Nothing like a sinus headache

Got my copy of Jaguar today, installed it no problem, so now I can use the latest version of Kung-Log for posting to MT (and it now picks up what tune you’re playing in iTunes, like the iJournal client for LiveJournal does, thanks to a request from shacker—woo hoo!—though it appears I have to insert it manually, and I’ll have to ask Scot how he got it to make the artist’s name a Google search query…).
Other good news is that my friend Dan has encouraged me to start meeting with him once a week to talk about and then do some writing: trying to be creative in this world of deadlines and errands. We met last night and I launched into the novel/memoir I’ve been hemming and hawing about for the last six months, reminiscing about growing up in the mid-1970’s in New York.
Thing is, I’ve always tried to write weird experimental or otherwise “cutting edge” stuff and somehow I’ve skipped over the more basic practices of telling a story with a beginning, middle, and end, writing “what you know” and all that. The cool thing about writing about memories is that once you start they are like beads on a string. Each one summons up more. Even in a noisy bar with people laughing loudly and talking shit, I could barely keep up with the flow of memories and when my pen ran out of ink I grabbed a pencil and just kept going.
Another cool thing is that instead of architecting some elaborate plot and writing dossiers for characters and doing all that sort of “engineering”-style writing, I’m just putting one word after another with no preconceptions about where this story will go. If it needs to leave the realm of memory and accuracy, then so be it, but for now it seems to have a flow of its own. Instead of writing scrips and scraps, jumping around from section to section, and filling my notebooks with angst-ridden admonitions and exhortations, all meta-, about what I’m trying to do with my writing, I’m just spinning out the prose. We’ll see where it goes. Maybe I’ll learn something.
In the bad news category, I’ve come down with a nasty head cold that is making me grumpy from the throbbing ache in my sinuses. I sure don’t want to be all congest-y on an airplane on Wednesday, and then after a while all the medications start to make everything seem strange. Plus there’s packing, sending updates to the website for my last book, pitching ideas for upcoming projects, and generally trying to clear the decks so I can spend 10 days in New York just vacationing with my girl and seeing my family.
OK, I’m going to try inserting the music info now here:
Bijou by Stew and the Negro Problem
ahhh… I see the Google search link is produced automatically by Kung-log. Coooooool.