January 2012
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WatchChapters 1-3 of my novel Isn’t It Pretty To Think So? are now available for download here. I hope you enjoy. I truly appreciate all the wonderful support.
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Dirty Airport
The airport wasn’t just clean, it was shiny, like the glass frame of my college diploma hanging on the wall in my mother’s living room or the wine glasses set around the table for my father’s dinner parties; shiny like the veneers on the housewives who lived in my childhood neighborhood or the Mercedes my bosses drove.
On that night, I would have been more comfortable in a dirty airport—a place...
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His Pain
“I hate the taste of alcohol—beer, wine, whiskey, all of it,” he said to me once, a statement which bemused me initially because he was always drinking.
But there came a time when I understood that it was never about the actual act of consumption or the actual act of sex for Parker; rather, it was about doing what he could to keep the deadness alive within him. His pain didn’t thrive within the...
“The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far...”
– Thomas Wolfe, God’s Lonely Man
Whenever the refrigerator starts to make a sound after I’ve been staring into it for too long, I get the impression it’s angry and feel rushed. #chilloutfridge
For some tweets.
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White-Sheet Island
When we awoke to the summer-afternoon streams of yellow sunlight, tinged with a leafy green from passing through the trees, Tatiana and I rested in the white sheets until they became extensions of our nude bodies: they became Tatiana’s wings and her bonnet and her dress; they became my cape and my hood and my jacket. Together, we went on white-sheet expeditions to the far corners of the bed,...
December 2011
2 posts
Tatiana
I never planned to love her nor, despite my intense loneliness at the time, use her to fill the emptiness within me; rather, I was interested only in saving her, without any idea how, from the hellfire that engulfed her. My love for her came later—long after I knew about her passion for learning—in the flash of a summer glance around a table set with two dinner plates and two glasses of wine.
November 2011
2 posts
Change
I lay supinely on the couch, sipping the final third of a palm-warmed beer, and mulled over thoughts that, over the last few years, had become very familiar to me. Long ago I came to the realization that loneliness would forever be a part of me and, soon after, decided that I should embrace it rather than fight it—that way, something good might come of it, I told myself.
I remembered I went...
Literature, Je t’aime.
October 2011
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New Release Date for "Isn't It Pretty To Think...
I’ve learned much on the journey of writing my first novel. I learned, for example, that my first draft was more about storytelling and less about writing. My scariest realization happened when I went through my first draft for the first time and realized that the writing was pure shit. After I calmed down in knowing that my story was still intact, I acquainted myself with the act of...
September 2011
2 posts
“Everybody who writes is engaged in the remarkable enterprise of making...”
– Ben Yagoda, The Sound on the Page
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Download the first section of my novel for free
I know it’s been a while since the last time I released any new text from my soon-to-be-released novel. My apologies—I’ve been completely mired in edits and rewrites. But my publisher has prepared a two-chapter preview of Isn’t It Pretty To Think So? You can read or download it for free here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/76958798/Book-One-Isn-t-It-Pretty-To-Think-So-Draft
...
August 2011
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Coming soon: "Isn't It Pretty To Think So?" →
Today, my publisher announced the release date of my novel: November 14th, 2011. In November 2010, I posted on my Tumblr a draft of the first chapter of a novel I had just started working on. The time from then to now represents the greatest journey I’ve ever known in my life—the many inspirational emails and messages from supporters, the Kickstarter contributions, the hundreds of submitted...
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July 2011
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What Writing Has Done To Me
I told a story the other day and realized halfway through it wasn’t my story but my protagonist’s story—I kept telling it anyway. I can no longer demarcate the truths of my past from what I’ve written as fiction.
Every person I have a conversation with now runs a chance of being fictionalized. The other night, I was talking with a girl who said she dumped a guy because he was a...
June 2011
2 posts
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Bugs and Beauty
The next three nights we were together—that is, we slept in the same bed. Each night, I woke up to her crying.
And on that third night, my mind drifted to a time when I lived with Patrick; we had a neighbor who loved to garden. He planted beautiful flowers on his balcony, so many that it was filled with an assortment of colors dripping over the railing like an oil painting. It was quite...
May 2011
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I dreamt I visited every motel in America and replaced the Bible in the drawer with The Great Gatsby.
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“We have this desire to protect and take care of babies. Babies are cute. We all love babies. But this feeling extends to babies of other species: baby lions, baby dolphins, baby alligators, baby bears, baby anything. So it must be deeper than just having the urge to take care of our own young. Perhaps it’s the realization that babies of all species are existing in their purest state....
April 2011
3 posts
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WatchDesign my book cover. See submission details here.
Design My Book Cover.
I want words to be my art. I want to write words that drip off the page and waltz to an original hymn.
However, my art stops with words. So, I need a visual artist to create the cover of my forthcoming novel. I want someone from Tumblr to do it. My writing currently lives at Tumblr; the source of my confidence comes from Tumblr; and my identity as a writer blossomed on Tumblr. Therefore, this...
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Drogas
As I stared out over the fluorescent city, I remembered something a teacher had told my class in middle school long ago. She stood in front of the classroom, glaring at us with her pious eyes, and said that drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco were sinful choices along the path of evil. Sitting in my little student desk attached to a blue, plastic chair, I imagined walking down a road decorated...
March 2011
9 posts
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Lost Words
Sprawled sideways on the sand, I tried to get through the first sentence of a short story in my book, but each time my eyes reached the end of it I’d already forgotten what I’d just read and was forced to start from the beginning again. I certainly was reading the words, just not processing them—a realization that frustrated me.
Usually, when I concentrated on reading the words, they traveled...
“I awoke this morning to a single ray of sunlight, one that had battled its way...”
– Isn’t It Pretty To Think So?
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“I think it was mostly truth I was after. I know now that truth is a troubling...”
– Isn’t It Pretty To Think So?
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Weighted Warmth
“Will you kiss me?” she said.
“Yes,” I said before kissing her.
“Now, come here,” she said, turning her back to me but pulling me closer with her hand.
I positioned my body like an outer shell to hers. She guided my arm around her body and held my hand tightly at the center of her chest. I lay there next to her, trying not to breathe too loudly, and felt her warmth on my hand and my chest...
“I was glad I wasn’t in love, that I wasn’t happy with the world. I...”
– Charles Bukowski in Women
Three Books
1. This book changed my life: Norwegian Wood 2. I am excited to finish this book: On Beauty 3. I have read this book more than once: To Kill A Mockingbird
What are your three?
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A White Ceiling Depression
I couldn’t understand it. I don’t know if it was the drunken sex or the hangover or the travel or Amanda’s dad’s cultish procession or the thought of work in the morning, but something was terribly wrong with me. I lay still on my back, breathing very softly and slowly, and stared blankly at the white ceiling.
The feeling was deep inside me, and I couldn’t fight it; I was forced into...
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“During the past year or so I’ve been under great pressure to finish it;...”
– Truman Capote on his novel Answered Prayers. He never finished it.
I'm back.
Firstly, I apologize for my absence on Tumblr this past month, but it was beyond my control. My account was broken. I couldn’t log in, couldn’t use the dashboard, couldn’t respond to messages, and most important, couldn’t post anything. Tumblr assured me that they were working on the issue and as of this morning, they finally found a fix. Thank you Tumblr staff.
If you...
February 2011
1 post
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"With the help of his [Tumblr] readers, Nick... →
January 2011
6 posts
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Important update for my Tumblr Family
I quit my job. It’s quite a bold move but I feel it’s what I had to do. I have been writing since I was a child, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized I wanted to devote the rest of my life to writing. This realization is in part owed to the reaction of my Tumblr family toward the excerpts of my novel I have been posting. It’s quite intoxicating to receive Facebook and Tumblr messages...
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“Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.”
– Jorge Luis Borges
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A Jake Reed Sexual Encounter
And then there was no stopping it. We were interlocked and kissing deeply and strongly, one pulling away for a breath and the other pulling back with an impassioned haste. We were fighting over each other’s faces, using our tongues as swords.
Her hands gripped my lower back tightly and I grabbed the back of her head with one hand and guided my other hand strongly down her back until I could...
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That time of day...
I awoke two hours later to a beautifully and naturally lit room. I had left the curtains open and the sun was nearly finished with its work for the day. I thought about the sunlight at this time of the day. I loved how the light upon the land was always more beautiful in its final hour.
Every morning the sun bounces through the horizon with a youthful energy, craving attention like a puppy...
Finished.
I finished writing the first draft of my novel. I’m excited about this one. But I’m tired. Very tired. I’m going to sleep for a week now. Ciao.
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Hemingway's ending to "The Sun Also Rises"...
[Taken from the last page of “The Sun Also Rises”]
A taxi came up the street, the waiter hanging out at the side. I tipped him and told the driver where to drive, and got in beside Brett. The driver started up the street. I settled back. Brett moved close to me. We sat close against each other. I put my arm around her and she rested against me comfortably. It was very hot and bright,...
December 2010
9 posts
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Red Moleskine for you, from me.
Perhaps you know of my fondness for Moleskine notebooks. I have, in my possession now, a brand new red Moleskine designed for writing. I want to give it away to one of you who also loves to write.
I have handwritten my Travel piece on page one, which may have never been born if I didn’t have a Moleskine with me while traveling through Europe. I encourage you to write down your thoughts in...
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“One night I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room on Bunker Hill, down in the...”
– John Fante
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Sleep
I could hear the ocean in the background, working relentlessly, creating wave after wave, fulfilling its role as nature’s metronome. While I listened to the ocean work, I spent my nights alone reading fiction or streaming movies and drinking cold beer. I would wake up on the floor in the morning, a book or a laptop open, discombobulated and, at first, curious why I didn’t walk the...
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Isn’t It Pretty to Think So? (Chap.1 - Part 7)
As I am writing my story now, I am still trying to uncover what it all means and then piece it together slowly. A freakishly powerful force from my core is driving me to create something, to actually finish something. No one ever finishes anything. And I know that I can never find peace without writing my story and working it until I believe it is the best thing I can ever produce. Then, and...
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What are the novels that get you off?
Many of you have asked me for book recommendations. Rather than a recommendation list, I will show you a few novels that have coaxed my own medulla oblongata into a deeply hardened state. I tend to like visceral and graceful novels with troubled but promising protagonists. I gravitate toward stories that are unabashedly fucking real. Stories where the words on the page dance together like...