Run-DMSteve

I wrote 700 words this week. That is, I kept 700 words. I wrote many more than that. “Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer,” Colette said. “But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.”

Good call, Colette, but I have to pick up the pace or I’ll be working on this book on my deathbed. It’s time to embrace the advice of William Stafford: “Lower your standards and keep on writing.” I’m going to try that this week, as I have something coming up that I will reveal either late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Let’s see if I can work myself into a sprint, or at least a forthright trot.

“Be bold, thrust forward, and have the courage to fail. After all, it’s only writing. Nobody is going to die for our mistakes or even lose their teeth.” (Garrison Keillor)

Sunday Bargain Basement Sunday
Today I stepped out of the sunshine to attend the worst estate sale since the invention of capitalism. It was held in what I guess was a former fraternity house, a three-level shitbox that was a mouse’s maze filled with mattresses, mattress boxes, and wooden bureaus. It looked like an alternate-universe version of Sleep Country USA where Spock wears a beard, Uhura wears a knife, and the furniture is covered with generations of condensation rings from red plastic party cups.

Cool jazz all week
No more music reviews for a while. I gotta concentrate, and not on Queens of the Stone Age, who didn’t do much for me today. I will say that I also listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Four Way Street. Some of those songs ascend to a higher plane. But there’s something to be said for Crosby, Stills & Nash, which was recorded before they knew they were superstars.

I wonder why only Neil Young was able to change with the times and remain in the forefront of rock? David, Stephen, and Graham, as talented as they are, haven’t moved a millimeter past 1971. Though maybe that’s why they remain beloved while Neil seems unpredictable and not embraceable.

Consumer alert: There’s a string quartet and a bluegrass tribute to Four Way Street.

Box score
– I’ve written 15 days out of 15
– 19.5 total hours
– Current word total: 20,300
– Here’s the Clarion West Write-a-thon
– Here’s my first post on the Write-a-thon
– My video has stalled at 148 views. Going viral is harder than it looks!

My sponsors (all hail):
– Karen G. Anderson
– Mitch Katz
– Laurel Sercombe

As always, thanks for following along, even though you won’t win a 20-volume set of the Encyclopedia International, a case of Turtle Wax, or a year’s supply of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat. You don’t even get a lousy copy of our home game!