I GOT MY copy of John Fante's The Road to Los Angeles this week. It's been three weeks coming so I've been really looking forward to it. Ignore the demonic glare of the pug, you get used to her after a while.
I'm currently writing so I'm going to put off reading Fante until I'm done. I love his work and the work of the writers he has influenced, I'd love nothing more than for people to think of his work when they're thumbing through mine but I know myself well enough to know how impressionable my writing can be especially with such a powerful influence.
The missus and I had our first proper night out in a while. Money is tight, she tells me we're in fuel poverty. I hadn't heard that before, didn't realise it was something else we would have to deal with. We're a little more fuel poor today as we drank most of what little cash we had left. At least we had fun; I am assuming we had fun as I don't remember most of it - which is usually a good sign. It was a friends birthday, his 30th. He had a barbecue (in the middle of Sep-fuckin-tember) and a casual BYOB (bring your own beef), he's probably regressing. We all are really.
I'm nervous about letting people read my stuff. It's a working class condition that us North Belfast boys suffer from, "none of that artsy fartsy shite, get yourself a proper job". I've had proper jobs, hated most of them, bored by all of them so I figure I better get used to letting people read my artsy fartsy shite.
When I've worked myself up to it I'm going to post a chapter from Lost Angeles here...probably an early one, maybe chapter one. Hopefully not too many people have issues with it...and if they do well opinions and assholes and all that. Will wade through for the positives. I've had two cracking reviews of it to date (worth pointing out only two people have been allowed to read it). Can't really remember what I was reading at the time of writing it, I wonder what shines through.
