Thunderbolt

Yesterday I began the process of submitting the book for review considerations. Much like querying agents to read the novel I completed a year ago, I can only hope that the introduction letter I've written provides enough to draw interest and request a book. It's a nerve wracking procedure, although after you've sent out a couple and received your first rejection response (which I did yesterday) it gets a little easier. Monday was a very difficult, with Jacob's health causing me concern all day long. He had to come home from school, complaining of tightness in the chest. We believe it has to do with one of his new medicines, so we have stopped it until the weekend so that if it is the medicine it doesn't cause him to miss more school. Ever since Jacob was born I've struggled with being the one at work while Julie makes herself readily available to get the kids from school and take them to the doctor. Especially when it comes to my son, I feel so inadequate at ti...

A really nice review of Basement Songs has just been posted on Something Else , a great music blog. Here is the link: http://networkedblogs.com/HA224 Check it out!

All of the research that went into writing the book (i.e. digging through my old blogs to locate the original Basement Songs posts so I could begin adapting) lead me to a couple of discoveries. 1. I've created five different blogs in the past eight years. Including the Basement Songs site, there was one dedicated to updating people about my marathon training; one created for one of our CF walks, a third one dedicated to King's Highway , and finally there was thunderbolt , which was my last blog before I started writing for Popdose. 2. I can import all of the old blog entries to a new blog. For instance, I just imported all of my entries from If I Should Fall Behind , my CF marathon blog, into thunderbolt . My question to you all is: Would it be worth it to anyone out there to have access to my old entries? Some of them date back to 2003, which is amazing when you think about it. I can't believe that I've been pouring my heart out on the Internet for so long. A part of...

Riding my bike home from the train station tonight, I listened to ELO's Greatest Hits , the 1978 compilation from Electric Light Orchestra. Together with a Sha Na Na live album that I bought with spare change from the Record Theater store in the Great Northern strip (natives of North Olmsted know what I'm talking about), ELO's Greatest Hits was my first "rock" album. In '78 the band was at their peak, and this album doesn't have a bad track on it. "Mr. Blue Sky" has been used regularly in commercials and films, as have "Livin Thing" (in Boogie Nights ) and "Showdown" (appearing in that classic comedy, Kingpin ). My favorite track is "Turn to Stone," which has a driving beat and a great mix of vocals and strings. It doesn't get as much airplay as the other songs from ELO's catalog. One of my best friends during the late 70s was a boy named Pat L. He was one of the coolest kids in the school and was influentia...

After an incredible weekend in which I cleared out the equivalent of two small trees in our backyard and the four of us put together a trampoline, today I found myself in a funk. Perhaps it was too much coffee and the crash that came from all that caffeine, but I questioned who I am as a writer and my motives for putting the pen to page. I questioned my talent and whether I still had it in me to pursue this craft. We came to California so that I could become a screenwriter and director. I wanted so badly to just tell stories. I didn't care about acclaim and fame, in my head I saw everything with a wide scope lens, a John Williams score behind it, and Thelma Schoonmaker 's editing. That's why I went to film school, to learn how to take what was in my head and make it something tangible for other people to see. But something changed. At some point I started to think, "Awards and acclaim would be cool." I started to believe that I was just as good as any of my contem...

Someone from the series Bunheads must have seen Moonrise Kingdom last summer because this gorgeous song, "Cuckoo," written by Benjamin Britten for his work, Friday Afternoons, children's songs for children's chorus and piano, Op. 7, was featured in this week's episode. I'd forgotten about it, as it's been months seen I saw Wes Anderson's wonderful movie. Hearing it again tonight has me in tears.  I'm worried about Jake, not that his health is an issue, I'm just worried is all. And it being my brother-in-law's birthday (he would have been 31), I'm a little on edge already. Anyway, this short melody is just too beautiful not to be shared. The "cuckoo's" really do me in.

It's cold out this morning. Coooooold. I know that my east coast friends will tell me, "Malchus, you don't know cold, you thin skinned west coast baby!" But I'll tell you, a) I DO know cold, thank you very much, and b) it was frickin' ice cold when I rode my bike to the train station. Literally. I was riding across ice patches. Alright, I'll stop my moaning. But I do feel new aches when I climb on my Specialized Crossroads 18 speeder each day. Is it age? Seems like I've had the same pains in my hips, knees and shoulders for months now. I recall the days when I could shake 'em off and plow through my waking hours. Not so much anymore. It makes me wonder if my parents experienced the same thing in their 40s. I was in my teens, my formative years, when Mom & Dad lived through their 40s. I don't remember them having any issues. Maybe I was too self absorbed to notice, or maybe they just hid it well so as not to worry their kids. I bet it was a ...

We've been home nearly a week and I just now feel as if I'm getting back into my groove. When I get even an extra day off from work it usually takes me a couple to get my head straight. So you can imagine why it's taken so long to return to"normal," so to speak. BASEMENT SONGS has been available for a month and it's sold over 50 copies. I'm very happy with that number. Considering that my marketing for the book has been minimal, I think it's a nice figure. While some kind people have bought multiple copies, that doesn't account for most of the sales. To all of you who have picked up the book, Thank you! So what's next? Now the hard work begins. I'll begin submitting BASEMENT SONGS to various websites for review consideration, as the year progresses. Additionally, I hope to enter it into some contests that judge self-published works of non-fiction. This will take some time, as they'll require money to pay for additional copies of the boo...

Today is my daughter's birthday. She has turned 14. I can't believe how fast time is speeding by and how quickly she is growing up. I won't embarrass her with a photo from her childhood or some story about the silly things she's done. I'm lucky enough that she was cool with me using her name in the book. Instead, I'll just publicly state, once again, how proud I am of her and how much I love her. Julie and I have been blessed with a wonderful, thoughtful daughter whose enormous empathy outshines most of the teenagers I've met, and Jacob has to consider himself one of the luckiest brother's alive. Happy Birthday, Sophie. Okay, I'll embarrass her just a little by playing this Bryan Adams song that I happen to like a lot. It's the one I consider to be her song.  Wait, maybe this embarrasses me more than her.