Slate's "The End of Barnes and Noble."

The article really is just a couple of paragraphs wondering if there really is a need for so many ebook platforms, and whether B & N's platform will win out.

I wondered this several years ago -- my guess was, that either someone would come along with a superior technology, or someone would come along with similar tech only much cheaper.

Of course, now it seems even clearer to me that ebook dedicated tech is doomed.  That platforms that can do everything a Nook can do but everything else too is probably the future.

So, even outside their crazy suicide business plan of making their bricks and mortars obsolete in favor of a lower return on ebooks, the ebooks readers themselves are going to be a huge struggle for them.

Did they have any choice?

Being stubborn, I wonder if they couldn't have doubled down on books.  But everyone seems to think that wouldn't work.

I was playing with the idea of a full bookstore, but the more books I carry and the more I watch the finicky behavior of the book customers, the more I think I'm better off having an eclectic mix of product.

I sold one out of four of the new J.K. Rowling book I brought in -- which is exactly the reason I stay away from most "best sellers."  They're cheaper and ubiquitous elsewhere.  But if you can't sell best-sellers, it makes it pretty difficult to be dedicated to that one product line, doesn't it?

So my little entry strategy of sticking to quirky, cult, favorite, classic books turns out to be maybe my only strategy.  And having books be about 20% of my business also turns out to be my only strategy.

I know the customers will go where the customers will go.  All the "Buy Local" and "Support Your Local Bookstore" campaigns in the world won't stop the inevitable.  So you take what part of the inevitable you can use, and you mix that with other leftovers and you can still have a viable business.

Pile up enough failures, and it begins to look a lot like success.


Harry Potter?

Wrote this on Facebook last night.
 
For those who don't know, Cameron is the manager at my store and gets acting gigs.  
 
 
 
Cameron was acting in an educational film downtown. Dressed very Dr. Who-vian in tan suit, pink suspenders and bowtie. First guy comes up and asked, "Are you Daniel Radcliffe?"

"On a lark he says, "Yes." Soon a crowd is forming, and someone asks for his autograph, so his girlfriend says, "I'm sorry, you have to have an appointment with Mr. Radcliffe."

The film and sound guy play along. He signs, "Daniel R." and they walk off.

Meanwhile in my store, I'm getting people coming in saying Harry Potter is in town filming a documentary. Second time around, I say, "Wait a minute. Does he have a pink bowtie?"

So the crowd is gathered and it comes time for Cameron to interview some bystanders so he says, "I'm going to have to try my American accent. Do you mind?"

So he does his interviews, and then slips back to his English accent.

Comes into the store at the end of the day, and I say, "Have you checked Twitter yet?" And sure enough, there he is, standing between two of his admirers."

So, look a little like Harry Potter. (Black glasses help.) Say you are Harry Potty and put on an English accent. Have an entourage and film crew to play along.

Too funny.

My five minute Time Travel Story.

Paul requested my next book be a Time Travel Story.

Well, I have a five minute story...


"The first time machine was invented on July 1, 2015. From that moment on, people could move backward to the moment of the machine's inception.

The first time traveler was Mortimer Snurgens, the machine's inventor, who came back to change what he'd eaten for breakfast that morning -- it had given him heartburn. Of course, by doing so, he changed the daily sales total of the diner where he'd originally eaten.

The struggling owner of the diner looked at the sales totals for the morning, and quit. Thus creating the first time paradox. 

Soon, everyone was going back to change the past.  And the future was never the same.

And the world became a churning mass of change and more change and friends today were enemies tomorrow who were enemies yesterday and toast became eggs became bacon.

People stopped worrying about finishing projects, because it wasn't the same project. People began to sit around and watch the world change.  

Finally, someone put a camera on the time machine. All that could be seen was a blur, a rainbow of unfocused images.

Only the time machine was unchanged, black and stolid and looking the same no matter what else happened.

And the time machine thought --- "It is good."

The End." 


 "Mortimer Snurgens finished typing his little time travel story and was satisfied.

Five minutes later, thought, something occurred to  him and he came back and changed it.

The End." 


"Wait!" Mortimer Snurgens thought, five minutes later.   Is this a story of time travel, or time 
traveling story?   He have to think about that.

The End."


"Five minutes later it occurred to Mortimer that the words had changed, but the machine he typed the words on was the same.

Was he the machine or the words?

The End."  


"Paul read the Five Minute Time Travel Story and thought, "WTF?  Mortimer's messing with my head.  Screw this"

Five minutes later, the story changed.  Paul didn't notice.  He was stuck in the past.

The End."  


"Mortimer, who was a minor genre writer, decided to write a post-modern story.  Thus changing his career trajectory.

The End."


"Mortimer decided he didn't have the literary chops to be a post-modernist, and went back to writing silly vampire stories.

But there for five minutes, he was a post-modernist....

The End."


"Five minutes later Mortimer deleted the story.

It never happened Paul.  You just imagined it.

The End." 

   

Tuesday Tuds.

Fair's fair.  I guess room lodging and airport arrivals were up in December.  (Remember I had my doubts that sales in Bend were all that great in December.)

Meanwhile, while my sales were up in January, according the industry, comics kicked butt that month.  Mine, they slightly patted them on the bottom.

**********

Imagine my surprise that I actually like Facebook.  Like finding out I like reality shows or sit-coms.  I'm sure I'll get over it.  Keeps me in touch with family and friends.  Which is what it's supposed to do, I suppose.

**********

Read Chapters 6 - 8 of DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL at writer's group last night, and they seemed to pass muster again. 

Used to be I'd try really hard to have a chapter every two weeks.  Now I'm done with all 47 chapters and have read only 8 of them.

**********

Going to work today -- after taking so much time off to write -- feels like a vacation.  I still like my store, it's still my hangout.  It gives me spiritual sustenance. 

Which begs the question.  Why would I retire?

**********

Spilled wine on my laptop.  Was sticky there for a little while.  The big key -- whatever you call it -- still clicks a little when I hit it.  Sounds kind of cool, actually.

Speaking of wine, I drank a little for three nights in a row -- while I read the manuscript.  Last two nights -- sans wine -- I've slept really heavy, with major dreams.    Hard to believe I ever could have drank regularly and still lived a productive life...

**********

My pageviews have jumped dramatically in the last couple of months, up to 10,000 per month.  (This contrasts to the 70,000 regular daily viewers to Gail Simone, for instance, so it isn't a huge deal.)

But the actual daily entries haven't really done much.

I'm assuming it's some outside algorithm, probably due to so much content on the blog.  (Freedy Filkins alone was nearly 60K words.)  Someone piggybacking on the content.

Done.

Done.  Finished at 2:35 in the afternoon, 2/11/13.

DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL is done.  First draft, at least.

It turned out to be 68K words, which is about 8K more than I expected just a few days ago.  I kept thinking I was writing the last chapter, but it turned out I was writing the second to the last chapter.  Linda says I should have a little wrapup dialogue at the end, but for now I'm done.  I'll add a couple paragraphs later.

I've already sent it off to a couple of readers.

It turned out well.  Every scene felt right.  I need to set it aside for a couple of weeks and gain some perspective, but I suspect most of the changes will be minor, not major.  Which is a relief.

I read the last third of it to Linda.  She is incredibly patient with me and supportive.  In reading it, I again got the sense that everything is in it's proper place and feels right, but it could probably be fleshed out slightly.  It turned out to be more dramatic and dialogue driven than anything I've ever done.  Which shows growing confidence, I think.

I'm setting it aside for a couple of weeks.  Come back to it hopefully with some perspective.  Let the doubts creep in now that they can't derail me.

Again, I have this strange feeling of a sudden hole in my life.  Like I've finished reading a good book and don't have anything to replace it with.  Only the hole is bigger than that.  At the same time, the constant pressure to finish (which is self-imposed, admittedly) is gone.  I'm used to have that constant nagging "what's next" feeling.

Now -- in the broader context -- the question again is:  What's next?

I can go in all kinds of directions.  The most useful would probably to be to do the second book in the LORE fantasy world.  I'd like the make it a trilogy, at least.

I'm again taking a longer term view of my writing career.  Doing each step as it needs to be done, no sooner, no later.  It will take patience, and some help from my friends, but there is a clear path I can take.

Technically, I'm not the best at what I'm going to try to do.  I'll have to get lots of help along the way.

Instinctively, I know what I need to do, in terms of promotion.   But it isn't my usual style.  I've never been good at promoting myself.  My store is a testament to that.  I succeed despite not advertising, or promoting myself in any way.  Not because I have a moral objection, or I think I'm better than that, but because up to now, I've just never been all that effective at it.  So why waste money and time?

Still, it's very clear that just throwing it up online isn't going to work.  It has to be better planned than that.

But I've done the hardest part -- I've created the content.


Writing "stage business."

I was talking about "stage business" yesterday.  I don't know what writer's call it.  But I'm referring to those little actions that the characters take when talking to each other.  "He stared at her."  "He could tell she wasn't listening."  "She ran her hands through her hair."  "He turned and slammed down the book."

That kind of thing.  Otherwise, you get "voices in the void" as Dwight Newton called it, the first time I turned a chapter in to him that was all conversation.

I feel like I have a limited repetoire.  A lot of "Gave him a look" type business.

Now, if writing is a craft, this an essential part of the craftiness.  I mean, I think I could actually learn to come up some more stage business.

What I ought to do is set down with Neal Stephenson, my favorite current author, and just take notes.  I haven't read Reamde yet. 

Just steal mercilessly. 

Goodreads ratings.

William Akin on my Facebook was saying about the "ratings" for my first three books on Goodreads, were "quite favorable."

It's been interesting to watch the rating inch up, year after year.  It's as though the longer the books are out there, the more patina they gain.  The rosy glow of age.  When they first came out -- nothing.  Even for the first few years of the Internet.  Then, slowly...

Linda bought STAR AXE at Powell's last weekend for Todd.  The clerk apparently stared at the cover, turned it over and read the back, and then said,  "Wow.  This is really old."


So who knows if anyone will buy my new books, once I have them all up for sale?  But time marches on...


Creating content will pull me through.

I vowed to finish off the book last night.  I couldn't quite pull it off.  Still have the climactic two scenes left to write -- about one chapter.

I wrote a bunch of words yesterday, so it wasn't through lack of trying.  It just turned out the story had farther to go that I expected.

 So it appears I have one more day of writing.

It doesn't seem like I'm putting down that many words, but that's because I'm not doing anything else.  Writing or thinking about writing.  That's it.   If I'm not reading and not working and not watching the T.V. and Linda isn't home, there is a lot of time to use. 

I think I had the book exactly the way I wanted it for the first 2/3rds, then I started accepting some less than perfect scenes, in order to finish the book.

The chapters from the day before yesterday are mostly conversation.  It was mostly getting the actors to their mark and having them speak their words, with no set design and costumes.  It's more important to get that dialogue and those characters where they need to be, then to worry about a bit of stage business.  Stage business is the easiest thing to go back and put in.

The old, "voices in the void" problem.  But my new way of writing is to get it "right" as I go along, if possible, but make sure that the entire story gets put down while it's still fresh.  So those two goals don't always match.

I have lots of promotion left to do.  William recommended getting a page on Goodreads for instance.  But I haven't wanted to get ahead of myself.  I have to have the material finished to promote.  So that comes first.

I set up a Duncan McGeary page, but I've neglected it for facebook and my blog.  If I'm going to set up sites, I need to be active on them.

Like I said, content comes first.  Content is what is going to pull me through.

One more to go.

I kind of forget sometimes how satisfying it feels to complete a book.  I mean, it's understandable I forget, because it's not like it's an everyday experience.  Which is what makes it so satisfying.  To know that I did it.  Saw it through to the end.

I may be lacking in a lot of things, but sometimes I think I'll just get past them with sheer put-my-nose-to-the-grindstone-stick-to-it-tivness.  Kind of the same principle I built my business on.  Pile enough failures on top of each other, and you've got something that looks almost like success!  Sheer pigheaded, blind, refuse to quit stubbornness starts to look almost noble!

One chapter to go!  I've already written two chapters today.  Each of the last intended chapters turned into double chapters, but now I'm down the last fight scene, where all is resolved, at least for this book.

I'm seeing the possibility for sequel.   Of course, I always do.  Then I go off and do something else.

So, I'm going to sit down in an hour or so and complete this baby. 


Sunday suds.

I'm feeding the cat wet food in the morning while Linda is gone.  I'm trying to do it exactly like my wife does -- Panga likes it in a kind of warm soup.  I try really hard.  Something I'm doing isn't right.

She looks at me like I'm trying to poison her. 

 **********

I really am surprised I haven't gone back to Reddit since that chainsaw massacre was sprung on me.

I really am creeped out by that.  Enough to avoid a site I used to like.

**********

I'm really charged up to start the last chapters today and I wasn't yesterday.

This metaphorical well that I measure on my creativity, has an almost physical weight.  As if it is a real measure, not a metaphorical one.  Hard to explain.

Weird.

**********

I was looking for some 'Cast out the Demons' prayers for Death of an Immortal.  The Catholic Church has some AWESOME ones.  I could pepper the book with them. Vampirs, be gone!  To me, these are as much fantasy as anything I could write, a thousand years of liturgical weight.

Martha asked if I was going to do them in Latin.

They are already so weird as to be in a foreign language.  

Finishing up.

I still have to write the climax.  The last two chapters.

This had been a little hazy to me.  I had enough time yesterday to start in on it, but I didn't.  Because it wasn't clear.

Then,  just before bed, it came to me.

The problem was that I had a couple of parallel plots, which crossed over here and there, but really could be resolved with some of the characters never meeting.  In fact, I thought I was going to have two conclusions.

But I realized last night, that wouldn't work.  Once I understood that I had to mix both storylines at the end for one giant donnybrook, well it all came clear.

 Such great feeling.

I really, really like it.

I read through the entire DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL up to the last two unwritten chapters, and, well, damned if I don't really like it.  It holds up.  It's a good story.

Of course I'd think that, right? Only not actually.

Usually I have plenty of doubts by now.   Plenty.  By now I've usually seen the flaws.

This time, I don't.

You'll notice that I haven't actually released NEARLY HUMAN, after working on it for two years.  I haven't released DEVILTREE though it's been finished for 30 years.  I haven't released THE RELUCTANT WIZARD, though it has had as much work done on it as DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL.

I did release FREEDY FILKINS, but it is kind of a novelty act, if you will, one that turned out so well that I did go ahead and put it out.  But I wouldn't want to base my career on it.  Notice, too, that I've kept it on my blog for free.

But this new book does everything I wanted.  A complete and consistent plot, good characters, good writing.

If I do say so myself.

I was able to apply everything I learned from writing the previous three efforts.

Doubts will probably still come.  But this isn't just the euphoria of a new book, I don't think.  This is using both sides of my brain to analyze it and both sides approve.




The mythology of the rewrite.

When I first went to college, I remember my dorm mates moaning about how hard they were studying.  I always felt like I was a slacker in comparison. Then one day, it occurred to me that a lot of what they were saying was an exaggeration.  I mean, I don't doubt there were some real hard studiers, but not everyone who pretended to be studying hard was studying any harder than I was.

So, I've been wondering about the rewrite.

There is such a mythology built up about rewriting.  How important it is.  How most of the quality of a book comes from rewrites.  Bleeding blood on the page, you know.

It puts quite the pressure on a writer.

But I'm really loosing my faith that rewriting is as important as everyone says it.

I mean, if it really did improve the quality of the writing to the extent that everyone says it does, then by all means, rewriting would be terribly important.

But -- I'm not sure that my insight, my creativity, my intelligence are any greater a month from now than they are at the moment.

I'm finding, actually, that my level seems to be my level.  That there isn't a magic pill that makes me more creative.   I'm not suddenly smarter tomorrow.  I'm not going to get blinding flashes of insight every time I rewrite.

There are things that need to be done to a manuscript.  A little perspective helps.  Certainly, copy-editing needs to be done.  Awkward or repeated words.  Inconsistencies.  Any manuscript can be improved, I don't deny that. 

But this idea that rewriting will somehow magically transform a book seems to me to be a bit of a trap.  Much like the trap of thinking that someone else, some editor or friend, is going to magically transform what you've written, like Maxwell Perkins supposedly did for Thomas Wolfe.

Somehow, by staring at my words long enough, it will suddenly become clearer?  The quality will jump dramatically?

There are times when a good idea will dramatically improve a book, but if it does, it probably means the book was flawed in the first place.  What I found with NEARLY HUMAN was, that I came to major improvements late in the game, and spent so much time on trying to get those improvements into the book that I could have written a whole 'nother book in the meantime.  The "improvements" were simply the story-sense and character development that should have been there in the first place.

If you remember, I went on and on about how to write the "third" book.  Which is how Earle Stanley Gardner did it.  He was a mechanics writer, I'm an intuitive writer.  I think I'm an inside-out writer, not an outside-in writer.  I think both types exist.  Mechanics writers think we intuitive writers are naive.  We intuitive writers think mechanics writers are formulaic.

I kept racking my brain on how to improve NEARLY HUMAN,  and I think I did, but the real problem is that I got off on the wrong foot.  It was my practice book.  

So, I guess I have to admit that rewriting worked there, because it made it clear what I was missing and thus was able to try to do better with the next three efforts.

I'm not even sure that rewriting always improves a book; sometimes I wonder if it doesn't mess it up a little.

All this may be an excuse for being lazy or impatient.  I'm trying really hard these days not to be that way.

I think heavy rewriting can be a recipe for writer's block.  You keep thinking you can and should improve, and you're looking for all the faults and you start finding them, and you start to fiddle and maybe mess up the clear vision you started with, and it becomes no fun and you start to question why you're doing it.

So...I'm not saying, don't rewrite.  But keep it on the level it deserves.  Not the mythology of the rewrite, but the real, useful utility of the rewrite.

And then write the next book.




Going backward -- literally.

I'm doing more lounging around, waiting for inspiration, than I usually do with my writing.

I mean, normally, I'll force the pace a little to get over the inertia.

Not this time.

It's important that the ending feel natural.  I can write at about half my usual pace and still get done in time, so I'll give it a couple of days to happen organically.  If it doesn't happen, then I'll give it a little nudge.

Linda isn't here for three days, so that broadens the time available, especially if I just don't turn on the T.V.

The Internet, seeing as it's on the same computer I do my writing on, is an ever present distraction.  But no more than usual.


I managed a couple chapters yesterday -- which I thought was going to be one chapter.

Still have the emotional confrontation scene to do -- then the physical confrontation scene, with a couple of procedural/action scenes between.

Drank some wine last night.

I'm finding that alcohol really doesn't add much to the creative process, but it's very useful in keeping my butt in the seat and concentrating on the rewriting for hours.   I went backward, chapter by chapter, for about half the book.

Going backward is a trick I use to concentrate on the wording, not the story.

I want to keep the story as fresh as possible for as long as possible.  For NEARLY HUMAN I put the chapter numbers in a hat and picked them at random.

But going backward works just as well without the fuss.

Found a few rewordings, here and there.  Nothing major.  A couple of inconsistencies  -- character descriptions that got switched somehow.

Pacing for me is so hard to measure.  It seems to go extraordinarily fast, but the answer wouldn't seem to be to slow it down.

The point of a first draft, for me, it to get that basic plot down without interference, then try to see if there isn't something else I can add to the story that comes from the story.  (I'm trying not to impose from the outside...)

It's a quick read, admittedly. but I think maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.  With four or five chapters to go, I'm at 56K words, so I'm going to without a doubt go past 60K words.  If I was sending this to a publisher, I'd probably try to find ways to plump it up a little, get it to 80K words.  But if the words aren't necessary, they aren't necessary.

It's my book.

Extending the book would be easy to do -- just look for some extra descriptions, pad the conversations a little, look for some inner dialogue, put in a couple of contemplative scenes.  I actually think that a little fluffing can help a book.  I used to call it "writing sloppy."

The easiest way to increase the size of the book would be to add some pertinent backflashes -- they're fun to write, and they don't interfere with the basic plot.  I may do a couple more of these as flavoring, as change of pace -- but only if I feel like it.

It's my book.

Oh, well.  Finish the book.  Read it from end to end.  Get some copy-editing done.  Come back and read it again, and decide if it needs more.

But first, finish the book.

The Six Rules of Vampires.

Just for fun, these are the six rules of vampires I created for my book, in the scene in which I reveal them.

It would be very easy to come up with dozens of rules, actually, but I wanted to keep it simple and pertinent to the plot of the story.  All suggestions welcome.

 
"Rule #1," Terrill said. 
They were in Paris, right after the Nazis marched in.  It was a glorious time to be a vampire, death all around them, their own murdering ways completely unnoticed.
Nevertheless, Terrill was working out the Rules of Vampire, and using Horsham as his sounding board. 
"Rule #1," he repeated. "Never trust a human."
"You'll have a hard time with that," Horsham said.  "We've gotten accustomed to our human lackeys..."
"That's exactly why it must be changed," Terrill insisted.  "Humans have too often betrayed us.  We must disappear from the world in order to survive the world.  Kill any and every human who discovers us."
"But won't the humans notice the murders?"
Terrill went on without acknowledging his question, thereby answering it.
"Rule #2.  Never leave the remains, or if you must, disguise the cause.
"Rule #3.  Never feed where you live
"Rule #4.  Never create a pattern.  Kill at random
"Rule #5.  Never kill for the thrill.  Feed only when necessary to eat."
"Good luck with Rule #5!" Horsham laughed.  "Vampires kill because we like it, and only secondarily to feed."
Terrill shrugged.  "Those vampires who don't follow the rules will be discovered and destroyed.  The fewer the foolish vampires, the better for the rest of us."
"I thought you were trying to avoid our extinction?"
Terrill frowned.  "Yes, but we don't need more vampires, we need smarter vampires."
He continued.  "Rule #6.  Never steal in the short term, create wealth for the long term."  Terrill turned to Horsham and smiled.  "As you're fond of saying, 'Compound interest is a vampire's best friend.'"
"Yes, but you must have wealth to start with."
Terrill shrugged.  "So we make a one time exception."
"What else?"  Horsham asked, curious despite himself.  Vampires didn't follow rules; it was one of the things that separated them from humans.  They did what they wanted when they wanted.  But he had to admit, it was becoming rarer and rarer to come across other vampires.  Alarmingly so.
"That's as far as I've gotten.  I'm sure there are more."
"No doubt thousands of rules.  Maybe you should stop there."
And so he had.  Horsham, for one, had lived by these rules ever since.  And so had Terrill, which is what had made him so difficult to find.  Until now.

Rules of Vampires or Death of an Immortal?

Well, that tears it.  Or settles it.

There is a comic with the exact title of "Last Days of an Immortal."

So, "Rules of Vampires" looks like the fallback title.

I don't know, I was going to go with Last Days until I found this out.

But "Rules of Vampires" might actually be a better title, in terms of getting noticed.

I suppose, an alternative might be:  "Death of an Immortal."  I'll have to research that.

You know what,  I actually like that even better.  I looked up the title on Baker and Taylor, and they had no books for sale by that title.  Cool.

All suggestions welcome.

Nearly done.

Linda is off in Portland for three days to visit Todd, so I'm going to focus on finishing the book.  I'm may not get all the way there, but close.

Wrote a couple of what I term "procedural" chapters yesterday, that is, taking care of business chapters, advance the plot's nuts and bolts chapters. 

Not every chapter can or should be high drama. 

It is actually harder to write the quiet moments.  The matter of fact moments.  The progressing from point T to point V, say.  Setting up the big X,Y, Z chapters.

I always have more doubts as I approach the end.  Up until then I can daydream about it.  But when it starts to become more real, all the warts and blemishes begin to grow bigger, somehow.

It's a constant struggle between the original vision and the actual results.  It's probably never going to be as good as the original vision, but never as bad as my fears.

Write through the fears.

The pressure point.

The pressure always seems to increase when you get near the end of a book.  It's important you get it right, of course.  The ending is what most people are going to remember about your book.

But it's also because the book becomes more real.  It's all well and good when you're writing the earlier chapters, and the whole thing seems a distant possibility.  You're so far from the end, you don't worry.

But now, it's like you know you have the lead in a ski race and you don't want to make a mistake on those final few gates.

Problem is, by trying so hard not to make a mistake, you psyche yourself into making a mistake.

About this point in a book, I start telling myself that I'll need to rewrite, that I'm a long way from the end. 

Just to get me past the pressure point.

Because Hemingway and me are so alike.

I've been thinking about whether I want FREEDY FILKINS   to be the first thing people see from me.  It's a pretty slight effort -- I like it, I think it's fun, I think it's worth reading.  But it isn't the deepest effort.

So I'm thinking back to Ernest Hemingway's TORRENTS OF SPRING, which I believe was his first full length book, before THE SUN ALSO RISES.

It was a slight effort, too.  A spoof of writers, and a parody of Sherwood Anderson.

Because Hemingway and me are so alike.