So many of you expressed sadness after last week’s demise of the (retro)blog that I’ve decided to bring it back in a new and kind of crazy way:

via Twitter.

Starting today (and ending um, whenever I get bored or realize that it just isn’t working out) I’ll post random excerpts from the journals I kept between 1983-1999 (ages 10 to 26) 140 characters at a time. (retro)Tweeting, if you will. To me, this could turn out to be the best of all worlds. I can:

1. Embrace new technology and convince myself that I’m not a curmudgeon after all.

2. Cling to my (retro)blogging roots whereby I use old material to avoid writing about my real (i.e., contemporary) life.

3. Stay connected to readers without neglecting my top work priority: writing BUMPED.

This experiment in microblogging might not work. But I’m willing to give it a try if you are…

Before I begin writing a novel, I need to know how it ends. Perhaps this method grew out of the creative frustrations I felt during my earliest years as a fiction writer. When I was in first grade I would often start a short story without any idea as to how I would finish it. When the plot reached a dead end, I would conclude the story thusly:

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Last five-seven-five:

No more Senryu Tuesdays.

It’s time to write BUMPED

Barry-oke in Brick, NJ.

I finally got to sing Weekend in New England. Thanks to all who came to Brick, NJ the other night to make my last event for Perfect Fifths so…well…perfect. (Except the part where I nearly fell off the table. Which will make it to YouTube eventually I’m sure.)

No. This is a reminder that my last event for Perfect Fifths is tonight. Join me  if you’re in NJ or have a yen for spontaneous road trips.

I am also reconsidering the (retro) aspect of the (retro)blog. Details to follow.

I’ll confess right now:

I love Mandy Moore’s new song.

Hammond organs rule.

Q. Will the Jessica Darling series be released as a boxed set? I want to buy the whole series but if there will be a box set forthcoming, then I will wait for that.–Sarah Mae, Los Angeles

A. Now that the series is finished, it makes sense for them to all be packaged together in one convenient set, right? I’m sure that will happen eventually…but not in the immediate future. As I understand it, Perfect Fifths will come out in trade paperback about a year from now (I’ll let you know as soon as I know), along with slightly redesigned versions of the previous books in the series. I imagine a boxed set mass market paperbacks (those are the smaller “drugstore” paperbacks) would be the next logical step after that. Think: 2011. Ish.

(Another question answered after the jump:) (more…)

Though I’ve been posting pages from my old journals and elementary/middle/high school creative writing assignments since 2005, this is the first time that I’m attempting to follow a schedule. So for the official debut of (retro)blog Thursday, I thought I’d keep with the 1988 theme of my Facebook status update and post the first two pages of a tongue-in-cheek nonfiction book I wanted to write with my best friend in eighth grade titled, Studs I Have Known: (more…)