Some Props from the Big O for Chuck Wendig

I've been singing the praises of Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds (http://terribleminds.com/ramble/) for a while now.  Of course, who gives a shit what I think.  I'm just Joe.  But this weekend on Oprah.com, the big gal herself links Chuck (http://www.oprah.com/blogs/What-Were-Grateful-for-Today_29) and his brilliant "25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing (Right Fucking Now)" (http://tinyurl.com/87zavvf), although the Big O swaps parenthetical, replacing "Right Fucking Now" for something a little more life affirming for her core readership of 40-year-old moms with questionable literary tastes and high-waisted pant-wear.  But who gives a shit?  Dude just got name dropped by Oprah!

Don't get much bigger than that.  And Wendig deserves it.  His Terrible Minds is a consistent force of frantic writing fury, pairing an authentic, gritty vernacular with ballsy observation about the writing profession.  He's witty and and self-deprecating, with pretty turns of phrase that lacerate the jugular of polite convention and pretension.  Furthermore, it offers me hope that maybe mainstream acceptance of the fringe isn't so impossible after all.

I know it's the weekend and that (according to Greg Kim) the Internet shuts down, but if you stumble on this post, check out Chuck's riotously spot-on piece, and chalk one up to the good (bad) guys...

Best of 2011

Can't help it.  End of the year always invokes retro(intro?)spection.  More than our ages, we use it as a barometer for success or failure, inspiring changes to get it better this time, even though results are destined to fall short of our well-intended, lofty goals.

At least I don't have to worry about chubsters joining my gym, cramming the parking lot and hogging all the good machines for the first two weeks of January, never to be seen again.  Because my gym is in my basement (and if you join now, you get this special introductory rate of 0% down and get the fuck out of my garage).

As I hinted at in an earlier post (http://tinyurl.com/), 2011 fucking kicked ass.  Was I finally happy?  No, of course not.  I'm Joe.  Happiness for me hurts.

But I found it tougher to bitch this past year, since pretty much everything was coming my way.  Which reminds me of tripping on mushrooms in the Marin Headlands long, long ago with my good friend Matt. It was a shaky start to the night--y'know, where the hallucinogen begins to tingle and you can't decide if she's gonna be a good witch or a bad witch.  The radio played softly in the fog-shrouded gloaming.  Then this song came on.

And everything was fine after that.

Not that there aren't things I want to improve upon for 2012.  I'd like to finally get those six pack abs I've always talked about.  I'm getting close, down to 13.5% body fat, and I think I'll be adding some new equipment to Club Joe.  Plus, I'm trying to boost my testosterone (naturally, of course; I don't fuck around with anything illegal these days) with BCAA (branch chain amino acids) and D aspartic acid, recommendations from my former nemesis-turned-body building advisor, George Murphy (http://tinyurl.com/ ).  But this isn't about my new and improved rock hard body (or the rusting metal parts inside holding it together).  If you'd like to see some beefcake shots, we're not shy, just ask.  (Please send two dead creeping to the Tropicana Motor Hotel, c/o young Joe...) (Apologies to Tom Waits).

For the rest of this week, you are going to encounter myriad Best Of lists, every newspapers, sports' show, Late Night Special, etc., is going to feature some variation of it.  So I figured I might as well offer a distinctly personal take on the concept as the year ticks on down.  

This year was a lot like that song I linked above, even though I fucking hate Santana.  Many, many good things happened in Joe's life.  So let's look at some of the highlights.  (We'll save the negative shit for tomorrow.)

Best Thing to Happen to Joe

We have a lot of entries here.  First off, like Nelly say, must be the money.  Then there's my marriage to the woman who turns more heads than anyone I've ever been with, the lovely Justine.  And the house.  Bought my first house in 2011, which brings about two more contenders: the gym in the basement, and the fucking indoor BBQ.  Any other year...I mean, how do you beat an indoor BBQ?  Too bad for the BBQ, 2011 saw the single greatest thing to ever happen to a wretch like me: my boy, Holden, who finally answered that nagging question.  What's it all for?  Him. It's all for him.  If you have a kid, you know what I mean.  If you don't, don't worry, maybe someday somebody will love you enough.  Just kidding.  At least you still get to sleep past 6.  

A few months ago, I made a comment to Justine, something like, "I love that boy more than anything in the world," and she said, "Even more than me?"  And I was, like, "Uh, yeah.  What?  You don't?"  And she just laughed.  It's OK being second to your husband or wife when you have a baby; the kid trumps all.  And Holden is doing tons of neat tricks these days, his little personality finally taking shape.  The little looks and idiosyncrasies.  Not that it's all a cakewalk.  Holden has taken to flopping like a British soccer player when he does't get his way, and six hours straight watching him on my own can make me feel like a midget is tap dancing on my last nerve.  But there is finally someone whose needs I gratefully put ahead of my own.  Best thing to happen to me this year.  Best thing to happen in my whole goddamn life.  It's like finally having that little monkey butler I always dreamed about...

Best Wedding

This is sort of cheating, since my last wedding was such a cocksucking sham.  And like that first blow job, marriages like that can really leave a bad taste in your mouth.  I lost so much with the last marriage, was so thoroughly lied to, taken advantage of, played for such a chump that, honestly, if my new wife, Justine, only sliced off one of my balls on our honeymoon night and put it in a jar of honey, we're still probably talking significant upgrade.  But the wedding and new wife have been such a rousing success, my testicles still fully intact.  Not to go all shmoopy...

But I'd like to thank my wife, Justine, for restoring a little faith in love, proving to me that this whole marriage thing needn't be a selfish series of self-serving duplicity. After all, at heart I am a Family Man.

It's nice to feel appreciated and not have your wife blowing your friends.

Best Concert

Tough one.  Two possibilities.  The Hold Steady.  Gaslight Anthem.  Saw the Hold Steady twice, once at the Fillmore, which was good, and then again with my buddy, Matt, at the Treasure Island Music Festival, which was like a prolonged rock 'n' roll orgasm.  Seriously, I think I came in my pants twice from the sheer rock force. Finn's voice and acerbic wit were finely honed that night, and the band, strangely operating without keys, never sounded better.  When they finished their 45-minute, no fat, all lean meat set, they left poor Death Cab for Cutie trying to follow up that shit.  Like watching Spinks try to take on Tyson. Woefully overmatched.

Still, I think I have to give it Gaslight Anthem.  My friend Rich and his (business) partner Dennis put on the San Jose concert series, so they got me, a very pregnant Justine, and Big Tom and his girl, Zenaida, backstage passes; and the fucking band's latest, American Slang, is a masterpiece (The Hold Steady's latest, Heaven Is Whenever, is good, but not like this) (this might've actually been in 2010, but it was so good, we're carrying it over).  Brian Fallon and Co. delivered a clinic that night, what rock 'n' roll is supposed to be all about: attitude, sneer, smart lyrics, emotional hooks and swells, romantic cynics in blue jeans and white tees and a little outlaw country twang.  And to top it all off, when I met them?  What a bunch on non-pretentious, down-to-earth, so-not-douchebag bunch of nice guys. Essentially the anti-Stephen Jenkins.

And you told me fortunes, in American slang...

Best Movie

Young Adult.  For all the reasons I mention here: http://tinyurl.com/6mfr6fd.  If you are pressed for time or just too lazy to click on the link: Diablo Cod's script is flawless, Charlize Theron's acting is unrivaled, as is Patton Oswalt's; and director Jason Reitman's direction gets out of the way, letting the story tell itself, which is what good direction, like good writing, should do.

Best Place to Talk to Old Friends from High School

I only wish Facebook would've come around about 20 years earlier and saved me from all that time I wasted with disappointing face-to-face interactions.

Best Book

This is another tough call.  There's Joe Loya's Confessions of a Bank Robber, and Alan Kaufman's Drunken Angel.  I reread The Dead Zone, and was again deeply affected.  There's Duane Swierczynski's Fun and Games.  Honestly, couldn't get into Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (don't ask me why).  Another gem: Pearce Hansen, Street Raised.  Which might be number one were it not for David Corbett's Do They Know I'm Running?  Which is nothing short of breathtaking, beautifully written, bestowing the best of humanity and dignity where you'd least expect to find it, in a creosote-drenched world.  It's a road book, and a love story, and the tale of a boy becoming a man, all set against the inhospitable, unforgiving Mexican landscape, pitting alien against alien.  Poignant, powerful shit.

Best Advice

Never play cards with a man named Doc, never eat at at placed called Mom's, and never lay down with a woman who has more problems than you do.  (If only I'd found his gem about 10 years earlier...)

Best Website

Hands down, Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/.  It's like Candy & Cigarettes 2.0, jacked on steroids, with a hit of crack.  The best advice on writing out there, and he's funny and irreverent as hell, no punches pulled, and he hides his disillusion and bitterness far better than I.  There are not many writers I wish I could write like.  Chuck Wendig is one of them.

Best Sports Moment

Winning my first Fantasy Football Championship.  Duh.

Best Friend

OK.  You can't really have a best friend unless you are 12 (or you are my wife, for whom every friend is her best friend).  Plus, you write best friend, and everyone else you know is going to be offended.  And I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. (Except those of you douchehookers I hate; I don't give a shit about your feelings.) But the rest of you, I love you, all.  Still, I feel the need to single out one man.  Let's call it a Lifetime Achievement Award (and no this will not be another entry gushing over the attributes of Tom Pitts http://tinyurl.com/7lqcl7a).  This mantle goes to Rich Rice.  With the exception of some family members (at least the ones who aren't dead), I've known Rich longer than anyone, and though we've drifted out of one another's life, played lesser roles at different times, like any friendship of that length, we're still friends after knowing each other close to forty fucking years.  Fungi don't last that long.  He's isn't like a brother; he is a brother.  Or to equate it to pants... Rich had seldom been the flashiest pair.  He has no rhinestone sequins, no in-style/out-of-style bell bottoms.  He is the Wrangler jeans of my life. Dependable. Comfortable.  Built tough with a relaxed fit that lasts.  Rich is Brett Farve, but without the high interception rate or sending pics of his junk to strangers on his iPhone.  And in the big moments of my life, like picking a Best Man or choosing the godfather to my only son, there was never really any other choice.  

And now the best of the rest before the boy wakes up...

Best Comedian: Louis C.K. (who wins handily over runner up Daniel Tosh)

Best Local Band: The Wandering Jews (unless you ask my wife, who will pick my ex-guitarist's band, the Hollyhocks)

Best Website after Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds: Cracked.com (http://www.cracked.com/).  I don't know when Mad's retarded little brother became so good, but I'll say it: consistently funnier than the Onion.

Best Supermodel: Kate Upton.  All you need for evidence is this:

When a woman can do that to you in her clothes, I shudder to think what she could do without them.

Best Statistic: 17% of Americans believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

Best Pound-for-Pound Boxer: Manny Pacquaio.  Fuck you, Floyd, you gutless turd.

Best Kids in the Hall Clip to Appear on this Blog:

Best TV Show, like, in Fucking Forever: Breaking Bad.  (If you don't like this show, you are wrong.)

Best Website to See Before and After Pics of Methheads: Faces of Meth (http://www.facesofmeth.us/main.htm)

Best Bet at the Track: $900 on the 5th horse in the 6th race.

Best Online Porn: Too many to choose from (but if you make me, I'd say redtube).

Best Color: For 36 years out of 41...black (we try not to acknowledge the green years).

Best New Swear Word: douchehooker (thank you, Annie!)

Best Way to Make Duane S. from Texas Stop Reading: Tebow.

Best Gym: My basement.

Best New Old Show: Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Best Place to Pick Up Women Online and Have Anonymous Sex: That's a joke to see if you've read this far, Justine.

Best New Sports' Radio Channel: 95.7, The Game.

Best Pic of a Man Dressed Like a Unicorn: This guy:

Best Potential Serial Killer I'd Like to Date:

Best Emotionally Damaged, Potty-Mouthed Sister of a Make-Believe Serial Killer I'd Like to Date:

Best Reminder to Be the Best Dad Possible:

And last, the category you've all been waiting for...

Best LOL Cat of 2011:

Russian Corpse Dolls

It is really hard to keep up with the awesomeness that is Joe these days.  In the month of November alone, we've seen four short stories published, three poems published, another short story, what very well may be my best, the cannibal-driven The Meat, taken at Drunken Boat, three more pieces (essay, flash, poem) accepted for translation into Romanian, and for whose magazine, egophobia, I've been invited to be a regular columnist, and yesterday I received an email asking for permission to turn another short story ("In Cases Such As These") into a drama for KMVR in Sacramento.

And my payment for these things?  A big fat fucking not a dime.

Like when I ran into Jon Dempsey working at the old Country Farms in Berlin, CT, after I returned home from California following a few years of losing jobs and girlfriends and fucking up my dreams.

"Yeah," Jon said, slapping down an extra piece of juicy roast beef, "but you're living in San Francisco."

The idea sounds a lot more impressive than it is.

An up-and-coming writer versus a fat guy sitting at his computer.

(To which you say, "Who you kidding, Joe?  You're not fat!"  Damn straight.  16% body fat.  Which is good.  Of course, that's not George [5%] good.  But it'll have to do.  Until I get better.)

*

OK.  So we've got to upgrade this fucking thing.

This blog began as a joke, really.  I kept hearing (over and over and over) that I should start one, how I'd have so much to say, how it would be good for my career and (yawn).  I didn't know how to start a blog.  It took me, like, seven years after everyone else to even get a goddamn e-mail account (and I am one of like seven people left on the planet who still uses hotmail).  So just to shut everyone up, I did it.  Actually my wife did it.  Kind of like when my former poetry professor had to send out my submissions for me because I was so apprehensive and gun-shy.  After she set it up, I tinkered with the design to get this craptastic gem you see before you today.

But I look around at everyone else's blog, and feel like that goofy family of kids who lived on the Turnpike and wore the ill-fitting hand-me-downs and drank their tap from the poisoned mercury well.

I went trolling around the Internet last night, since I was having a bitch of a time writing, because I was feeling so down about my blog having all the visual appeal of a vegan Thanksgiving.

Found a few interesting distractions.  One was this awesome article by Chuck Wendig http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/11/03/writers-are-the-99/, which explores the 99% vs. 1% phenomena that has taken root, this idea of the writer as marginalized (along with everyone trying to carve out a living in the creative arts), which ties in nicely with the opening paragraph of today's entry.  I like being able to tie all these random thoughts together, more like an exercise, really, since all good writing is all about motif and parallelism (for a stellar example of this, see the other day's banking conceit http://tinyurl.com/6lt43u3).

Wendig, as usual, makes terrific points, doing what I try to do, only a fucklot better. But the sentiment is the same.  

Mostly, I walked away from his blog feeling envious.  Because his blog looks like a grown-up's, whereas mine looks like it designed by one of Harry Potter's lesser, ineffectual classmates.  (Speaking of Harry Potter, since when did he start dating my Amanda?

)

So I guess if we're looking for a theme today, it's coveting what we can't have. Amanda (http://tinyurl.com/89l4fmh).  A blog that makes me look like a professional.  To get paid for my work while achieving international fame and hot, awkward-looking Romanian chicks.

Of course, all my coveting can't quite touch this guy (and this guy definitely seems like a guy you wouldn't want to touch.)

Russian Man Stole 29 Corpses And Dressed Them Up As Dolls





In case you missed it, the dude's name is Anatoly Moskvin.  He is like a cemetery expert over in Nizhny Novgorod, a town in Russia.  And he really does look like the kind of guy who would dress up dead people for elaborate tea parties.  Here's an arbitrary link http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,796477,00.html, but it's pretty much all over the Internet.  Along with the pictures.

Usually he dressed the corpses as women, which I thought was interesting.  With blonde wigs.  I mean, if you are dressing up corpses, there are so many ways to go. You could have drinking buddies.  A sports' team.  A giant teddy bear.

OK.  Well, he did go the teddy bear route with one of the corpses.  But can you blame him?  In the corpse-dressing game, it's like the rock band "serious" shot.

But dressing them up like women says so much, doesn't it?  There are no reports he had sex with them (not that I've read).  Anatoly just want to be surrounded by girls dressed up pretty in a giant, never-ending tea party where he was the permanent guest of honor http://tinyurl.com/7czfgm6.  Is there a law against that?  OK. Probably several.

It's all about controlling our environment, no?  The work, the scenery, the people you want accompanying your life.  Some people are just more conventional than others.

I can understand Anatoly's point.  And not just because I've asked Justine to have me stuffed and set up permanently in the living room when I die.  The outside world, there are so many variables required to deem success.  Bosses.  Publishers. Women who say "yes" when you ask them to marry you.  Life is about circumvention.  Wall Street.  Publishing.  Love.  Anatoly simply did what Kirk did with the Kobayashi Maru: cheated at a game he was never meant to win.


Best I can do to tie all that shit in is leave you with a little Khan ear worm (which features, yes, a Russian).

I'll leave you to make the connection.

Chuck Wendig, the Internet, and 9/11

I don't know how I stumbled upon Chuck Wendig.  Could've been Facebook. Might've been someone mentioned him in a post, or an article, or maybe I was Googling my own name, trying to see if I'm still the #1 Joe Clifford (I am) in between measuring my biceps (still 17 inches, in case you care), and used search words like "cool," "awesome," "jaded, bitter, fucked-up," "Joe Clifford-like" and discovered his terrific blog, Terrible Minds.  My guess is that Chuck Wendig is somehow tied to the world of noir, in which I am almost exclusively immersed these days, at least in terms of what I'm reading/writing (the rest of my life being goddamn sunshine and rainbows).

It's a small scene, this noir.  The ezines and magazines, houses and agents, awards and writers.  At least I think it is.  I never actually met these people; they exist entirely in the realm of...cyberspace.  There was a time, not so long ago, that I couldn't fathom ever using the term "cyberspace," let alone trolling on it for hours and finding most of my friends residing there.

The Internet is a big, weird thing (how's that for adjectival non-commitment?).  It's hard to know what to make of it a lot of the time.  It's a time-sucking waste, for sure. I read somewhere that being a writer is "1% talent, 99% not being distracted by the Internet."  It's fucking true.  But it's my social life, or rather where I am most social. I sure as fuck prefer "connecting" with others this way, over a keyboard and computer screen, as opposed to actual human contact in the flesh (actual people tend to smell).  People on the Internet can't let you down or disappoint you nearly as much, and they don't steal your shit nearly as often (unless you recklessly provide your credit card information to Nigerian princes holding your newly unearthed inheritance).  And it's where I work, y'know, networking or whatever the fuck it is I think I am doing with this writing career of mine, meeting and greeting, mixing and matching, commenting graciously and being gracious for comments.  (It's also where I research and study my fantasy football, but I don't think you want to hear about what a worthless bunch of cocksucking fucktards I drafted this year. Seriously, if I didn't know better, I'd say I was high.  Who the fuck drafts a QB coming off major neck surgery in the 4th fucking round?  Meet my two-headed RB shit monster: Mendenhillis...).  Most importantly, though, the I-net is where I discover gems like Chuck Wendig, who reminds me just how good good writing can be (Sunset Boulevard reference intended).

Sunday, as I'm sure you are aware, was the ten-year anniversary of 9/11.  It's a big deal.  I normally wouldn't comment on such a weighty matter, but if you were alive on Sunday and anywhere near a television, computer, radio, or carrier pigeon, there's no getting around it.  And we all have a personal attachment.  Like Wendig writes, it was our Kennedy assassination.  But it's tough, so much celebration of somber recollection.  Especially when you have talking heads who you know have been directed to look extra somber, flag waving patriotically in the background over a corny swell of cornier music.  I get that the day needs to be revered, that we, as a nation, need to "never forget."  But saturation leads to weakening the message, especially when it's Marv Albert delivering the message on ESPN in between stock car racing and fantasy football advice (thanks again, Matt Berry, for slotting Mendhall as the "11th best fantasy option.  His 45 fucking points without a score did me a fuckload of good).  So how do you treat a day of modern infamy with the respect it deserves while not feeling like you are on the same planet as Marv Albert? It's a big fucking deal.

I certainly remember where I was that day.  I'd just gotten out of a long-term treatment facility, and it was, like, my third day back at school.  I'd reenrolled at Central Connecticut State University, where I'd amassed a buttload of unusable credits chasing pretty girls in the late '80s.  After a ten-year absence to...find myself? hit the open road? fuck away my future?--I was back.  But like Adam Ant's brief mid-'90s awkward revival, I just wasn't sure anyone was asking for it.

Sober, ten years older, shaky, bitter, self-conscious, still shouldering that strange junkie sense that despite all these flaws I was somehow part of an elite (don't ask me; it makes no sense), and straddling two worlds, one a legitimate, though uphill, path to get to where I am now, and the other, a sleek, slippery road back to the gutter, my warped world view and I were back for another go-round.  Good luck.

I was in the parking lot of the Dunkin' Donuts when news of the twin towers started to flow in.  I don't remember feeling the emotion I know I should have, the feelings that would stir later when ramifications started impacting what we knew about "freedom" and the heavy toll that word exacts, nor do I recall actually talking to anyone, but if I had I certainly would've used it as an excuse to espouse junkie paranoid government theory or rant about antinomianism, but since I hadn't yet learned what that word meant, I can't say for sure.  In any case, it would've been self-serving and missing the point.

all people (Americans, I mean), no matter which side of ideological fences or political views they were on.  And that was a very good thing.  What happened next?

Um.

I'm not touching that, the policies and wars and decisions, because that isn't what I do.  But after a day where I had to endure the endless loops of middle-of-the-road, non-committal, network homogenized, obligatory "reflections," Phil Fucking Simms offering his pointed, insightful commentary from the all-important ex-QB/current analyst constituency, I was ecstatic when I came across this article by Chuck Wendig on his blog, Terrible Minds.  Because I didn't have to write anything daring and unflinchingly honest about that day, didn't have to mine depths and render the universal unique and vice versa, like all good writing should do.  I didn't have to reconcile conflicting feelings and find a way to give 9/11 the respect it deserves while still being sure to stand in opposition to those things I so vehemently oppose, like further oppression of the oppressed, further isolation of the disenfranchised.  I didn't have to find a way to say it's about inclusion, not exclusion, about using a tragedy to grow personally and as a whole, while not turning a blind eye or allowing free reign to pervert original meanings.  Chuck Wendig did it for me.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/09/11/nine-eleven/

I-net Vakay: Chuck Wendig

Like Uncle Ben says, With great power comes great potential to waste time.  And I am pretty sure he was talking about the Internet.  Yesterday, we talked about what I miserable bastard I am (http://tinyurl.com/3jywe5j), a fate that befell me around the time of my 6th birthday, and part of the problem is that, like Douglas Reilly (http://tinyurl.com/3qr7unq), I am not meant for this time, preferring to have lived with Jimmy in the '40s, where we could've rivaled Spade and Archer, fighting to bed Mary Astor and smoking cigarettes indoors.  Living in this modern age, I often feel like Brooks, an old man stuck in a world moving much too fast.  I don't get the new music these damn kids are listening to with the hippity-hop.  I don't get why now playing Nintendo makes one a "gamer," when it used to be you were just a pasty-faced fat kid with no friends who didn't go outdoors.  And I don't get when singing in glee clubs became cool or what's so hard about adding the extra syllable in "vacation."  But there is one aspect of this Chevy Chase movie I couldn't live without: the Internet.


My ex-professor from FIU, Dan Wakefield (http://www.danwakefield.com/), who is like 80, recounts the horror of what it was like trying to write in the 50s before the Internet.  

I once asked him, Dan, how did you find out, like, the population of gay Romanian farmers before Google?

"Oh, it's was awful," he said.  "You had to go to...the library, where you'd have to write out your question on a little card for the librarian.  Then you'd wait your turn, and she'd take your card and get in a cage.  And then she'd have to ride the cage up several floors, into the reference section of the library, which was stacked, floor to ceiling, with books.  Then you'd have to wait while she located the specific research book that would answer your specific question.  Then she'd write down the answer, get in the cage..."

Scarier than any Stephen King novel.

I am happy to say, I am a 21st Digital Boy.

The flip side of the Internet, of course, is that it can be a colossal waste of time, especially when you are navigating both research questions and/or trying to find worthwhile material to read for entertainment.  Fortunately for you, you have me to waste your time for you.

So for our next C & C series, I am going to direct you to writers and sites you might not know otherwise (or since my readership tends to be so cool, you might already have heard of them, but it'll still be a worthwhile reminder.)

First up, Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds.

Like the world itself, the Internet isn't as big as you think.  As a people, we tend to move in restricted circles, gravitating to a condensed world that best reflects individual interests.  I've been touting of late ezines like Shotgun Honey (http://www.shotgunhoney.net/), and I probably followed one of its awesome writers, or I could've just read a tweet from Twitter, but that too would've probably come from this same concentrated existence.

Either way, it led me to Wending, and this is the post that hooked me: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/08/10/what-its-like-being-a-writer/.

I've spend a lot of time on Candy and Cigarettes trying to explain the same thing Wendig does, but what has taken me several months to do, while remaining woefully incomplete, he nails in one short, hilarious post.

Enjoy.  http://terribleminds.com/ramble/