Last 5 Books I Saw People Reading on the Subway...
1. Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes
2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
3. 1984 by George Orwell
4. How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
5. Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter

Wait, It's Wednesday Already?

I'm on autopilot. All I can think about is my project. I'm in the middle of Day 3. Conversations with me have been lasting less than 30 seconds because after that time expires, I go back to my own world where I'm writing in my head and working on several problems at once. Writing a book is like playing chess. You have to make correct decisions in the now, while thinking about several moves in the future. You are anticipating. Characters. Structure. Story line.

I cranked out 5K words today. It's at 13.5K total. I'm back on track after a half day on Monday. I'm hoping to pull an all nighter during of the upcoming nights and churn out 10K straight without any breaks. Those are mega-marathon writing sessions. I've done it once or twice before. Nothing feels better than knocking off over 15% of your project in one night.

I've been editing as I go along. That's slowed down my writing pace. Something I've never done in previous projects. It's been a positive experience thus far. I feel as though the first 10K words create a solid foundation. The rewrite is going to make them stronger. I have a solid base and that's the key to any successful book. The first 10K can't be shit. I've read enough books and written five already that I know the first 10K has to be some of your best work. I know what I wrote is some of my best stuff and I'm glad that I started over from scratch.

I surprised myself. I just opened up the creative value inside me and let it flow out onto a word document. I thought the book would end up being about one thing, and it started out on a different path. I heard that if you have a craving for a random food item, then you should usually go with it. I've been craving milk shakes a lot. Anyway, I set out to write about one thing and a different topic took over. It feels great. It's not as spontaneous as I thought. I had all these ideas inside me all along. It's just that they finally had the opportunity to bubble to the surface. I was worried that my project would lack diversity. Not anymore.

I asked Daddy to do a guest post over at my poker blog while I took a two week hiatus. He responded with one of the funniest things I ever read called The Bad Beat. You have to check it out. The comments are priceless as well. I hope he gets back to blogging soon.

I talked to BG for a bit today. He's out of the hospital and he's eager to get back to work. Stop by his blog and wish him well. I offer you up this kick ass link to make you feel better. Consider it my link of the day.

Recent Writing Music....
1. Phish
2. Velvet Underground
3. Peter Tosh
4. Charlie Hunter
5. Radiohead

5 Pictures

Here are five random pictures that I took at some point over the last few months:


Random bar (NYC, October 2005)


Church Tower (Sitges, Spain Sept. 2005)


Neon signs at the Boathouse (Malvern, PA Sept. 2005)


Crappy pizza at the Rio Casino (Las Vegas, June. 2005)


Late night at Bradoween (G-Vegas, SC August 2005)

Wet Snow Tuesday

I met up with Briana for lunch. I ate French Toast with bacon and cheese fries. I drank three iced teas. She didn't eat her toast or hash browns so I ate them all. She seemed chipper for a dreary Tuesday.

"I'm not pregnant," she confided.

Dodged yet another bullet.

I'm up to 5K words in the Las Vegas book. It's been slow and I've taken my time with the first 3K words. Usually I just blaze through and don't rewrite until the end. But this time I paid extra special attention to the first 3K.

"Will you show me what you've written so far?" Briana asked.

"Hell no. You know my policy!"

"Fuck you, McFucker! Pretty please?"

I wouldn't budge. If I give her a taste, then that means I have to show everyone else.

"How about a sneak preview on your blog? You used to start new blogs for every book. Start a new one so you can post an excerpt."

"Not this time."

A cab nearly hit us on Third Avenue. Briana flipped him off in the rain. I laughed. I wondered if he was Russian.

A beatnik sung a protest song on the subway with his acoustic guitar. He said something like, "Our President stole the first election."

I laughed. A derranged man got on near Columbia University. He spoke to himself and said, "The last hour of sleep is the coldest of the night."

He stood nearby me while I proof read over a few pages of my book. He smelled horribly. At the next stop I got off and went into the next car. There's nothing luckier than picking the car with all the hot chicks. I would have slpet with no less than 4 women on that particular car. One of them had a book. It was the Bible.

Erection over.

I couldn't sleep last night. I tried to go to bed early and couldn't fall alseep. Usually I fall asleep right away and I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. Last night my head was full of thoughts. The book. My career. My bad run at cards. I lost $4K since Halloween. I could have lived in Thailand for a year on that, according to Senor.

When I fell asleep, all I could dream about was losing at poker. Nightmares.

At least the fuckin' Knicks won. Double OT win too over the tired Suns. And the Rangers won the other night in a shootout. Wow, and the Jets won Sunday. Retards.

Recent Writing Music Inlcuded...
1. Herbie Hancock
2. Miles Davis
3. Wayne Shorter
4. John Scofield
5. Medeski, Martin & Wood

Tired Eyes

I like trying new things with my blogs. My goal for the Tao of Pauly this year is to blog for ten minutes a day six days a week in a stream of consciousness fashion. I'll still blog other stuff too. I just want to get in a habit of blogging here everyday and just open up blogger and write until the little timer I have goes off. You get to spend a full hour inside my head every week, ten minutes at a time. I started doing the the last few weeks and I liked that exercise. It reminded me of what I used to do when I first started blogging. I had no idea what to do and I'd randomly fire up blogger during a lull at work. I used to write a ton of poetry when I first started out. Thank God I'm out of that phase.

I set aside the first two weeks of 2006 to finish my Las Vegas book. Late last night I decided to start over from scratch. I was about 50% done so it's kind foolish to do that, especially with a limited window to write. But I'm more comfortable with telling the story in today's voice starting at page one instead of piecing together a novel over several months. Part of the reason I had such a hard time working on the project last year was that I was digging through my archives for random Las Vegas stories and re-workng most of them. It was more a touch up job than real writing and my head wasn't 100% into it.

I wrote for 2 hours today and cranked out 2K words. Not a bad start. The first 2K words have to be top notch. Once I get past the first 5K words, I'll be fine. The first day is always tough. I treated last night like I would before go away on a big trip. This time, I'm going into my head for two weeks hoping to organize my thoughts into a book. The journey is within.

Today didn't start out well. I had a family distraction which really irked me until I got to sit down and write. Technically this is only a half day. I still have a few hours left to write and I might be able to crank out enough to get me back on track.

The weekend was miserable for me playing poker online. I lost over $500. Been a rough two months. The only good thing is that I won't have too much time to play over the next two weeks. That means less time for me to lose money. Ah, wait! There's always pro football playoffs to bet on!

I had the worst possible fortune in a fortune cookie just now. It read, "Hallelujah!"

What a rip off and a crock of shit.

Speaking of shit, BG's has a problem with his ass. He had to go to the hospital. Stop by his blog and send him "get well soon" wishes.

Oh and while I'm sitting in a cold, gray, and rainy NYC, my friends are getting on airplanes to head to the Bahamas for the Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure. That was one popular assignment I couldn't get.

Recent Writing Music...
1. Phish
2. John Coltrane
3. Kilgore Trout
4. Jerry Garcia Band
5. Ben Harper

21 Pictures

Here are 21 random pictures that I took over the last 100 days. You can click on the individual pictures to enlarge the view.


Aquarium at Silverton Casino (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Wynn's Chrsitmas Spirit (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Long Way from Home (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Bellagio's Balls (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Texas Dolly (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Flamingos (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


In the Shadows (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Big Stack (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Bad Day (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Shane's sweatshirt (Las Vegas, Dec. 2005)


Grandma's Rose (NYC, Dec. 2005)


Grubette's clock (Long Beach, CA, Dec. 2005)


Argggggggh! (Long Beach, Dec. 2005)


Sidestreets (Los Angeles, Dec. 2005)


Thermometer (Baker, CA, Dec. 2005)


Playing at the Blue Parrot (NYC, Nov. 2005)


Goldenchild (Rhode Island, Nov. 2005)


Jodd's Pond (Rhode Island, Nov. 2005)


The Rooster's Stairs (NYC, Nov. 2005)


Mad's Balcony (Sitges, Spain, Dec. 2005)


Half of a Million Euros (Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 2005)