Marc Spitz

there really is no option to have a social life, a nice complexion a healthy sleep schedule when you are writing a book.  every single one that i’ve done i’ve written this way: a few months from the target deadline, the initial advance third long gone, and (with the exception of the first one) every mistake i’ve ever made as an author pulled up from the mental archive.  i also make the mistake of turning to people for advice.  i’ve been told everything from “eat eggs” (they are cheap protein, i guess, and you can get twelve of them for two dollars) to “take a vacation” to “plug into the TV.”  of the three, the TV is probably the only one that’s going to happen.  Mad Men, all three seasons in a chain leading up to 4 premiere.   i am DJing a spin thing on monday which will at least get me out of the house but i think this is the truly dangerous time of the whole process, the bell jar time, the time when the people on the street (especially in this weather) look unfamiliar and potentially violent.   when this part is over (and it only lasts a week or so because much of the research based reporting and structuring and THINKING is done) and  you have a little style and flow to the pages, it’s fucking excellent.  you can print it and hold it and say, “this is going to grow up to be my new book.”  but i’m not there yet.  till then, this is a war.   i declined an invitation to cocktails a day (two days?) ago by explaining that i felt like a fucking soldier or a cop and could not drink because i was on duty.  summer’s here and the time is right for writing in the streets.

oh and this weird al thing is great.  i would watch a tv show full of interviews like this (or listen to double albums full of howard stern’s mel gibson rant song edits).  lo fi technology collage.   dickie “mr. jaws” goodman = a pioneer who got scalped.