The Only Writing I'll Finish Today Is This Post, Part I

Congratulations! I recorded a podcast version of this post. There's about 80% convergence between what I say and what's written below, so if you digest both versions, you'll be getting like 120% of the fun. Or something. CLICK THIS SENTENCE THAT IS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS TO HEAR ME DRONE ON FOR 17 MINUTES. Also, there's a slight correction I must point out: In the audio, I say that Kurtis Blow was the Saturday night rap DJ at Kiss-FM. I meant to say DJ Red Alert. I'm sure you've made that Kurtis-Blow-for-Red-Alert slip-up a number of times in your life, like at job interviews, during police interrogations, and in eulogies.

NOW, ONTO THE REGULAR POST
Over the years I've started many different writing projects, and though I've finished several, there are plenty that have either been abandoned forever or have been banished to the proverbial bottom drawer, trying to get my attention every time I dig through that drawer to locate my compression socks, but I ignore their pathetic pleas: "I'm a fantastic story! There's a knockout ending right around the corner! All we need to add is a big-eyed Labrador Retriever with Lou Gehrig's disease and we'll have agents clawing to get at you like zombies on buy-one-brain-get-one-free day!"

This is supposed to be a metaphor.

When I write for work, I'm under pressure to complete my assignment, even if it's something in which I have little to no personal interest, like the advantages of selecting my employer for a range of wonderful gynecological oncology services. But when I'm working "for myself," writing things I supposedly like to write and like to read, I often lack the discipline to get the job done.

Some of the kinds of not-for-work writing I've attempted (but not necessarily completed; I'll discuss that part in a moment) include short-length screenplays, full-length screenplays, novels, plays, a graphic novel, a Sunday comic strip, comic books, a musical, short stories, short-short stories, comedy sketches, standup comedy bits, a wedding toast, fake letters to the editor, resignation letters, last-day-of-work speeches, songs, and a blog post or two.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME...TELL ME WHO DIED AGAIN?
I have never written a eulogy. I've composed a few in my head, but I'm afraid to actually write them down because:

• If the person for whom I'm writing the eulogy discovers what I'm working on, he or she will think that I'm looking forward to him or her dying, or be insulted that I have the audacity to assume that I won't be dying first, since I'm the one who always seems to get sick every November.
• I might not be asked to say anything about the dearly and recently departed, yet there I am in my one suit that I wear to job interviews and funerals (and job interviews at a funeral, if need be), holding this piece of paper like a jerk, and everybody's coming up to me like, "It's really sad about [dead person]...hey, what's that in your hand?" "Nothing." "Come on, let me see it!" And there's like a fight over the speech I'm holding and we tussle throughout the funeral home and we bump into the casket and we knock over the casket and the casket falls to the ground and the dead person rolls out of the casket and you see where I'm going with this so I'll stop now.

KILL THAT NOVEL BEFORE IT KILLS YOU
The New York Times Book Review ran an essay last week about writers who have abandoned their in-progess novels, and but the authors cited were guys like Michael Chabon and John Updike, writers who, well, did pretty well with the stuff they did finish. No word on those guys trying to birth that first novel, having it stuck like some kind of stubborn breach baby, and just having it crammed there in the creative-birth canal for years, thinking of other things to do instead but feeling that you can't have any more "children" until you either pry the current one out or just put it out of its misery.

I've killed, and in some cases mortally wounded, a number of projects over the years. Some stuff I've worked on were things I never really worked on at all, they barely made it past the idea-in-my-head or one-blast-of-writing-fueled-by-a-sudden-spurt-of-imagination phase. Here are a few examples (note: if you steal any of these ideas I will stab you in the fucking coccyx!):

A rap musical about the Book of Job. I know what you're thinking: this has hit written all over it. I think I was 16 or 17 or 18 years old when I thought up this bad boy, and this was back when rap was still a fad and I was one of three people in my high school (note: my high school had no black people) who liked rap music. I never got past the first line:

Once there was a man, and his name was Job.
He had a lot of money, and fancy robes.

Understand this was sometime in the late 1980s, so that couplet was probably ahead of the curve in terms of rhymesmanship, when you consider that many rap fans were still worshiping Kurtis Friggin Blow.

Jeez, I was going to digress about Kurtis Blow, but I know it would be so lengthy that it would be worthy of its own post. Anyway, I gave up on that Job thing, and learned years later that Neil Simon actually wrote a play based on Job (the character's name was Joe Benjamin, or Joe B., get it?) called God's Favorite. I never saw it, but I think it's about God moving in with Satan, who lives on the Upper West Side (of course). The Creator's a neat freak, while the Prince of Darkness is not only a slob but also a sports reporter for the New York Post. Can a deity and a fallen angel share an apartment, without driving each other crazy?

Exact-Change Man. He's the hero of a comic or a graphic novel that never got past the idea stage. The premise is, there's a guy who walks around with change in his pocket, or maybe in a sack because he's got so much of it. He has this ability — maybe it's a super power, in which case it would be one of the lamest super powers ever handed down — to grab a handful of change and know exactly how much it is!

So, we have a scene where he goes to 7-Eleven and buys some crap, and the apathetic clerk is like, "That'll be four dollars and 27 cents," and the Exact-Change Man scoops up from his sack then dumps on the counter a pile of loose change, and the cashier is all, "What the hell, dude?" and Exact-Change Man is all, "Count it," and the clerk reluctantly does, and dammit if that change doesn't exactly equal $4.27.

When I used to ride the Long Island Rail Road, also known as Purgatory on Rails, I'd often think about Exact-Change Man doing that scene over and over...maybe the stakes get higher and he buys a big-ticket item, like an iPod and he has to carry ever more change — did I mention that he is unable to carry paper money for some reason that I hadn't figured out but would make complete sense and would make the reader feel an instant connection with this sad hero?

I think that's all the unfinished business I can discuss now; any more and I'll just get depressed. I'll pick up this thread again, though. And on the plus side, writing about Exact-Change Man reminded of my favorite 7-Eleven anecdote, so you'll have that to look forward to, as well!