"That Cancer Guy"

I've had an interesting week. (Side note: the white space that used to be here was bothering my editorial side, so I added this note to compensate for that and make me feel a little better.)

There's been lots of forward progress in terms of both Nick and I's book. Nick and mine? Mine and Nick's? My and Nick's? None of those sound right when I say them out loud. Weird. It's probably a poor way to structure the sentence, but I'm too lazy to do that. Because, you know, writing all this extra stuff out here is less work than fixing a few words. Oh well. Nick and I have met three times this week. On Monday we got together, discussed some aspects of Nick's memoir, then went to a meeting of the San Diego Writers/Editors Guild. Great idea on Nick's part, just utter genius. We'll get to that thought. On Wednesday we went over the non-writing aspects of our book: how much of our budget we want to spend on x, y, z, what makes sense to focus on first, what we need to look for in an editor, in a graphic artist, etc. Today we're meeting up to work on the actual writing and editing process. I think with everything that's happened this week, both Nick and I feel like we're on solid ground a little more. We have a very tangible sense of forward progress and confidence that this is an achievable goal (whereas prior to this both of us were in a bit of a quagmire, albeit for different reasons), and are more and more excited about getting our books published in the near-ish future.

The San Diego Writers/Editors Guild was such a fun experience for both of us. Although almost everyone in the room was at least twice our age, neither of us felt acutely uncomfortable. In fact, it was refreshing to be around them, because so many of them were in fact writers and had been published. The speaker for the night was, appropriately, a woman who talked about how to write the memoir of your life (although it was more geared toward an older crowd, us pups gleaned some useful information from the lecture/talk/thingy-ma-jig. We managed to make several new contacts, passing out business cards and collecting them from some of the people in the meeting. It gave us a good taste of what we might expect from similar events and are almost certainly going to try to make the next meeting at the end of July. Who knows, maybe we'll even join! Baby steps though, baby steps.

There were several amusing anecdotes gained throughout the night, but three of them really stuck out to me. Here we go:

1. That's NORMAL?!: Near the beginning of the talk, a woman sitting directly in front of us raised a hand as the speaker spoke about drafts and forming a story. "Excuse me," she said politely. "Before I even write a single word, I spin the idea around several different times in my head and make sure to look at it from several angles until it's perfect. Then I'll do about 25 drafts." Nick and I exchanged a glance, this lady was intense. The speaker nodded and told the woman that having so many drafts was, and I quote "completely normal." The glance we shared mutated into a mask of horror. If we did 25 drafts of our book, we'd both die of old age before we got even halfway through that many drafts at the rate we're doing it. I whispered to Nick that I think we should probably not do 25 drafts. He agreed quite readily.
2. I Just Sit Down and Write: Toward the end of the talk, an older gentleman by the name of Bill raised his hand. The speaker was discussing how to get around writer's blocks and that it sometimes requires lots of planning and outlining first when Bill interjected. "I don't bother with all that. I just sit down and write for six hours a day, seven days a week. Then I publish it." I wanted to applaud the man, because I've got little use for outlines, they never really fit that well with how the story ends up. I almost stood up and raised my fist with a cry of "Right on!", but quickly realized that maybe a meeting full of 60-90 year-old white people from San Diego was not the ideal place to pull a move associated with the Black Panthers. Perhaps one of the better uses of my barely touched mental filter I've had in my whole life.
3. That Cancer Guy: When the meeting began, Nick and I introduced ourselves and told the group about ourselves. Nick talked about his ultrarunning, and I talked about my experiences writing and a very brief synopsis of my condition (I almost went ahead and bet that I had more joint replacements than the whole room put together, but I suspect I wouldn't have won that bet, though it would certainly be close. I've had nine, so if a third of the room had one joint replaced, I wouldn't have won. But if I'd gone head-to-head against any one of them, I think I'd have an easy shot at winning). After the meeting, when Nick and I went around talking to people and introducing ourselves, I met a man selling a book he'd put together featuring the letters of a private in the Union Army during the Civil War. He signed my book and a couple other men came over and we started chatting. One of them brought up running and asked me how I could do such crazy races. I corrected him and directed his question to Nick. The guy said he thought I was the "running guy" because I had sneakers on and Nick was wearing these pseudo-cowboy boots. I told him that Nick was the running guy, not me. "Which guy are you?" the man who'd signed his book asked. Explaining I'd been the one with cancer, he frowned for a moment and then realization dawned on him. "Oh you're that cancer guy!" I imagined myself as a door to door salesman asking if people wanted to buy cancer (it was as weird in my head as I'm sure it is in yours). As we were leaving, Nick said to me: "You know that's probably what everyone will know you for if our books get big, right?" Another image popped into my head, people on the street passing by and recognizing me with a quick "Oh hey! You're that cancer guy!" I suppose that's me, I'm just that kinda (cancer) guy.

Yes, I'm that cancer guy.

We'll do some brief updates and then I'll let you get on with your day (or whatever you'll be doing after you read this far):

• For the last two months I'd been working on what was originally a short story. It ended up being three times longer than the longest short story I've ever written (Exhibit, which is one of the short stories in my book of short stories). The exact same thing happened when I was writing the second draft of Road to Refuge. It expanded more than TEN TIMES in length, very odd. So I guess this new story, whose title still eludes me because none of the ones I come up with really click with me, is actually a novella. Rough draft done, very pleased with it. This is the first major project I've finished (sort of) since I wrote the rough draft of my memoir. Yay.
• I was attacked by some sort of demonic superbug. I had several itchy bites on my lower legs on Monday, and by Tuesday morning they'd turned into massive sores almost ten times bigger (sounds familiar)! They're finally starting to get better now, but I swear I briefly thought I had leprosy.
• I survived the diagnosversary (see previous post). I hated it, definitely not one of the good years. But I did make it through, so that has to count for something.
• I'm back in physical therapy to try to strengthen my legs and specifically my knees so I can attempt to avoid having surgery in September. Fingers, toes, eyes, arms, and legs crossed.

That should do it for today. Have a good weekend everybody! Even if you're reading this on Monday, have a good weekend, whichever weekend is coming up soonest for you. There, that should take care of anybody reading this in the future. You're welcome.

Ciao now brown cow