Sanity, Sobriety, and Russian Roulette

Life can become insane.

I’m not speaking in hyperbole. I’m not speaking to the mental health of life, either. That’s not the kind of insane I’m talking about.

Alcoholics sometimes define insanity as ‘doing something over and over but expecting different results.’ Like binge drinking long enough to forget about life for a little bit, expecting a black out to fix the things that are broken. That’s why their second step has them believing in a ‘higher power’ that will restore their life to sanity.

Let’s play a game.

How many days do you find yourself spending half your waking hours sitting behind a television?

How many of those days do you spend doing what you really want to do?

How often is what you think you really want, really what you need?

We get caught up in routine, working jobs we don’t like to make money for things we don’t want. Somehow we think this life will make itself better. Maybe if we work long enough or make enough money. We get caught doing the same things over and over expecting this life we hardly live to get better. Life can become insane.

I imagine Jerry sitting across a table from Derek, head in his hands, listening to Derek talk about his life. Derek is incapable of living his life because he can’t remember it. Jerry realizes that Derek reached a point in which he is no longer living anymore. He’s just waiting to die.

“Let’s play a game,” Jerry will say, and pull out a revolver out from under the table.

Derek will ask “Are you insane?” And Jerry will reply “No, no, but by definition, YOU are.”

He’ll put one bullet into the revolver and he’ll tell Derek, “We avoid risks in life so we can make it safely to death. We have to take those risks and do something different to restore our lives to sanity.”

Jerry will spin the gun closed and hand it to Derek, and he’ll tell him, “Let’s get sober.”

Facebook Friends, Crossed Fingers, and Brass Knuckles

Jerry Cassidy has 470+ friends and counting on Facebook, which means he already has more friends than I do in just a few short weeks. I don’t know whether to be excited or depressed because of this. The question is getting asked, but for now I’ve just been deflecting. I want this viral campaign to grow organically, I want people to discover the answer for themselves before I start the spoon-feeding, and I don’t need it burning out before I get started.

I just submitted Jokers Wild into a short story competition. I’m proud of this piece. It manages, in my own biased opinion, to pack a solid punch, get a little dirty, and showcase my own brand of writing and style, all in a matter of eleven hundred words. I’m hoping to someday find a publication that will put this sucker in print, but maybe I’ll get lucky and make some money while I’m at it right now from this contest. Fingers crossed.

I’m also working on a solid pitch to add to the “About” section to hook all you potential readers and agents out there. This is not a simple story. And it’s not about vampires or werewolves. So I’m trying to melt this badass down into a couple brass sentences that can wrap around a white-knuckled sandwich and knock your teeth out. Literally speaking, of course.

The Answer?

Who is Jerry Cassidy?

In the next few weeks, with just one chapter in the bag and a road map for the rest still under construction, I am planning to launch a small viral campaign revolving around one of the primary questions my novel will raise: Who is Jerry Cassidy?

Nothing flashy. I intend to open a Facebook account in Jerry’s name to showcase his background, create character depth, spark interest, and get people asking the question. Get some fun stuff on there too. Favorite books/authors? Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, The Contortionist’s Handbook by Craig Clevenger, and The Patriot by Derek Fincher…

Maybe a Twitter account too, eventually. I need to find Jerry’s voice, and I think status updates and some twats should help me discover it. Probably a baritone.

The One About the Chicken with Agyrophobia

If you look around and check this place out, you can tell that this story is in the works. Has been for some time. I have a starter chapter and even the original short story from which this tale was conceived. But that’s it. When I start to get started, I start to get stuck.

My narrator is both this story’s largest asset and heaviest burden when it comes to planning. Derek Fincher is my acclaimed graphic novelist who is afflicted with a gruesome memory disorder brought about by his being addicted to the bottle for the better half of a lifetime. His condition provides a narrative device that grants me full control of both time and space. Derek moves involuntarily and uncontrollably through time because his lack of memory allows him no concept of it. He takes Billy Pilgrimages. But this literary freedom comes with its own set of drawbacks (draw of setbacks?).

Mo’ money, mo’ problems.

With a narrator that breathes anarchy into a storyline and lays waste to chronological order, how does one piece the story together? All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, amiright?

Anyway, I’ve been trying everything. Timelines, process maps, colored index cards, the works. I essentially have 3 storylines to thread together and the challenge is to layer them so that they seamlessly tell the best story possible with all of the appropriate arcs and climaxes while not running away from the reader. Up until now it’s felt like telling a joke and part way through realizing that I failed to mention some crucial details in the beginning that need to be there to get to the punchline. The priest wasn’t walking through the desert, he was actually riding a camel. The doctor he was with, yeah, it was actually a nun. The chicken? Well I forgot to tell you that the chicken was diagnosed with agyrophobia*.

That being said, I’ve finally managed to put together a comprehensive scene list with a scattered, yet reasonably coherent order. I call it my “script.” Has headers and everything. And I put it on PowerPoint so I can present it at your next office meeting. I’ll bring my own laser pointer. And then I’ll drive your cat crazy.



* Agyrophobia is the fear of streets or crossing the street. Get it? Get it!?

For My Birthday

The following is an email I sent to myself on the eve of my birthday this past March:

03/10/2010 01:33 PM

Future, wiser Jake,

Here it is, no more excuses, my definitive vow: I am going to write a complete novel before I turn 24. One year from tomorrow, I will finish the draft of my novel. I promise. I'm going out tonight and I'm buying you a birthday card and I'm writing this in there. Starting tomorrow, I am giving you a full calendar year. Despite our job, the CPA exam, another busy season, hundreds of hours of television on dvd I own or you will own, and any unforeseen life-altering events, we are going to finish our manuscript for a novel tentatively titled Ginger Smoke. This is my dream. You have to do this.

Past, younger Jake

There it is. Documented on the internets. Now, I just have to execute.

Ginger Smoke

Ginger Smoke is the tentative title of my forthcoming, future New York Times best-selling novel. It is also the name of the protagonist's 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454. Here is the long and short of it:


The One-liner:
Ginger Smoke is the story of two struggling alcoholics, a graphic novelist handicapped by a memory disorder and a cagey confidence man with a secret, that have to conceive their own support group to remediate their broken lives.

The Short Synopsis:
DEREK FINCHER has been living in the past, one where he was a soon-to-be-father and the acclaimed author of an award-winning graphic novel, ever since he was diagnosed with the profound memory disorder, Korsakoff syndrome. Now he leads a life that he can’t remember to forget and he’s losing everything: his marriage, his prized muscle car, and his will to live. That is, until he meets JERRY CASSIDY, a cagey confidence man that may or may not have the perfect plan to resurrect the lives they lost. Together they conceive their own support group and a unique form of therapy that will force the two to confront their addictions and their deepest secrets, and will eventually push both of them to face their self-induced deaths.

The Pitch:
If Fight Club and Memento had a baby, and it was raised by alcoholics, it would grow up to be Ginger Smoke.


See you on the shelves.