The voices in my head don't think they're imaginary

So I'm not staying at my usual Union Square digs on this trip, because the boss thought I should try something new, something closer to the actual office in Chelsea. And something hopefully one grade nicer than the christian merchant marine hostel. Fine, I thought, he's paying and I'm always up for an adventure.

The new hotel is nice ... it's in an old brownstone, which is cool, because I get to play architectural detective and try to figure out how the floor plan would actually have been before they chopped everything up into tiny little rooms and closets. So it beats the christian merchant marines on quaintness and charm. However, the christian merchant marines have got one thing this new place doesn't have. Quiet. Good old fashioned shut-the-fuck-up already.

Until about 3 a.m. the two male strip clubs downstairs were kicking out the jams, with all the high spirited hooting that such entertainments typically involve. They shut down at 3 a.m., and I thought things would settle down, but no ... at about 3:30 am the trash collectors came around, and I guess they were training a new guy to work the intricate mechanisms of the dump truck, because it took them a frigging HOUR to stop rattling cans and dropping shit with heavy thuds.

OK, so here's me. Tired, miserable, and no ear plugs. Because who thinks to pack ear plugs when you're used to staying in a place that's reliably quiet? But I had to try to get some sleep. Any sleep would do. So I put on my headphones and cranked up the tunes. Which is a fine solution, except that I have an iPod shuffle, which means you can't choose a "Chillax Tunes for Nights When The Trash Guys in Training Can't Find Their Asses with Both Hands" playlist. You just have to listen to whatever's loaded on there. Which happens to be workout music. 180 bpm with lots of loud guitars.

Well, anyway, it was better than the trash guys.

I didn't precisely *sleep* ... I kind of zoned into a white-haze music fog until 6 a.m., at which time I leapt out of bed, rested and refreshed and ready to face my day.

However, instead of dream fragments, I have song snippets running through my head this morning. I'm going to post them under the cut for your guessing pleasure. It's guaranteed super fun!!!!!!

( Provide song title and artist in comments, if you dare! )

I've always wished I could be one of those people who plugged away diligently at 1,000 words a day, or 2,000 words a day, but I'm simply not. I'm a binge writer. That's just how I roll.

Thus, when I have the characters, when I know the conflict and where the plot is going, I can easily write 10,000 words a day -- as I have over the past 2 days, on a brand new novel that has knocked me down, dragged me down a dark alley, and demanded all the spare change out of my pockets.

This looks to be the greatest piece of fiction ever committed, just to warn you all in advance. I'm writing it in first person present, which is probably why it's going so quickly. First person present is pretty darn easy to draft. Except when it comes to sex scenes. Sex scenes in first person present are just ... silly.

But I generally write silly shit anyway, so that'll all work out fine, I'm sure.

See you all on the flipside.

P.S. Shout out to my NYC peeps that I'll shall be in the City the week of April 14-18 and will be at KGB & dinner on the 16th. Staying at my usual Union Square hovel hostel. Yeah, I know. You're all getting sick of me. Just think how tedious it will be when I finally give up and move there!

From CNN:

For the first time, anyone can get a message printed on a piece of the multicolored confetti [that falls in Times Square at midnight on New Year's Eve] by visiting the Times Square Information Center or by using the Internet to type a message ...

I've already typed, like 50. My wishes are going to be fluttering around Times Square on New Year's Eve. I just wish I was going to be there to catch them!

OK, so I have now decided that the smell in my hostel room is pee.

At first I wasn't quite sure. It could have been pee, or maybe some lusty merchant marine had just been brewing beer in there. But now, after three days in that room, I am completely convinced. Someone took a leak on my carpet, Big Lebowski-style. Perhaps it was nihilists. I don't know. But I do know that now I've decided that the smell is urine-based, I'm really squicked out and can't wait to get out of Dodge. If I'd come to this conclusion earlier in my stay, I would have asked to change rooms, but since I've already been in the room for three days, it would sound kind of strange to go to the front desk and say, "Excuse me, but over the past three days the conviction has grown in me that my room, room 1702, smells like someone recently lost control of his/her bladder. Could I please change for the one remaining night I have to stay in your fine establishment?"

Anyway, I've continued to leave all the windows open. Also, I poured some Woolite on the carpet where the smell is strongest, thinking that maybe, in some mysterious way, Woolite will help the smell. I'm very prone to magical thinking, as you can see.

As I mentioned to serge_lj, the ironic thing is that I'm in a non-smoking room, the idea of which suggests freshness and non-offensiveness. But conditions as they are, I would much rather be in a smoking room that didn't smell like pee. Maybe I should have asked for a non-peeing room.

On the writing front, things are moving. Got word from Andy Cox today that my story "Votary" will appear in the Premiere Issue of Black Static (the relaunch of The Third Alternative), which makes me very happy. I am always happy when my work appears anywhere, but when it appears in a magazine that so many people have been anticipating, it's extra exciting.

Also, I had a wonderful coffee date today with an agent whom I respect and admire tremendously. Nothing to report on the business front, but we had a lot of fun socially discussing Project Runway, Tim Gunn, and the horror of Crocs. We agreed on most everything fashion-related except the hate-on she has for leggings. Leggings are fine pieces of clothing apparel in my book, and on that soft cottony rock I stand.

She also helped me decide which of the two novels I have kicking around in my head I should work on next. I'm actually quite pleased because she seemed more interested in the project that I *want* to work on, vs. the project I've actually put more work into and feel *obligated* to work on. So now I have an excuse to follow my bliss. Always a good thing.

Sorry for the long post. I'm overcaffienated and running at a New York clip. I'll be back with my mellow, laconic stylings next week.

Now before any of my NYC friends yell at me for not telling them I was coming this week, here's the scoop. You know how a mullet is business in the front, party in the rear? I'm the anti-mullet. I'm business in the front and in the rear. I'm working from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day (keeping both East Coast and West Coast hours.)

But on the positive side, I am staying in my favorite place near Union Square (the staff there is actually starting to recognize me when I arrive!) and I'm close to what I imagine is really good pizza (Cafe Amore on 14th ... real NYers are invited to leave comments telling me just how wrong I am). Oh, and on Thursday, I get to have coffee with an agent.

But perhaps the best thing about this trip? My company's new office is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Grand Masonic Lodge of New York. I'm already planning how I can tunnel through the wall and steal some kind of Grand Masonic Artifact that will make me immortal. Because you just KNOW they have one.

... and it wasn't as hard, scary, or weird as I thought it was going to be.

I had more trouble driving around outside of the city, actually. This morning, I was trying to find a Starbucks in Purchase, NY and I ended up in Connetticut. And getting from White Plains to LaGuardia was Hell on the Cross-Bronx Expressway. But we finally made it, only to discover (after we'd dropped off the car) that my partner had left the power supply for her laptop at the client's office. Given that her machine drives the InFocus machine, that was a bit of an oopsie. (My fault, actually. She asked me to remind her to get it. Which virtually ensured I would forget it, of course.)

Anyway, so I called the client, and one of their employees was coming in to the city anyway, so we arranged a KGB-style handoff of the power supply under the clock at Grand Central station. Now I'm sitting in a Buddha-themed Starbucks (the only place I've been able to hook up to the Intramanet for the past day-and-a-half) and murdering a long-deferred cup of Gold Coast. I've eaten nothing today save for two PowerBars and an oatmeal cookie, and I'm vibrating at a level that would make dogs howl, if there were dogs nearby. Seriously, if you put a lightbulb in my mouth right now, it would glow. I don't eat when I travel. Obviously, I need to travel more.

By the way, I got a ticket to "Sweeney Todd" tomorrow night. So damned excited am I!

Now I have to go back to the hotel and prep for tomorrow's presentation.