It’s a bit odd to sit down and write just for myself. Twice a day (sometimes more often if I’ve fallen behind), I research a subject, marshal my facts, dig for a snappy lede and start building the old inverted pyramid. It’s liberating to step outside that rigid structure, but it’s also disconcerting: kind of like walking after you’ve been cycling all day.

I’m continue to wrestle with the idea of becoming a science journalist. I see the need, but the challenges are almost overwhelming. On the climate change issue alone, coverage in the popular media and the blawg-o-sfear has essentially taken on the trappings of religion: one believes what one believes, and people take any argument as a grave insult. Any issue that requires some understanding of the underlying science to discuss meaningfully – 9/11, vaccinations, vegetative states, alternative power, animal testing - have devolved into rigid controversies that seem almost theological. Arguments are by assertion, nothing more. If necessary, people cherry-pick research that they think supports their position, and discard anything that contradicts it.

People on both sides of these debates do that, by the way. I’ve seen blog posters defending the global warming hypothesis with the same sort of blind faith in scientists that my great-grandparents had in the Pope. And just try talking a 9/11 believer out of the proposition that Dick Cheney personally set the thermite charges on the core box columns of WTC 1.

My point is not that I know what the “truth” is about these or any of the other controversies of our time. It’s that everything is just so damn personal. To some extent, I think it does have to do with the fact that American society has always had a strong faith-based element, and that now that religion rings hollow for most educated people, something else needs to take its place. Thus: the culture wars. There is now a liberal and conservative take on pretty much everything: Red science and Blue science, coastal medicine and flyover-country medicine.

I don’t even think that one perspective is “wrong’ and one is “right,” or even that the truth lies somewhere in between: in fact, I think that “let’s split the differences, average it out, and call that the real story” is one of the greatest sins of modern journalism. I think it’s more a case like the old “blind men and the elephant” fable: each perspective sees a bit of it, while missing the bigger picture.

Problem is, I don’t know how to describe the bigger picture, because I’m still yanking on the elephant’s tail myself trying to convince everybody that it’s a rope. It’s important, it’s a question much more interesting than the things I’m paid to write about… but I just don’t quite know how to wrap my head around it yet.

Dear Readers (and in particular those of you who have hung in through my long, boring novel word count and subsequent allergy to writing)… I have, as they say in the trade, an announcement.

I’ve been thinking for a while how to make this little online diary of mine into a much bloggier blog, one that might be of interest to more people. A random phrase dropped into conversation and a subsequent whois search led me to register the domain cluebyfour.com. And I’m pretty stoked about it!

I’ll be rolling out the new blog in the days and weeks to come. Wrangling with registrars and hosts, working with a talented friend on the new design, and, of course, drumming up new business and finishing the novel… gotta keep all those balls in the air. But I hope to get going really soon. I miss blogging! And it’s more fun, in a lot of ways, than whipping a big flabby old novel into shape…

The theme will be, basically, my own weird, irreverent, opinionated take on the issues of the day, the human condition, religion, sex, futurism and bicycles. I want to do regular weekly features like my cool blogger friends do, and, hopefully, actually provoke some debate in the comments.

If you guys have anything that you’ve seen in other blogs that you thought worked, or any other suggestions of what might be readable and worth bookmarking/subscribing to, please let me know.

C’mon back now, y’hear?

Tonight I was delivered of a rough draft of a novel of speculative fiction, weighing in at 78 pages of single-spaced 12-point Helvetica. After 31 days of labor, I now have this sort of helpless squirming mass to deal with.

Soon, the editing will begin, but for now… I think I’m going to stop writing for a while, stop thinking about writing, and re-connect with the rest of my life.

Thanks to all of you that put up with my using this blog as a scoreboard, and still kept checking in. (I know your IP addresses, don’t try to deny it!)

Thanks so much to all of you who sent me support and encouragement.

Holy shit.

I wrote a bunch this morning – still not caught up but I made some good headway after some Jolt Silver (still can’t find my grinder!) and a fun run up and around Parker Hill. This is an awesome running neighborhood, lots of steep-ass climbs and killer views of downtown Boston and the Plain.

Long work meeting today, and I busted out as soon as I could, tried out a new pub and checked out an art opening in the South End:

Came back on the T blasting Weezer on my iPhone:

Im’a do the things that I wanna do
I ain’t got a thing to prove to you
I’ll eat my candy with the pork and beans
Excuse my manners if i make a scene
I ain’t gonna wear the clothes that you like
I’m fine and dandy with the me inside
One look in the mirror and I’m tickled pink
I don’t give a hoot about what you think

(I’m just feeling bratty like that.)

Tomorrow I can get caught up and then go play. Long weekend w00t!

My characters continue to come to life. It’s really hilarious and kind of wonderful. Even people I didn’t particularly like are showing a warm, human side. I guess I am a big softy at heart. Ah well.

I start moving into the place in Jamaica Plain tomorrow: third floor of a three-decker, on the back side away from the street. Peace and quiet at long last. It’s a real writer’s garret… which is another way of saying “tiny-ass room.” But it’s mine. Mine all mine. Finally, at long last, I can stop. I’ve been living out of a bag since the first of June. It’s enough already.

September’s coming.

My protagonist surprised me tonight. He’s a bit of a pathetic character, though I suspected he had it in him to step up when the going got tough. I put him in a one-on-one confrontation with a scary dude, though… and it’s like he figured out a way to come out on top that I hadn’t thought of beforehand: it literally came out as I was typing the dialogue! So the story is rushing along to the first big conflict and I am liking my lead guy. It’s been kind of a problem that he’s been getting on my nerves a little…

In other news, I learned that the little shit who screwed me over was in fucking Aruba for the past week, which is why he didn’t return my phone calls. He’s so sorry, of course, that the room he had promised me got rented to somebody else… but I’m not. I found a nicer place in JP for $175 less a month. New hardwood floors, pretty good neighborhood, street parking. So fucking there.

Also, started running intervals today. I usually improve really quickly once I get into interval training… which is good, because let’s just say I have plenty of room for growth. My endurance is not too bad, but I lost a lot of speed sitting on my ass for months.

And the adventure continues! I love going to bed excited about what the next day will bring…

Ahem. Yeah, yesterday and today: not such good days. I had a really shitty interaction yesterday with a guy at my company who is a salesperson, and an asshole… but I repeat myself. Anyway my boss and the other systems engineer totally had my back – which is great cause this guy brings in millions of dollars of revenue and I… don’t. It’s rare for a company to value intangibles like support. I’m lucky, and not just because I get to work hungover and unshaven.

In any regard, I’m still a thousand words behind, but I went to Peet’s Coffee in Brookline tonight and got a pound of Major Dickason’s, so I should be able to get up tomorrow and go on a tear. I worked through a pretty bad plot crisis today by judicious application of the old McGuffin, and I’m sailing along pretty well. It’s absolute garbage, but I’m OK with that – as Papa said, “the first draft of anything is shit,” and I am actually a pretty damned good editor.

Almost through week one… hells yeah.

Slacked off a bit today. I had a great run, an awesome workout, made a delicious salad and went for a couple long walks… but fell a few hundred words short of my goal. F*** it, it was pretty outside!

All work and no play makes Paul a dull boy! All work and no play makes Paul a dull boy.

I just came back from a free Kabbalah lecture in Brookline. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, the speaker was pretty engaging. God, how I’ve missed back-East Jewish style and humor! I don’t think I enjoyed it $248 worth, which is what the full course costs, but I think I got enough out of the talk to do some more study on my own. They gave me a free book!

Basically, the speaker led the group through an argument that the things that people look for in life are all intangibles – that the material goods many people say they want are actually just means to an end, which is always intangible in nature: the desire for security, for love, for power, etc. The relevance to Kabbalah is that it is, in the speaker’s presentation, a set of rules governing how energy is received into our lives.

Anyway, it was just a taste. I can see how there is a whole philosophy that underlies his thoughts, and I’m sure it’s very valuable. I’m just not really motivated to spend that kind of money right now on spiritual stuff. Housing, food, car expenses and dating are pretty much tapping me out right now…

So, back to writing tomorrow. I need to start sleeping regularly… it kind of sucks to think about, but it might be time to bust out the Ambien. Sigh.

Goddamn, sorry my blog is so boring. Whoop de shit, more numbers. Sorry folks…

J was distracting me badly (but in a really, really good way) all morning, so I didn’t really get to writing seriously until I started doing my laundry after 8 tonight. It’s really interesting how the plot is just sort of emerging as I try to keep my fingers moving across the keyboard. For the most part, I’ve been writing at typing speed – not quite automatic writing, but something in between that and improv.

I’ve already decided to kill of one of my minor characters – he’s just “the wiry man” in my draft. Neither the protagonist nor his offstage girlfriend has a name yet, just initials. I’ll figure out what their names are once I get to know them, I expect…

Anyway, enough. Everything in my life continues to go better than I feel like I have a right to expect. I made a donation to the American Diabetes Association (that I can ill afford, given my income) because I feel an enormous amount of gratitude to be here, with the freedom to do what I’m doing and with so many wonderful things that seem like they’re waiting on the horizon.

To bed, to bed!

It was absolutely beautiful here today. I ran four laps around the reservoir – which I now know is 10 kilometers – and then stayed inside writing for as long as I could with the sun shining. I had to get out and play! Walked all the way to the Common until my feet were worn down to nubs. Thank the Universe for the T.

Didn’t sleep too much last night. Even blogging is taking a lot of mental effort. Time to read my new junk-food novel, scribble something in my journal, and pass out.