Since I posted When Dorothy Surrenders, I received many kind emails from readers. So, thank you, MH, MG, LF, AF, SK, MW, S&C, BE, FJ, JP, YJ, CV, JS, and especially RdC, who wrote about hope. In light of a variety of recent events, I've decided I am going to undertake a project I've been attempting since the first day I set foot in Porn Valley. And that, of course, is to write a novel based on my experiences there. One of the many things that I didn't like about attempting to hock my wares to publishers on the nonfiction front was that there were so many things I wasn't supposed to do. I wasn't supposed to be too graphic. I wasn't supposed to be too provocative. I wasn't supposed to blog about any of it. So, I'll be blogging this process. I don't know why writing is supposed to be such a mystery. My father was a writer, that was the story of his life, and I remember well how he tucked himself away into the study with his typewriter, tick-tocking at the typewriter keys as the balls of crumpled paper piled up around him. Here, I'll try to keep the door open. Maybe, that way, you can peek inside. I've undertaken such an attempt before--and failed, for lack of a better word. Today, I'm hoping that some of my life experiences--from Porn Valley to Hurricane Alley to suicidal tendencies--will enable me to write the book that I want to write. The title of the book is HAPPY. Technically, it is a novel, but I prefer to think of it as the nonfictionalization of a series of fictional events based on my real experiences in Porn Valley. The story itself is one that I've written about previously; it centers around the making of an adult movie that has the same title as this book. If you've read the title story of You're a Bad Man, Aren't You?, you know something about it already. This time around, I've created an omniscient narrator, one who, I hope, really can see all. Most significantly, I'm attempting to create something approximating this novel's own language, something halfway between Jabberwocky and porno-speak with a hint of Molly. For now, the first line of HAPPY goes like this:
Down in the Valley where the girls go-go and the men moan, where woodsmen get it up, get it in, and get it off and reverse cowgirls roam, the American dream was reborn as a 21st century porno.
