only because I heard that it had certain heart benefits. Never did get around to buying any though.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I suspect that alcohol serves a purpose for everyone that consumes it, and what’s important is finding if that purpose is strong enough and whether or not it can be replaced with something else. For me, writing served as my alternative. But then, I’ve never been addicted, even though I can’t even begin to tell you how many people over the years said I must have a problem because of how I answered some of those questions. One person I know who is an alcoholic thinks I have some kind of strength to stop as I did, but I never saw it that way. I have my own vices and my own things that need to be dealt with (we all do). Alcohol just doesn’t seem to be one of them. Others, unfortunately, can’t say the same thing.
