Tao of Pauly

Freak Me Friday

Today's really Thursday for me. I never went to sleep last night. I wish I could say I went on a huge bender and was partying it up. Instead I sat at a desk for most of this week, cranking out my latest writing project. I have nine more days to complete it.

Alas, it's Friday and I skipped out on two big poker games this past week in New York City. I wanted to go, but had to stay disciplined. I fell behind and needed to catch up. That's the one thing that's been the difference in me as a writer between my 20s and 30s. I'm much more disciplined today. And it's been affecting my career in a positive light.

I went on a major push last night/earlier this morning. While most of you slept and went to work this morning, I penned almost 13K in the past 12 hours. A bulk of that was a rewrite of previous material. Right now, the book is four chapters long and sits around 37K words. The chapters are around 7K words unlike the first chapter which clocked in at almost 16K. Chapter 3 is the best written in the book so far. I'm content with where I'm at right now. I'm way far ahead in terms of words - I expected to have 25K by now. It's just that the first five chapters took me 37K words when I really wanted to say it in 25K. I held back too. It should be way over 40K but I rushed the end of Chapter 2.

It's still surprising me, the direction of where this is all headed. It's like I was a musician and I sat down to play the blues, but a whole bunch of jazz came flowing out of nowhere. I hadn't played jazz in a very long time and it felt like the perfect form to channel my feelings and experiences. That's what happened with the book. I wanted to verbalized my experiences and feelings and it spewed out of me in a way I never anticipated. The last 48 hours have been tough and amazing at the same time. Within a few hours I went from completely loathing the project to becoming re-energized.

I feel like that scene out of Wonder Boys when Grady Trip (Michael Douglas) couldn't finish his book because he couldn't stop writing. His biggest flaw was not making any decision with his characters and that's what held up his book.

Speaking of poker, Shannon Elizabeth won Nicky Hilton's poker tournament on New Year's Even in Las Vegas. Dammit. If I was in Vegas for NYE, I would have been there dammit! Last June, I knocked Shannon out of the WSOP Media/Event when I cracked her A-A with pocket Jacks.

Thanks to BigMike for doing a guest post on Tao of Poker today called... A Day in the Life.

Here's my link of the day... yummy Alba... for the Donkey Puncher.

Recent Writing Music...
1. The Meters
2. Lotus
3. Widespread Panic
4. Pink Floyd
5. Jimmy Cliff