A guy I worked with and I drove over to Fort Myers
to take a one-day seminar
from Lawrence Block.
Write for Your Life. He had taken it before,
and got
a break on taking it again. I enjoyed
meeting Block. I had read his Matthew
Scudder novels.
He talked about getting past the 7,500-copy barrier.
Writing
genre fiction. Dealing with publishing professionals.
Coping with defeat. There
are a lot of psychological barriers
that will trip a writer up, and some of them
we set for ourselves,
like Thoreau setting a trap and catching his own leg in
it. The trap
was Walden, his greatest success. In an introduction to
The
Shark-Infested Custard, he says Haitians who eat cats
can recognize each other.
Writers are that way. You can spot
each other. All writers I know appreciated
Charles Willeford.
Willeford appreciated me. Walker Percy's wife sent me a Christmas
card
signed "Walker and Bunt," but that was a mistake. Percy said diatribe
made
him feel better, and he felt better reading Screed.
Have wild, screaming
sex with myself in a motel room.
Hoke Moseley, jacking off in the shower, saying,
"I'm too old for this shit."
Block's Small Town
was very
erotic.
I thought about it
at the writers conference.
When they were talking
about
writers associated with cities.
Block is New York. A city run
entirely
by lists. Best Chinese restaurant.
My Wales, My Sow. Dylan Thomas in America.