The "Old School" fiberglass rod by A-Mac Custom Rods

When everything on Earth seems to be going retro, why not expect fly fishing gear to follow suit shortly thereafter, right? I mean, it seems all things come full circle in due time (my Aunt Marsha's hairdo, Dodge Challengers, beards...) Is fly rod technology so different? I think not. 

Once upon a time fiberglass was king. The glass of our fathers' fishing era was flexible, inexpensive, easy to work with, and almost indestructible. (I still fish with my dad's old Shakespeare from the late 60's - fishing with it feels sorta like driving an old VW bus, good that it was built well enough the first time that it's still here.) Fiberglass' only true Achilles' heel was its weight. But that was the past. 

Some vintage glass-junkies like Cameron Mortenson and Tom Chandler have never stopped using the stuff. And some really smart enthusiasts out there (probably donning Grateful Dead T's and listening to Phish [on vinyl]) seemed to have figured out ways to make vintage glass perform remarkably similar to bamboo - soft like butta on a hot summa night.

Austin McWhorter of A-Mac Custom Built Rods has taken the Lamiglas blank out of the stone age and into your present-day kung-fu grip. He calls it the OLD SCHOOL, a nod to the heritage of our fly-fishing past, but he puts his own modern spins on it to bring it into the 21st century. He's created a true small stream, go-to piece of art that will make fishing for small trout, bream or bluegill a delight. 

Pictured is the honey yellow, 3-wt, 6'6" two-piece rod Austin built for his new line. It retails for $220, it's light as a fly, and the thing has the flex index roughly equal to that of an al dente linguini noodle -- utter perfection for the small brookie streams I'm about to conquer and destroy like Genghis Khan in a few weeks with Wes and Guy. The Cruces Basin Wilderness will be my first outing putting the OLD SCHOOL to the modern test, and I plan to sacrifice many brookies in the process. I also plan to write a feature piece for Southwest Fly Fishing Magazine that may rival a few of the parables in the Good Book.(Jokes, people, jokes. I'll be here all night.)

I'll be sure to post a lot of pictures here, and give my honest review of how the Old School performs, once we return. But something tells me it will be a rave, glowing review and I'll be pushing you all to order one from Austin in the near future.  

Till then,

Fish, or be fished~!

Mac~ 

Preparing for the Wilderness

I had almost forgotten how much I loved William Butler Yeats until Laura brought me a copy of The Tower from her trip to Santa Fe. She'd found a quaint little bookstore practically giving books away, and this one was my favorite she brought me. Normally, when I turn to nature poetry I head for my boy Mathew Arnold, or Thoreau's Walden.  I rose early this morning and sat on the porch with my coffee and read half of the book before anyone else had stirred.

Yeats often waxed poetic about streams and the woods and of the extraordinary flora and fauna residing within. He wrote of fly fishing several times in his works, which I can't help but dig because it's proof positive that even 100 years ago, poets/writers were trout-heads too.

He also laments on about the cruelty of growing old and frail, and feeling he losing grip on the things he loves (wooing a young lover, hiking the wilderness, wading the stream) - but also frequently on his fading faculties -- a terrible/inevitable reality that lies in wait for any of us who suffer through this life long enough to die old.

I suppose Yeats helped me spend my morning realizing how lucky I am to only have a couple of (ever-worsening) problems with my feet, how lucky I am to have Laura, how lucky I am to have Wesley and Savannah still believe I am some superhuman, hybridized, cross-pollinated, genetically-altered version of Superman, Yoda and Chevy Chase.

Anyways, here are a couple of my favorite "Yeats Greats." If you like what I like, you'll like these as well. And you'll also notice the Cormac McCarthy connection.


THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

by W. B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.



SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
by W. B. Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Bros, Brews, and Bass on the Fly

My 2013 Memorial Day weekend was def one for the ages. My daughter, Savannah, and I drove to Dallas to see Taylor Swift perform at Cowboy Stadium on Saturday. Let me just say one thing about that before I move on to the fish. Perhaps you think you've heard LOUD before? Maybe you've fired a .500 Magnum Revolver in a closet. Or posted up next to the woofer stacks at a live GWAR concert? Mere child's play my friends. If you've not heard 55,000 toothy, pimply, brace-faced tweens screaming simultaneously as loud as possible for Taylor Swift in a closed-roofed, hermetically-sealed environment for five solid hours, you ain't heard nothin', Jack. I'd put that cacophony up against the Tunguska event any day. If my ears had a memory they'd need shock therapy to forget what happened to them this weekend. (It was truly an amazing performance, actually. Savannah and I had the time of our lives, just she and I. But my ears are permanently damaged, I know this much. Now, when tweens speak in my vicinity, the only thing I hear is a faint droning sound.)

       ^                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                   ^  ^
(Savannah, being quiet)           (55,000 deafening squeally tweens)    (2 normal quiet ladies)



On to the FISH!

When I got home on Sunday, Laura, my love, was visiting Santa Fe with her son Andrew who is home from college. Since she wouldn't be home till later Monday evening, I knew I had to find some fish to torment with my fly rods somewhere. I called my buddy Guy Wilkins.

"Hey, can you fish?"
"Yeah."
"During a holiday?"
"Yeah."
"Monday?"
"Yeah."

DONE DEAL!

We left out at 5:30am and traveled to an undisclosed, TOP SECRET location in the Texas Panhandle. This is a private lake fed by a precious, rare, gin-clear Texas water source -- there's nothing like it anywhere near here, and I realize I am one lucky dawg to have permission to fish it. Don't ask me where it is. Your inquisitions will be futile.

Guy and I unloaded the kayaks and were putting in by 7:30am. He scored first. A frisky two-to-three pounder that succumbed to a mylar epoxy spoon he uses on his saltwater excursions. (It catches bass too, apparently!) I was still loading up my cooler on my yak when I heard a whoop out on the water, so I don't know exactly how big it was. Too far away. But Guy is honest as Abe and he says it was only 2 pounds. Looked all of three. Anyway, I gave him a thumbs up and I knew then it was going to be a killer day of fishing.

I poked a few more flies into my box and shoved off into the tepid drink a couple minutes behind my bud. If you've never fly fished from a kayak, know that it takes a few moments to get your equipment adjusted. If you move too abruptly to the left or right, your gear and tackle quickly become flotsam and jetson. If you wanna lose everything you own to the lake bottom, by all means try out your Zoomba moves the first few minutes you're bass yakkin'. Otherwise, take your time to get your bearings. This is exactly what I'm trying to do when I hear another non-descript whoop! 

Again already? I'm thinking. Here I am still fumbling for my camera and lashing my rod down and trying not to lose my paddle and about to open my fly box and doing my best not to get dead by drowning and before I've even pulled my polarized lenses down over my eyes Guy has already etched two notches on the bedpost. Listen, I love seeing and photographing other people catch fish, so I rejoiced that he's nailed a pair so quickly. But I know I def needed to get my gameface on at this point or else I'm gonna hear about it all day from him.

(BTW, just so you know, I'm not one of those competitive Neanderthals like other fish freaks who tally all my fish I catch (and yours too). I tend to lose count after 6 or 8. And I don't need to mentally weigh my fish against yours either. It's not my goal to make the day a dual between my bros and myself, rather than between us and the fish. Cool thing is, neither is Guy. He's as cool as a cucumber, and the kind of pal who's always quick to ask how I've been doing, how my kids are, what's Laura been up to, and how work has been going lately... it's why I dig fishing with him. He's all about the experience, not machismo.)

That said, when my bros are setting hooks and whoopin' it up on the water without me, I wanna set a hook and whoop it up just the same. So I know I gotta get my head in the game and get my fly on the water. After I get my butt unpuckered and throw four or five loops, I land my first bass of the day, an average 2-pound emerald green beauty, not big but energetic. It was windy, so it was tough on us old fellas. I decided to utilize the drift and cast technique, but wind + kayak (usually) = nap later in the day. Believe me, we earn our fish.

About this time I'm thinking how impressed I am that Guy has so easily taken to the kayak and is fishing from it as though he's done it for years. I know he's a yak virgin, but you'd never know it to see him. He is an accomplished angler. I get it. He's fished Oregon. Yellowstone. Belize. And lots of places in between. He frequents my favorite haunts like NM and CO, but he's gone places I've never been, and most likely will never go. His cast is a second-nature action of efficiency, intuition, and artwork. His well-rounded fishing experiences and skillset have coalesced into this effortless-in-appearance fluidity of unforced movement I've only seen a couple of other dudes possess with a rod in their hands. He reads the water and puts flies where fish are, but does it with a gracefulness and quietude I find refreshing.

Most of us are niche fishermen. I'm a medium-to-small stream enthusiasts. Put me there and I can usually catch enough trout to feed several dudes dinner and they won't need a desert menu. Some of you are big river geeks and one big trout a day is a success. I love that about you. Others of you are masters of the San Juan, or the Taylor (not Taylor Swift, but the Taylor River), or the Deschutes. I envy your conviction! Yet even more of you fly guys and gals are saltwater junkies, which in and of itself has a dozen offshoots or more. But, Guy is a chameleon caster, and does all of these things very well (unless he's just had his gall bladder out apparently, but even then he's better than most). If you're gonna fish, you might as well have good company and Guy is as stand-up as they come. (Coming Soon! Backpacking blogs with Guy, my son Wesley, and myself packing into the Cruces Basin. Stay tuned.)


The skinny on this TOP SECRET clearwater gem is to locate pockets of water where the milfoil (be careful how/where you say that) hasn't grown yet. There are plenty of these clear pockets in the shallows, and in the deep. Drop a fly, let it sink a foot, and retrieve. Bam! Repeat. The water is so clear fish can see a fly from 20 feet away or more. I used a common bass pattern with iridescent Flashabou that practically glowed neon in the water when it picked up the sunlight. It KILLED 'em!

 

Anyways, by noon-thirty Guy and I had bagged about 20-25 bass each. Each and every one a 2-3 pound carbon copy of the one before it. No lunkers. No runts. All twins. Oh yeah, and Guy duped one sunfish you coulda fed two people with. All in all it was one helluva fishing outing, a memorable Memorial Day, and we were home and tossing back a few brews in my backyard by 2:30pm, which gave us plenty of time to get back to our respective families, get cleaned up and do the holiday family supper thing.

I have to admit. I did take that nap after Guy left for home. I slept hard for about two hours when my phone buzzed and Laura had sent a text <Almost home!> with a picture of the mall on the outskirts of town. 5 mins later she was unpacking the Subaru and I was trying to wake up. She flopped upon the chair and we talked about our seperate weekends. We'd both done a lot. I'd driven 800 miles between Sat and Sun. I'd seen Austin Mahone, Florida Georgia Line, Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift all perform live. I'd walked no less than five miles. I'd been eaten up by noseeums standing in line for the show. I'd awoken at 5:00am and driven another 150 miles on Monday and fought the wind all day and plucked 20+ bass from a lake and paddled about two miles in the process. Epic Memorial Day weekend!

Finally, I'd like to personally thank every soldier who's fought and served for our country, allowing me the opportunity and freedom to have this incredible weekend. Thank you all.

Books on Sale! Great Father's Day Gift!

Friends, family and loyal readers, the delivery has lived up to the much-awaited anticipation - both books are in-hand, signed, and ready for shipping out.

49 Trout Streams of Southern Colorado is a classy, full-color pictorial survey of some of our favorite streams in the Centennial State. It's a destination guide of southern Colorado like no other. With all-original color photography (thanks Dr. Zeig for your help on South Platte), approx 250-400 word write-ups and fly suggestions for each stream, plus a map and directions to each, 49 Trout Streams gives readers 49 great reasons to call in sick. 

Use it as your go-to guidebook, as a supplement to your favorite, or just leave on the coffee table for friends, family or patrons at your place of business to thumb through. 

 Laura fishing the South Fk. of the South Platte River. (Front cover) 

Example chapter on Osier Creek, CO.

Introduction to Fly Fishing for Trout is a witty, easy-to-ready, "how-to" primer on fly fishing for that species we love most -- TROUT. We've been fishing for a long time. And, we'd been teachers for much of our adult lives. We figured, why not put the two skills together and put out the coolest how-to fly fishing book ever? 

We believed most fishing how-to's were just okay, but every one seemed either bogged down in minutia and repetition, or lacked in one or more areas and just didn't feel complete. 

Our strategy is unique: we teach you a simple, one-handed cast a newbie can manage, get you reading water and catching fish on day one, and once you're hooked, you keep reading and keep learning the skills you need at your own pace. 

With full-color sequence photos on technique, lists of suggested quality gear, and logically broken-down chapters and tactics so you progress through the sport at your own speed, Introduction to Fly Fishing for Trout is the funniest, most comprehensive and visually-striking fly fishing how-to on the market. 

Example of what you'll find inside!

ORDER your signed copies of either book today, or give them as timely Father's Day gifts for $35 each, + shipping. (Shipping media mail is approx $2.50 per book). 

Or, ORDER a package deal and get a signed copy of each book shipped to you for only $65. FREE SHIPPING. (I know, that sounded like a cheesy infomercial, huh? Disregard the cheese and focus on the wicked deal that is!) 

The Cheesy Infomercial "Package Deal" - 2 for $65!

   

To ORDER, please call me anytime @ (806) 220-8131, or email chadmcphail@gmail.com

Thank you for your continued interest and support!

Book-signing went well!

Williams and I once again set up camp in the local B&N and sold somewhere around 35-45 units on Saturday. I wanted to personally thank Guy and Brenda Wilkins for showing their support and hospitality. (Steaks were great, bro!)

Also a shout out goes to my mom's friends, Duane, and Caroline. Thank you guys for coming. As for Joie, I can't believe you didn't come by when you came it. Sorry I had to leave before we could chat.

Both books moved well as we'd hoped. (I can only think of one person who approached before Williams was there and didn't buy a book. Many bought both. And one dude bought 6!

49 TROUT STREAMS OF SOUTHERN COLORADO faired better than INTRODUCTION TO FLY FISHING FOR TROUT, but my personal opinion is over the long haul INTRO will ultimately sell more. Both are incredibly cool reads, but INTRO will appeal to a much broader market, and over a longer period of time.

49 is one of those things that is easy to like. The pictures are so many and so dramatic that it takes quite a while just to scan the thing.

We're very proud of how the event turned out -- we'll get a finally tally sometime this week, I'm sure. I'll post that here once we know, but you can't go wrong selling 40+ books per hour in a town that has no trout within 200+ miles and barely a drop of water to speak of.

Next event -- Backpacking into Cruces Basin with Wes and Guy. Can't wait. (Hope my feet hold up. Been rather painful for the past 3 weeks... postponing surgery on them until I have a couple months of slower work.)


Ciao for niao!

Mac~

Planning the first trip of the season!

A few days after Groundhog Day, we got something like 19" of snow here in the Panhandle. I'd been glued to the tube the week prior waiting on Punxsutawney Phil to give me his permission to go fishing early this season. Sure enough, all signs led to an early spring. No shadow = Fish On! But then it dumped all that snow a few days later, and froze us all like that fox they found frozen alive in Norway. Freakin' Groundhog Day...  : (   Love the movie, hate the unpredictable varmint.

Anyways, now it's time. Spring has sprung like Sir Mix-a-Lot. The daffodils are popping their yellow faces up everywhere, the pear trees are bursting back to life at the park where Wes and I play catch, and I am now planning the first fishing trip of the season. Nothing major, just a familiar place I can land a few fish and knock the rust off the cast. I'm thinking Rio Hondo, the Red, the Cimarron, or something similar and close by. Any suggestion, New Mexico?

Meanwhile, I'm training for a 5k at the moment. The Color Run visits Amarillo in June and I've slowly gained some extra pounds these past few years from not being able to run due to some foot issues. So, I'm trying to cut weight at the moment, which sucks, but it's got to happen. Ever seen a walrus backpacking out of a canyon? Me neither.

By the way, Williams and I have two books coming out any day now. "49 Trout Streams of Southern Colorado" with UNMPress is already available on Kindle and other ebook formats, and will be in stores soon. Please shoot me a line if you'd like a signed copy when I get that first box in the mail. I'd be happy to mail a copy to anyone, anywhere, anytime!

And "An Introduction to Fly Fishing for Trout" will be out very soon too guys, hopefully by mid-April.  Stonefly Press is burning the midnight oil getting that one ready for print. I'm so excited I could just poop! The book looks great and with Stonefly's experience we really expect to see it sell well, even overseas. Once it's out, I'll definitely post it's release here.

If anyone has any reports on the three streams mentioned earlier, call me. I dont' want to waste time! It's gonna be a quick trip and every second will count. As for now, it's St. Patty's Day. Bout to sip on some 12-year Glenlivet and hopefully find some live music to enjoy. Let's just hope it doesn't snow!

Write a Book, Lazy Ass!

I'd be willing to bet a fistful of Franklins that most people out there, at one time or another, have thought to themselves "I'd like to write a book someday."  I know the feeling better than anyone. Been saying it myself my entire life. Strange thing is... I'm still saying it.

Why strange? Because I've actually written a few. It's just that they aren't exactly the type of books that get a guy laid or win any prestigious awards. Don't get me wrong. They're killer books. I'm happy to be published. Fly fishing books are an intriguing sector of publishing and I'm happy to do more if the pay and perks are there.

However, what I really want to write is a fiction book that makes people think, feel, change. I want to write a novel that isn't simply read over a weekend, but compared to other pieces of amazing literature over a lifetime. You too, huh? Yeah, I thought so.

161.

Let's face it. For whatever reason, not many of us ever get around to writing that book, do we? Why do you think that is? I've thought about this a lot. Let's pontificate upon the obstacles to writing a book for a moment. These are just coming to me right off the cuff.

1. NO TOPIC (What most people claim they really want to write is a book about their life -- a memoir. Honestly people? Most of our lives are some really boring shit we think is unique and special. With 6,973,738,433 people living on Earth as of 2011 (Source: World Bank), how can   that many of us have the audacity to think our lives are so interesting that we can justify writing a book about it? FACT: It isn't. It seems unique to you because you're in the middle of it, so it may appear to you that it could be interesting to others. But really it's just the spinning out of days of egocentric monotony.

Unless you've truly done something, or been something, or been through something and come out on the other side and overcome some hella-wicked obstacle(s),  i.e. Jennifer Lauck, Rosa Parks, Aron Ralston, Abraham Lincoln, please spare us and have a real effin TOPIC. Plus, it's sorta self-serving to write an autobiography, don't you think? It's sorta all about...YOU.

Let's move on.

EXCUSE # 2.  NO TIME (in a little whining-ass voice as though you lost your Rainbow Brite doll on the subway). Last I checked, all clocks have twelve numbers, 1 through 12. All clocks have two hands too, a minute and a second hand. If ever there was a true, level playing field created in nature, it is time. We are all blessed with the same amount of sunlight per day. So hear me clearly, TIME will bitch slap you one of these days if you don't get off your lazy ass and do something worth doing. Write a book worth writing. Better yet, write a book worth READING! Working hard for what you want is the only way. There is no other way. Write, or wither.

3. Hmmm, obstacle #3. What other excuses are there? No time, and not topic? That's pretty much it. If you have any sort of medium at all to write words upon, then it's pretty simple to see. If you want to be a writer, all you need are TWO THINGS -- TIME, and A TOPIC.


Based upon these two notions, seems the shelves at Barnes & Noble ought to be bursting with books written by prisoners, eh? All prisoners have is shit to say, and time to say it. But usually prisoners are in prison for a reason -- one of those reasons being they are not good at accomplishing good things, only good at accomplishing bad things. So, yeah, there are a few bad books out there written by prisoners. (And maybe a handful of good ones.) But really, no. All those books ought to be written by you, and me.

So, what's the deal? Why don't more people like you and me write books?

I have a theory. But first, let's hit on something quickly.

A list of things you DO NOT need to be a writer.

1. A DEGREE (You do not need to be formally educated to write a book, dumb ass. Plenty of kids write books, i.e. Mattie Stepanek. Homeless people write books, i.e. Harry Edmund Martinson. Housewives write books. (Hey numb nuts, I'm not talking about that type of housewife.  Apparently plenty of idiots and dummies write books also,  i.e. every "Idiot's Guide" and "____ for Dummies Guide" has to be written by someone.

2. AN AGENT (Skip all that agent nonsense and start punching the keys. Once you have your book done, and you've let a few people read it and drop and honest critique to it, and you still have a soul left, then maybe then you'll have a little juice left to go find an agent. Until you have a book, just write.)

3. Hmmmm. Excuse #3...  Can't think of any. Get off your keister and write.

So, pretty much that's my new mantra. "Get off your lazy ass write." You can quit making excuses and write your book. (This is not dogma. I'm trying to motivate myself here as well.) Chances are, it'll be better than what's on the bookshelves now anyways. My opinion is this. Since appox 2000 A.D., Hollywood and New York have been on sabbatical. A leave of absence if you will. Gotten sloppy. Been unimaginative. Playing it safe. In other words, pretty much sucked.


935!


New York: Are you kidding me with The Perks of Being a Wallflower? I learned absolutely nothing from reading that book except that I'm glad I don't teach little assholes anymore. And I can see how A Walk to Remember would interpret into a decent chick flick/screenplay/movie. But jeez it's a shitty read for an intelligent person. And Twilight -- the entire series is voted the worst books of the decade. (How does that happen?) Wicked (and every counterfeit book it spawned) just sucks. Get your own story already. And BTW, any book about zombies except for the very first one (not sure which one it is, but I am damn sure the author does) is literary junk. Everything else "zombie" is/was riding the coat tails of the first Zombie book. Zombies were dumb in the 80's, and still are dumb. (How can something dead be alive, duh?)  The Time Traveler's Wife. Wait a minute...a time-traveling gene? WTH? Just because the author doesn't understand what a gene is does not give her the literary liberty to invent a genetic disorder that causes involuntary time travel does it?  The Secret? Not a secret anymore that it's not a book and never was one,  but only a $20 hardbound transcript (complete with screenshots for every page) from the documentary film titled the same thing on the topic of unproven metaphysics. Don't buy the book when you can rent the verbatim documentary for 1/10th the price.

Anyway, on to Hollywood (which is also writer-driven, just not novelists).

Hollywood: There have been more abominable remakes/sequels of movies since around 9/11 than ever in the history of filmmaking, IMO.  Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha' Hood. The Fog. The Stepford Wives. Arthur. Around the World in 80 Days. The Omen. Dukes of Hazard? The A-Team. Hawaii 5-0. (Haven't seen Red Dawn yet but don't expect much....) On and on and on it goes... Where are the original screenplays/scripts/stories that made Hollywood what it is? Casablanca. China Town. Groundhog Day. Fargo. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Memento, The Godfather, Brokeback Mountain, Terms of Endearment, Being John Malkovich, Pulp Fiction, Dances with Wolves, Dead Poets Society, The Pianist, Rear Window, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Cool Hand Luke, Star Wars, E.T., Gosford Park, Crash, The Shawshank Redemption, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...   ( s i g h )  I want those days back dammit. If you're going to make a re-make, ask America what it wants to see remade!


Okay. Rant over.

Segue:

So, why write at all? Well, because you have to.

But I'll tell ya, getting a book published isn't easy. The easiest part about writing a book is writing the book. That's my quote. And if you ever read it anywhere else, please know that I invented it. Some other lazy ass writer stole it from here if you read it somewhere else. The hardest part about writing a book is all the other bullshit that goes along with writing a book:

• having a significant other who can allow you to be a writer
• writing an author bio that is simultaneously glowing, and God's honest truth
• creating a blog people follow
• keeping your bio/blog fresh 
• marketing yourself as a package deal (not just marketing a single work/book)
• writing taglines/footnotes/sources/index and all that shit
• making copies of everything
• taxes 
• converting photos/images to the proper file type RAW PNG TIFF JPG JFIF JPEG WTF
• making copies of everything
• taking good photos (for non-fiction)
• sourcing quotes properly
• sending files properly (ftp, email, snail mail a disc, snail mail a thumb drive, flux capacitor)
• meeting deadlines (you MUST meet them all)
• corresponding with editors, designers, publicists... 
• understanding your contract's fine print 
• finding an agent who reads fine print 
• getting the royalties you rightfully earned but assholes don't want to pay due to fine print BS
• making copies of everything 
• media spots (print responsibilities, radio shows, book signings, television...)
• other stuff most writers don't remember right now because they're on their 3rd scotch too

Anyways, writing the text of any book should be a cake walk. Set a writing goal, and that should be around 2000 words a day. Yeah, it seems a lot a first. But, 2000 words buzzing around in your head should haunt you. Thoughts should beg to be exorcised from your soul. Ideas should insist upon spilling out of your mind and onto the paper/screen. When a writer isn't typing/writing, they should either be plagued with guilt, or bursting with spunk to get thoughts down on something. It should bother a writer deeply when they aren't writing.

Writers should ponder when they pen a pithy line, "I wonder if someone else has ever thought/written that?" Happens to me all the time. (Sometimes I Google entire sentences just to see if it comes back used. When it doesn't, I feel comfortable knowing it's mine!

When a writer puts something down for the record, they should worry like Hell, "That better pan out to be true, or I ought not print that."

So, if the easiest part is writing the text, seriously, you want to know the hardest part about the easiest part is? The hardest part about the easiest part is keeping going once you've started. Once you begin, the whole ball of wax is in your head all at once and sparks catch fires and it's easy because ideas are like bees and you can't stop the buzz even if you wanted to.

But if you stop for just a few days, the buzz becomes only a dull hum. Don't write for a week and you forget tiny parts of the plot you were gonna add in the rising action. If you stop for two weeks you forget how you were going to transition chapter ten into chapter eleven and that was important. You lay off for a month and you forget your protagonist's name and what you were writing for in the first place and that's bad because your protagonists name was your Mom's. Keep the flow in your head at all times.

1969!!! (Hell Yeah!)

And one last thing. Don't feel you always must have a finishing point. Just keep your goal. Mine is 2000 words. I was keeping track this whole time. That's what the random numbers were all about. And now that I'm up to 2015 words, you can kiss my no good lazy ass  ___________. . .