One of my best friends, David Yoo, has his first novel coming out in 12 days. (That would be May 24.)

Very funny stuff. More soon, but I'm behind on getting the word out, so here's a heads up.

It's called Girls For Breakfast. You may be hearing that title quite a bit more in the next few months.

not eternal salvation, but i'll take the momentary relief where i can find it.

i started writing in my imaginary journal this morning--don't have a physical one, just stupid scraps of paper, mostly in the margins of newspapers or scraps of brown paper bags, whatever happened to be available, so this time i created a "journal" folder on my pc (please don't look there if you're ever visiting me, ok?)--and this weird chain of mental leaps led me to the memoir i wrote in grad school.

(the chain involved my family, of course. those people don't have a clue who i am, sometimes. they totally missed what the memoir-events were about, they never heard a word i tried to explain, because they had these preconceptions about me. and it's all there. maybe if i sent them each a copy. then i started to worry if the writing was good enough. heeheehee. laid it all down ten years ago, and i knew i was really still learning to write, not ready to create a real book, anyway.)

so i pulled it up and read 30 pages just now. no, the writing is a mess. but really wonderful in some ways, too. just as candid as i recalled, and the emotions come through more powerfully than i even hoped at the time. no sense of pace or audience, though. i jump around all over the place, shorthand all the action so much every reader must have been lost. they passed this crap? heeheehee.

encouraging, though. i have the goods there, it's going to be a wonderful book some day, and i know how to make it so much better now. SO much to be filled in. and slowed down. god, was i in a rush then. i guess my whole life has slowed down.

i'll never write my elvis costello phase. maybe i could have done it in spastic song lyrics, maybe it would have worked that way, but in a book, that crap was indecipherable. that's ok. i can do it now.

feel so much better about my writing again, about my world again, my life again.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

writing. only salvation i know.