Chapter 1

Be, careful, what you see.

You’re not hearing me.

Be, careful, what you see.

I got you

I got you.  It was the only thing Kevin whispered to Lawson leaning over the crib and now soldering him through the ER parking lot nine years later.  The rest of the life and death game was wordless worthless… 

This is how it starts but it’s not the beginning.  It is always the middle.  No where important, no time important, just the center of every thing.  

A word of warning, it’s getting so far, you can’t separate the words “no” and “where” or “every” and “thing” without the software lighting it up in blue-underline.  This grammar/spell check thing may force me to wordaround my writing which may also slow you down in a bad way.  It may not.  Slowing down can be advantageous when you think you’re going too fast, and possibly when you think you are going at the right speed.  I do remember that about speed from my two public speaking classes.  One class was in high school.  I went to Bishop Egan, an all boy catholic high school which became coed way too late for me years after my education.  It was in either junior or senior year I took the class.  Maybe I could remember if I got my yearbook out of the attic somewhere.  Rider College was the second time I took Speech 101.  Rider became a university years after my education, too late for me again.  I have absolutely no memory of what year that was except it took me ten years to get my accounting degree through an unrepeatable combination of dropped courses and major changes from psychology to philosophy to accounting full-time, part-time, night-school starting right out of high school in 1979.  It was probably freshman, sophomore in credits when I took the course so before the end of mid 80s.  

The dropped courses, all the courses, didn’t cost me money.  After you or your parent worked a year, courses were free.  Campus life would cost you.  Courses were free to take or drop. My mother secretaried clerked there first in the college bookstore, then the Athletic Director’s office, then the administrative offices for the student center.  Again with the blue-underline.  You can write “clerked” but not “secretaried”.  I shouldn’t complain, you can write “wordaround’ instead of “workaround”, and the complaining is distracting to both of us.  I’ll write harder on the wordarounds.  Holy shit, I just got a red line for adding an “s” to wordaround.  Totally distracting.  I’ll stop complaining.  I’ll try to keep the crossouts down too, but they are left in for a reason.  Remember that, for now.

I just know Darian is going to have another issue with this latest attempt at writing by her dad.  Maybe the book doesn’t get written and only I’m reading these first pages over and over.  Hopefully that’s not the case and you’re also reading the book now.  It would mean the whole book passed Darian’s editing standards which I find extremely hard to meet since she finished her Masters in journalism.  If not and the book doesn’t get written and it’s another failed attempt to warn you... who knew right?  It’s like me sending an email with the first line “tell me if you don’t get this email”.  Funny a little.  Doesn’t matter, the real test of your seriousness comes later.  Everything is funny that way.    

Darian is so busy at her new editing-ish Manhattan job it took multiple texts to get her to read what you just did.  The last two texts to her were, “Love the earbuds.” “Read one page.” I got two texts back after lunch yesterday. 

I read the first page. I don’t want to be the arbiter of whether the book is good or bad! That’s so much pressure; if people tell you a Master’s means you are the be-all-end-all on what’s good and bad, they didn’t pay attention in class.

I think it’s got more intriguing pieces now that can get you into the story, it can be long winded, so I would distill side thoughts into one (max two) sentences and then get back to the timeline to keep it grounded. Happy to go through it with you and tell you my thoughts.

Don’t quit, you need more eyes and many drafts, but it could be a “good” book 😊

Sent 

Glad you love the earbuds love you Dad!

Sent 

I shared the first eight and I’m not rewriting them again for a few reasons.  The book will go into existential stuff you’ll need the extra words not to stop at suicide.  I’ve already rewrote and reread the first eight pages for weeks, not a promising sign.  The third reason you might have in common about directions too, it’s better to give than receive.  I’ll try my best from nine on.       

The second word of warning, every word before and after this point is your problem.