Why writing?
I think my preference would be to play music to be honest with you, to be the iconic lead singer of some neo-soul band. But that just ain’t happening, so writing is my next choice. When I write I listen to music and the process has a lot to do with the rhythms in my head. They say that architecture is frozen music, well when I write I feel like I am freezing a music video. I can speed up or slow down the video tape in my head of the story I am telling and edit it or add funky verbal affects at will. Writing allows me to reach someone on an emotional level, to have a visual conversation like I had a little crystal ball we could look into from a safe distance. Painting and drawing are great mediums as well and eventually I will get back into that as a form of expression, but they’re subject to way too much interpretation. Writing moves and grows and takes you on a journey from a starting point to a finish line. There is more control in writing and I can be your tour guide to a brand new world.
My favorite writers:
My all time favorite author is Charles Bukowski. There is absolutely zero pretention or fluff in his writing; he breaks humanity down to its lowest common denominator and then wallows in it. When he finds a tiny spec of goodness in his characters or stories it’s so beautiful because it’s the last place you’d expect. I love the humorists Sedaris and the darker Augusten Burroughs. Herman Hesse is one of my favorite, Hunter S. Thompson, Henry Miller, Kerouak and the Beat writers are great too. Reading Garbriel Garcia Marquez like looking into someone else’s dream. Hemingway is unparalleled for his terse use of the English language but for me his exit strategy casts a little shadow on his character.
The ritual of writing:
Writing is an enjoyable ritual for me. Just like Buddhists form small shrines to their God, complete with offerings of incense and fruit and coins, I too have my offerings to writing. I like sitting in the same physical place – there is definitely a comfort in repetition. I like drinking something, usually red wine if it’s winter or the evening or coffee with Baileys in the morning. I like it when Drew’s dog, Pinta Bean, is curled up at my feet, but that only happens in Costa Rica. Down there I found my place – a simple wooden desk that faced the sliding glass doors out onto the balcony. From my perch I could look up and see the tops of the jungle trees that led down to the beautiful ocean and all the sailboats in the bay. Here, back at the One Love house in Sacramento, I’ve set up my spare bedroom as a spartan writing den, with a big wooden desk, all of my photos from traveling around the world, notebooks and printouts of past writing I’ve done, and black and white pictures of my family hanging on the wall behind me. I put on my oversized headphones and listen to some groovy music at full volume to block out the rest of the world. The rhythms give me energy and the artistic process of music is the one that closets resembles my writing. I like Little Wayne, Bob Marley, Kanye West, Dawn Penn, Erykah Badu, Talieb Kweli, Common, the Roots, Sinead O’Conner, old roots and culture reggae, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Manu Chao, and Paul Simon, all incredible writers themselves. I don’t mind friends hitting me up on text or chatting with my simultaneously, but I get annoyed if someone disturbs my physical space or starts talking to me.
My biggest challenge while writing:
When I write the most difficult thing for me is not “thinking” of what to write next, but getting focused. When I am in the right headspace and get in a groove I can write an alarming amount of quality material in a very short time. It just flows like Jackson Pollock shotgunning color onto his canvas. But it’s getting into that focused place that is difficult for me because the distractions of work and bills and everyday bullshit jumps into my head. When I’m in the groove I actually “lose time” when I write, like I did when drawing as a kid. I would be alone in my room drawing for hours and hours not at all conscious of time or my periphery outside of my art. It’s the same now with writing - my breathing slows down and I actually get in a sort of self-induced trance of concentration and time flies by, or slows down, whichever you chose to perceive. It may feel like twenty minutes have passed but when I look up it’s actually been three hours. I imagine painters and other artists experience this same sense of “losing time”, and I can best describe it as being in “the zone” for an athlete where everything is effortless and just flows without concerning yourself as to the outcome. That being said the challenge is to get back to that place and it’s definitely not at will, but I assume with practice my focus will be more easily obtainable. I also suck at rereading and editing my own work – I just don’t have the patience yet and it’s tedious to me.
My Muse:
My writing is nonfiction so in that regard I just have to recall and document real life experiences. That being said there is an incredible amount of creativity in directing the traffic of a story – what angle to come from, what pace, what voice, what kind of humor to interject, and how to visually weave it all together through words. I don’t really have to “think” about things – I just get inspired and it flows through my head. I definitely don’t own this muse and it has nothing to do with me – I’m the vessel. I’m just blessed with the gift of tapping into the universal consciousness a lot easier than most. It definitely helps to be around creative and real people, intelligent people, listen to amazing music, read other great writers, etc. Being in crazy situations as far out of my comfort zone as possible definitely helps incite the muse.
Ezra Pound described it best when he said that poets are the “antennas of the race.” It’s hard to describe but basically I am sensitive to everything and everyone, picking up on emotions and contradictions and beauty and sadness of the world even if it’s not in my own personal experience. It can be very painful at times but in the long run it can help a lot of people if I share it. I’ve always been blessed with this imagination and creativity, and my challenge is getting it out of my head and unto the page before it’s lost. So I pay attention to everything – the small things. When I’m driving around or listening to a conversation or especially traveling it’s like there’s a tape recorder in my head.
The feeling I get when writing:
It’s hard to describe a feeling, but I would say I experience a sense of being “connected.” I am part of the eternal human conversation, and it’s an unbelievable thrill to be able to add one small line to it. It’s like I’m standing on the shoulders of giants and playing my small part in the documentation of mankind’s experience. When I’m writing a story that I love I actually get excited like a kid at Christmas as the words unfold on the page. It’s a feeling better than money, better than the best high you’ll ever have even better than sex. Ok better than money and being high. I’m thrilled to share the story with you and have the reader’s experience in mind as I write. Since I write nonfiction it’s about sharing wild things that actually happened and not just making stuff up to artificially incite an emotion in the reader. When I’m done with a piece I can’t get it out fast enough; the internet, Facebook and blogs have been an incredible change in democratizing art. When I’m finished I’m elated, walking around that day with a fulfilling sense of accomplishment, but also somewhat mentally exhausted. After enjoying the feeling for a few hours a nagging thought starts pushing its way to the forefront of my brain – “that’s great, but what the hell are you going to write next?”
Where I get my ideas:
I love to expose the perfect imperfections that make us human. I am fascinated by documenting the small cultural idiosyncrasies and nuisances that surround us every day. In the Keats poem, Ode to a Grecian Urn, he professes the lines:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know, and all ye need to know.”
So that’s it – to expose the fucked up truths of being a human being, and by doing that shine a light on the experiences and emotions we all go through.
Therefore the ideas for my stories are everywhere; it’s just a matter of paying attention. I’ve been around the block a few times so it’s simple to recall these anecdotes as writing subjects. Traveling around the world, being a raging partier when I was young, being broke, destitute, and on the fringe of respectable society all serve their purpose when I’m looking for story subjects. When I write my inclination is to try to go for the home run – to write something SO big and important and powerful that it reduces grown men to tears and wins unanimous literary awards, but in reality I do much better when I think small. My best writing occurs when I can take a very tiny thing and blow it up to examine it. Think small. As I’m working on one story two or three seem to pop in my head, so my only job is to keep up. And if I am at a loss for story ideas I can always just tell a story about my friend Reilly.
What others think about my writing:
I can’t lie, I absolutely love feedback. I live for the feeling when I post the link to a new story on Facebook and see the comments roll in. I would write anyways just to document these stories even if they weren’t read and appreciated for a long time, but when someone tells me they actually took the time to read one of my pieces and it made them laugh until they almost peed themselves its worth all the tea in China. Of course I don’t get criticism at this point – just accolades. That will be interesting when I get to the level where the Boo Birds and Haters chime in. I wonder if I’ll have the desire to hunt them down and assault them on their front yards with a tire iron?
I believe people are attracted to authenticity. There is so much bullshit, fluff, and hypocrisy out there these days that people can sense when something is the real deal. Perfection is passé; people are looking for something to mirror the gritty reality they live. I try to tell the truth in my writing and show the good and bad in people or situations without judgment, and I certainly don’t try to make myself look good, so I think that authenticity is refreshing to readers. After I posting “The Bulletproof Break-Up Guide,” which contains quite possibly the worst possible relationship you’ll ever see documented in the English language, I was shocked at home many emails, phone calls, texts, and facebook messages I received from people wanting sage advice on their own breakups. Certainly no one could think that my anti-advice was serious? I guess they sensed that it was bad but it was real, and that’s good for something these days.
What I think about my writing:
I think the writing is solid but there’s a lot I want to improve technically. I don’t write the most eloquent prose, it’s definitely not Shakespeare, but I think it’s got a certain gritty charm. I want reading my stuff to be like putting on your favorite pair of old jeans. I personally feel very comfortable IN my writing, even though it’s about some very uncomfortable subjects. I find my humor to be quite…well… hilarious, and that translates well in my prose. I use verisimilitude well (that is using specifics, such as “the Mr. Jones walked down Main Street” instead of “the man walked down the street”.
But the real purpose of my writing is not to be entertaining or funny but to pick up the shards of emotion and experiences we share as human beings. I’ve found my voice, and that’s the most important thing for the evolution of writing, and not my challenge is to sharpen that voice and simplify. I also like my endings; wrapping up a complex swirl of thoughts and story lines not with a definite clean resolution but at least a progression, an emotional change in the characters for having survived the conflicts of the story. Therefore my endings can still be dynamic and actually pose more questions then they answer, but still effectively reflect that dramatic change in the characters. When I am writing well I can take chances, be ultra aggressive and unapologetic, like a junk yard dog on a bone.
What I want to improve:
If I had to criticize myself, other than common spelling or grammar errors that I’ll let my editors clean up, it’s that I can be overly descriptive, redundant, and slip into the passive tense sometimes. I tend to list two or three descriptive words instead of just reaching for the one right word. I think my challenge is achieving simplicity. I read my stories as a little cluttered. I want to leave more space for the reader to breath and use their imagination to fill in the blanks. Adding more genuine dialogue to my stories is also something that I think will make them more alive. I want to improve the ability to look at a story from a 10,000 foot view and have a clear understanding of what I’m trying to say, where I want it to go, and the roadmap to get there. My true goal is emotional development in the characters, and therefore in the reader, instead of just documenting something that happened.
The process on the page:
I start with outlining the story I want to tell. That may sound easy but real life doesn’t unfold in clean chapters so it takes some mental cleanup to compartmentalize what I want to say. The title often jumps out at me and from there I start filling in the blanks. I usually begin with the bullet points of what I want to say, in no particular order and not polished into sentences, but just so I get it out of my head and onto paper before I forget anything. From there I move things around but the story is never written sequentially from start to finish. My writing jumps around a lot, so maybe I write about some events in the middle of the story and then jump back to writing the introduction. When inspiration hits and I have a sentence or idea in my head I definitely don’t put it on hold. But one thing that is consistent is that the ending is usually written last. By the time I look up I’ve written seven or eight pages, and I reread it and make changes to shorten it and clean up obvious spelling or grammatical blunders. As I write I often have to do a little research online so I’ll Google something, or go through old notebooks or photographs to trigger my memories.
It’s a blast to not only write these stories but share them. I look for funny images to steal off the internet for when I post the blog. Sometimes a particular song is in my head as I’m writing or matches the emotional resonance of the story, and I can add that from YouTube. I post the writing to my blog, do another look-over, and then post the link on Facebook. At that point my baby is out there in the world and I say “Oh shit, what have I done?! Did I really just put those things out there for everyone to read?!”
Will I ever make any money at it?
Who cares. I mean, yeah, I’m sure I will someday, but like most artists you make absolutely nothing until you break through big and make a killing. I’m not at all into writing as a means to profit, or even to support myself through writing. In fact writing is one of the only things in my life that is totally “pure.” I am very careful not to prostitute my art by chasing the almighty dollar. To make it a win-win, I’ve vowed to donate all my royalties to charity from whenever I publish my first book. But I’d be perfectly happy if I wrote in financial obscurity but to an appreciative readership the rest of my life.
My niche as a writer
The niche, or voice, that I’ve developed as a writer is to express a real life conversational tone. I try to write just like I was talking to an old friend in a bar. I’m a huge geek at heart so I like to interject a little intellectualism into the stories just to show people that I am not semi-retarded as rumored.
I enjoy taking a wrecking ball to social conventions. It’s a huge victory if can challenge someone’s paradigm enough to knock them off the tracks of their ingrained thinking. But the real purpose of my writing is simply to bring people together. There are so many things that divide or separate us as human beings – Republican v Democrat, South v North, East v West, Black v White, Muslim v Jewish, Yankees v Red Sox, etc. but very few things that unite us. I want to explore the commonalities of the human existence, the emotions, contradictions, and struggles and ultimately the rare beauties. I don’t try to solve this human puzzle but just shine a light on it. I want to make people laugh, and by doing so add value to their lives. Making someone feel more like it’s ok to be a human being, or just giving them a good chuckle at the start of their day, is the biggest gift I can give and it completely fulfills me.
I want my writing to be small but authentic. Authenticity is a huge accomplishment these days, when we are all bombarded with media, political spin, supersaturated with advertising, and…well…bullshit. Authenticity simply means something is real, not good or bad, but real, and that is very attractive to people. When I write I am on a jihad against hypocrisy, judgment, and absolutism.
Ultimately I don’t want to waste all the crazy, messed up, bizarre experiences that I’ve had. There might as well be some good that comes out of them, and it feels like it would be selfish of me not to share them.
Why I use humor.
I’ve found that humor is one of the most universal emotions to open up peoples’ minds and put them in a good place to accept the underlying message. Being a wise ass has always been part of my personality. That is how life appears to me – so ridiculous and random that there’s no way to deal with it other than laughing at the big cosmic joke. We make big fun to expose small, uncomfortable truths. I hate to use a cliché, but we also laugh to keep from crying, and the sadness, violence, tragedy, and hopelessness we experience would easily be debilitating if it weren’t for humor. I’ve always been unusually blessed at talking shit. Writing is a socially-acceptable way for me to talk shit and get celebrated instead of beat up for doing so.
On cursing, sex, drugs, and rock and roll in my writing:
Like a stand-up comedian, I had to draft a policy on my use of profanity. Some say that the use of obscenity shows weakness and a lack of creativity within the English language. My writing is meant to be authentic and conversational, so I decided that it would be dishonest of me not to use curse words where they naturally appeared in my stories or real life dialogue. I definitely do not put sex, drugs, and cursing in my stories for shock value or to be vulgar – quite the opposite, I actually still censor myself often to keep my writing rated R. But if stuff really happened then it would be inauthentic of me to not document it in my writing.
What if my writing offends someone? Who gives a shit. Get over yourself. Some things exist in the real world, and I never saw the point in pretending they didn’t. People who think they are “above” something in the real world don’t appear cultured or classy to me, they seem like delusional hypocrites.
Are the people in your stories real?
Yes they are. Sometimes I keep the names the same, and sometimes I change them to protect the guilty. I wouldn’t care except some of these people I want to keep good relationships with, or owe me money, or would beat the shit out of me if they knew what I was saying. The good news is that most of my friends that I partied with and I’m writing about can’t read, so I have a few years head start until someone tells them what I’m saying or the movie comes out.
Do you really tell the truth in your stories?
My stories are nonfiction and I do tell the truth, meaning I don’t manufacture storylines or experiences that didn’t happen. But I do take some creative license with fleshing out the details for the point of telling a good story. For instance, I might consolidate two people into one character, or events that happened spread out a week into one episode. I might embellish for the point of the story, but the fundamentals are all true and accurate.
Did you sleep with Porkchop?
No way Jose.
Will writing get me chicks?
Yes, I certainly hope so.
Do you worry about your family or friends reading your stuff?
Oh hell yeah. I have a ton of concern for when my mom or “respectable” friends and family read my sordid tales. However, I won’t apologize for it because I’m only sharing the truth. But I hope they realize that all the craziness is only a small part of who I am and at least judge me for who I’ve become.
Where am I going to take it from here?
I’m selling all of my stuff, renting out my house, and moving down to Costa Rica in June to write full time. It’s my dream to wake up near the beach in a third world country every morning and have the time and mental space to write. It’s my time to chase my dream 100% and this opportunity may never come again.
I’m going from 3,000 square feet with 6 TV’s, 5 couches, 4 fridges, 3 microwaves, 2 cars, and a mountain of stress to: clothes, a bicycle, and a laptop. The process of stripping “things” from my life is one of the healthiest choices I’ve ever made – it’s straight up emancipation for the soul.
In the meantime I’m keeping the momentum going with my writing by hammering out 1-2 hours per day. It’s important to me to be a student of my craft so I’m setting up meetings with publishers to learn about the process and get feedback. It’s like learning a golf swing – you want to practice good habits and know what to improve before you take 1,000 swings.
Over the next year in Costa Rica I’ll be able to document most of the crazy things in my head and amass enough good writing to fill 2 or 3 short story anthologies. In that same time I will shop out publishers and get ready for the process of releasing my babies into the world. Then comes the fun part…
When I get famous:
Have you heard people say that when they get rich or famous they won’t change? Or lottery winners who keep their jobs and remain the average Joe? Not me. I’m going to turn into a complete self-absorbed asshole. The second I sign a publishing contract I’m going to transmogrify into a completely different person.
My first book will be celebrated with New York Times bestseller status and the critics will call me “raw and refreshing, the best American prose writer since Bukowski.” The royalty checks will start coming in faster than I can take them to the bank. First off I’m going to start wearing leather pants, put product in my hair, and even don gaudy fur coats while walking down the street. I’ll wear huge designer stunner shades indoors, especially courtside at WNBA games and B-List movie screenings.
It’s important to me that when I get famous to forget all of my old friends. Every chance I get I’ll “Big Time” the compadres who supported me through thick and thin. I’ll hire two super model assistants to screen my calls so my mom can’t get through unannounced, and drive me to the bar every night in my Bentley (leased).
My new friends will all be shallow, pretty people who leech off my fame. I’ll buy a mansion in the hills and decorate it all in white leather. A huge “N” will be tiled on the floor of the massive swimming pool. My old friends and family will shake their heads and try to talk to me about their concern for my behavior. But I’ll curse them and throw Escargot before having them forcibly removed from my estate. I’ll buy a rare white-striped tiger cub that I walk around on a diamond studded leash and develop a huge coke habit.
Then my second book will come out and the critics will turn on me. They’ll call it drivel, a soggy excuse for literature, and say that I’m cursed with a Sophomore Jinx. My spending habits of $20,000 a day will be impossible to maintain. I’ll have to sell the Bentley and donate the white tiger to the Stockton zoo. The pressures and stress will be so overwhelming that I’ll snort twice as much coke and brush my teeth with Jack Daniels. My finances will go into a tailspin and even the mansion will be foreclosed and sold to someone else with an N in their name. All of those fair-weather friends will disappear when I can’t afford limousines and VIP bottle service anymore. I won’t be able to sleep, little Norm won’t work right, and I’ll suffer from a horrible case of writer’s block.
Soon I’ll have lost it all and be a drunk bum, sleeping under my fur coat in the dumpster behind Borders Books. I’ll live off discarded McDonalds French fries and rant and rave to the patrons how I used to be somebody and that I should take a flamethrower to the bookstore. Eventually my true friends will hunt me down and drag me out of there and set up an intervention at the local Knights of Columbus hall. I’ll have a complete emotional breakdown and cry like a little bitch, realizing the error or my ways, and vow to never be an asshole again. My mom will take me in and put me up in her guest room, where I’ll sleep for 3 days straight. Over the months I’ll clean out my body and rebuild my constitution, until I’m doing one handed pull-ups in her basement…and writing again.
The ensuing book will be such a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit that it will shoot me back right to the top. “Bravo, a fete de accompli!” the critics will applaud. But this time I’ll donate all of my royalty checks to children’s charities. I’ll get invited to the Oprah show and we’ll laugh and hug like old friends. I’ll stand up on her couch and do a little victory dance.
But I haven’t put a lot of thought into it or anything…
You're a genius! This is YOU...
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