So I finally finished my goddam novel-project-thing. It's been quite an interesting year-and-a-half of learning how to be a serious writer and work everyday. And I feel like I've been in rehab because, since completing it, I find myself picking flowers and thanking close friends for helping me with this difficult period of my life. (never thought I would think that phrase, thankgod I haven't said it for real.)

It's 225 pages that covered 11,000 miles of road--which isn't much. The Things They Carried--which I'm reading now that I'm out of rehab--is 246, A Heartbreaking Work topped 500, but when I make myself feel better about it, I realize that I've written more than The Great Gatsby and it covers more distance than The Travels of Marco Polo.

Name dropping aside, I reviewed Kafka's republished first book Amerika for a large newspaper corporation the other day and I noted that writing novels is like making waffles in that you usually have to through the first one away. I said that not to make myself appear intelligent and witty--truthfully, I stole it--but because it's my biggest fear now. I don't want to write another just yet.

A few weeks ago I also bailed on the publisher I had promised it to--I say promise as in "had plans with small press to split fixed costs" not "selected out of a pool of begging printmakers." I've had mixed feelings about being small press for a while, and I guess I gave up for a stupid reason, namely: whenever I order books from a small press it takes to damn long. In some ways I was holding onto the punk/hiphop/indie sell-out scenario: I would front the production of the original, a large media agent would repackage my original as something new and then start introducing me to Letterman and send letters to the Oprah people, etc

Plus, I feel like as long as my life doesn't depend on it, I should go through the horrible things that real writers do: rewiting, binding dozens of copies, sending them out to agents and hoping they'll at least write me back.

Anyway, I have until April 3 to not think too much about writing novels again.