Okay, so quite a bit has happened since I last wrote on this thing. I said in my first post that if I wasn't writing here, it was because I was writing else ware. Well, I lied. I haven't been writing at all. I know, I suck. Its funny. I have writers block but not in the same way that I feel most people have it. If I am already working on something I have absolutely no problem continuing work on it, but when I try to start something new I have no idea what to write.
I am trying to hone my craft and work on short stories rather than work on a novel. The main reason for this is that I am not a good enough writer to write a good novel yet and it would be quite the waste to put that much time and effort into a big steaming pile of crap. So I am trying to write a whole bunch of short stories and then when I get my narrative style down and I am able to have well flushed out characters and what not, I will start working on the novel that I have been thinking about writing for a very long time. And yes, the novel that I have been thinking about writing is in fact about zombies.
I imagine the casual reader stumbling across this blog and thinking, "Oh cool, a horror blog." They start reading and think to themselves, "What the fuck is this bullshit." Obviously the Starving Zombie reference is to a lack of brains, which I surly have. That being said. Let me tell you about Friday Night.
Last week I decided to get my broken down old Bicycle into working condition so that I could ride it around town and get into better shape. You see, I bought a pair of pants for a wedding a couple of weeks ago and they were size 38 waist. I have never in my life worn a pair of pants that were bigger than 36'' waist and this made me feel fat. So I got my bike working and Friday night I road it to work down town.
My girlfriend was out of town and she called and I told her that I was on my bike and she seemed very concerned about me riding a bike at night. I blew it off and said, "Oh I will be fine." She told me to call her when I got home because she was worried. I called before I got home because a little black V.W. Bug plowed into me.
When you are in an accident they say that time slows down. I felt more like my brain sped up. I knew that the car wasn't stopping and I myself tried desperately to stop, but that didn't happen. In that moment before the car hit me I had already decided which way I was going to fall and how I was going to protect myself from breaking anything.
The car hits my right leg and I spin around to the left throwing my bike clear and landing on my right shoulder and arm. I skid to a stop, get up, pick up my bike and walk over to where the lady that hit me has pulled over. She gets out of the car and is completely hysterical.
She was this young Spanish woman that was actually very attractive. If I was single, I thought to myself, this would have been the perfect way to meet someone in a love story. A little cliche but if it is reality it is allowed to be cliche. Then it is what people call "cute."
I walked my bike the rest of the way home to avoid being hit by any more cars and when I was almost there I called my girlfriend and told her what had happened. She was more upset at me for my stupidity than worried about my well being.
I have been pretty sore for the last few days, but I am sure that I will live.
Next time we will talk about the fiction writing class that I signed up for through the public library. Let's just say there is a man there that is taking the class because as he puts it, "I hate fiction."
Monday, September 26, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Finding one's voice.
I haven't been writing fiction for very long. I have written poetry for a really long time. I feel like I have a solid original voice when I write poetry, but my voice when it comes to fiction is underdeveloped. Half the time I write one way and the other half the time I write another way and the other half the time... You get my point. It's just not consistent.
So how does one find their voice? They write write write and eventually come up with something. It is funny, this blog is actually closer to my own voice than anything else that I have written, because when I write on here I am just typing what comes into my head and leaving it exactly like that. Now if I were to write fiction and not worry about the way anything sounded, it would be in my own voice, but would it be good?
That is the big problem. As a writer, you want your work to be good. You read other authors that you consider good and you think to yourself, "Wow, I am never going to be able to write like that." It is a little disheartening. But then again, of course I am never going to be able to write like Kafka or Vonnegut, I am not them. If I were to write like them it wouldn't be me.
I worry that I don't have a large enough vocabulary or that I don't construct sentences well enough, but what it all boils down to is, it doesn't matter. I asked my girlfriend earlier if she thinks that I should try to get my latest short story published and she told me that it wasn't a good idea. She told me that it wasn't because the story wasn't good, but because I hadn't found my voice yet. She told me that if I write and write and write I will become a great writer and becoming published will be a side effect of that. Being a great writer should be the goal, not being published. I agree, but I suppose I am selfish at the same time.
What is the point of writing if no one is going to read it? I guess we will find out with this blog. Because no one is going to read it.
So how does one find their voice? They write write write and eventually come up with something. It is funny, this blog is actually closer to my own voice than anything else that I have written, because when I write on here I am just typing what comes into my head and leaving it exactly like that. Now if I were to write fiction and not worry about the way anything sounded, it would be in my own voice, but would it be good?
That is the big problem. As a writer, you want your work to be good. You read other authors that you consider good and you think to yourself, "Wow, I am never going to be able to write like that." It is a little disheartening. But then again, of course I am never going to be able to write like Kafka or Vonnegut, I am not them. If I were to write like them it wouldn't be me.
I worry that I don't have a large enough vocabulary or that I don't construct sentences well enough, but what it all boils down to is, it doesn't matter. I asked my girlfriend earlier if she thinks that I should try to get my latest short story published and she told me that it wasn't a good idea. She told me that it wasn't because the story wasn't good, but because I hadn't found my voice yet. She told me that if I write and write and write I will become a great writer and becoming published will be a side effect of that. Being a great writer should be the goal, not being published. I agree, but I suppose I am selfish at the same time.
What is the point of writing if no one is going to read it? I guess we will find out with this blog. Because no one is going to read it.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
I need a new job. Any ideas?
So last night the same guy throws a big fuss at my poker game and I have to kick him out because it is not acceptable to throw your cards in someone's face when you lose a hand or shovel chips by the handful into the center of the table. This wasn't the first time something like this happened with this player. He had been thrown out in the past.
*******
B had been playing poker for a couple of hours and drinking heavily for a couple hours before that. When his hand didn't hold up, this didn't mean that the odds fell in someone else favor, it meant that the entire world was against him. The very fact that he wasn't winning every hand was proof that no one liked him, that life wasn't fare, and that the person sitting across from him was a complete asshole.
B eventually went broke. Although the hand that he lost on was techinically a bad beat, he got all in on the flop with two pair and his opponent hit a straight on the river, the fact that all of B's money was gone was no fluke at all. He had been playing terrible poker the entire time he was there, calling with hands he shouldn't, and throwing his cards roughly into the muck at the end of ever hand. By the time the two pair hand rolled around, B had less than $15.
"Hey Chet!" B yelled over the blaring jukebox. Chet was the guy that owned the poker game before me. A mild mannered Vietnamese writer with more of a misanthropic attitude that I myself have, and that is saying a lot. Chet didn't hear him and continued dealing cards.
"Hey Chet!" B yelled again and this time Chet turned and said, "What?"
"FUCK YOU!"
This was shrugged off and because everyone likes B when he is sober, he was allowed to remain at the table. But after a few minutes the "Hey you, FUCK YOU!" repeated itself with me. At this point I was not the owner of the poker game, so I also blew it off and allowed him to stay.
A very nice girl decided that it would be nice of her if she brought cupcakes for the poker players at the table. She came in with a tray of them and asked if anyone would like one. There was a few takers. Originally B said, "No." but then he had what he thought was a good idea. He took a cupcake, unwrapped it, leaned as far as he could over the poker table and start chewing pieces off with his mouth wide open, getting frosting and cupcake all of the felt of the poker table.
One of the bouncers was playing poker at the time and decided it was time for him to go. He picked him up out of his chair, pushed him through the front door, all the while B was protesting and saying that he didn't do anything wrong. B tried to force his way back in but the bouncer was far too strong and shoved him through the second door. At this point his pants fell around his ankles and he somehow broke his finger.
Somehow he talked Chet into letting him come back to the poker game. Since then whenever he gets drunk, he is very confrontational and I have had to calm him down several times in the last year. I like the guy when he is not drinking, but he is terrible to be around when he is drunk.
After the fiasco last night, I have had enough. I am not interested in dealing with other people's problems. I am not a psychiatrist, I am a poker dealer. One of B's friends remained in the game and defended him by saying, "Everyone has issues, he's just emotional." Well, keep your fucking emotions away from me, because I don't want them. Grow up and get help with your problems, because if you continue in this vain someone is liable to bury you in a hole out in the woods.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Dealing poker sucks and so does this new blog.
I created this blog today pretty much so that I would write ever day about something or other and so if I wasn't writing a story of some kind there would still be words put to paper. If there goes a long period of time where there aren't new posts on this site, let's hope that it means that I have been able to focus my attention on worthy writing rather than useless blogging.
I deal poker for a living and I hate every second of it. Well, that's not entirely true now is it? If I hated every second of it I wouldn't be doing it. I just hate most seconds of it. Now I try not to be a negative person, I try to keep my head above water and not bitch and moan too much about my circumstances, but you know what, if I can make it doing something else that I like doing I am going to try my hardest. I am never really that miserable when I am pitching cards, I would just rather be writing.
I am very good at becoming completely obsessed with something, until it doesn't work out for me, which can be a very long time if not forever, and I have devoted myself to learning the craft of writing. I am not editing any of this blog, so you are getting unfiltered writings without any sort of editing. That being said, I don't care if things are mispelled or if my grammar is correct or any of that business, so if you happen upon this and you actually read it, sorry about how bad it is.
And with absolutely no transition back to poker and dealing poker, I wanted to say that the characters that one meets around a poker table are enough to fill 100 books. The one good thing about dealing poker is you get to hear people interacting with each other all the time and you get a feel for dialogue. You hear stories about all kinds of different things but mostly bad beats, you hear jokes, but good and bad, and you hear more than anything else the shuffling of chips.
The funny thing about poker is that you really get the idea in your head that every single person sitting around you thinks that they are the protagonist. They all think that they should be winning and that it's the dealers fault that they are losing. They are the hero of the story and the dealer is the antagonist that is dealing them cards that make it impossible for them to come out a head. It's funny how when a player is winning that they don't have that same outlook. There is no conflict, so there is no antagonist, it is almost like they pray for a run a bad luck so that their story can be a little interesting.
"I sat here all day long and you didn't deal me a single hand and then I pick up Aces and I lose to runner runner two pair. You're a terrible dealer."
And your life is now a little more interesting and isn't that why you play this game anyway? What if your Aces held up and you hit a few big hands throughout the day and you were up? How interesting would you be then?
"I sat here all day and I caught my fair share of hands and then I picked up Aces and they held up. You are such a good dealer."
The day someone tells me that when I am dealing cards is the day I change my mind about how much dealing sucks and I am happy about pitching my life away one card at a time.
Until Tomorrow,
ZHM
I deal poker for a living and I hate every second of it. Well, that's not entirely true now is it? If I hated every second of it I wouldn't be doing it. I just hate most seconds of it. Now I try not to be a negative person, I try to keep my head above water and not bitch and moan too much about my circumstances, but you know what, if I can make it doing something else that I like doing I am going to try my hardest. I am never really that miserable when I am pitching cards, I would just rather be writing.
I am very good at becoming completely obsessed with something, until it doesn't work out for me, which can be a very long time if not forever, and I have devoted myself to learning the craft of writing. I am not editing any of this blog, so you are getting unfiltered writings without any sort of editing. That being said, I don't care if things are mispelled or if my grammar is correct or any of that business, so if you happen upon this and you actually read it, sorry about how bad it is.
And with absolutely no transition back to poker and dealing poker, I wanted to say that the characters that one meets around a poker table are enough to fill 100 books. The one good thing about dealing poker is you get to hear people interacting with each other all the time and you get a feel for dialogue. You hear stories about all kinds of different things but mostly bad beats, you hear jokes, but good and bad, and you hear more than anything else the shuffling of chips.
The funny thing about poker is that you really get the idea in your head that every single person sitting around you thinks that they are the protagonist. They all think that they should be winning and that it's the dealers fault that they are losing. They are the hero of the story and the dealer is the antagonist that is dealing them cards that make it impossible for them to come out a head. It's funny how when a player is winning that they don't have that same outlook. There is no conflict, so there is no antagonist, it is almost like they pray for a run a bad luck so that their story can be a little interesting.
"I sat here all day long and you didn't deal me a single hand and then I pick up Aces and I lose to runner runner two pair. You're a terrible dealer."
And your life is now a little more interesting and isn't that why you play this game anyway? What if your Aces held up and you hit a few big hands throughout the day and you were up? How interesting would you be then?
"I sat here all day and I caught my fair share of hands and then I picked up Aces and they held up. You are such a good dealer."
The day someone tells me that when I am dealing cards is the day I change my mind about how much dealing sucks and I am happy about pitching my life away one card at a time.
Until Tomorrow,
ZHM
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