Now I don't feel so damn heartless anymore. Yes, I feel a passion I didn't before. (Day 108)

Chapter 2 of "Open Roads and Brick Walls" was finished last night. Besides some minor editing, it actually came out pretty well, and I'm really happy with how it's coming out.

Today's the third chapter I'll be working on, and it's called "Rooftops". I have a feeling this chapter is going to be quite a bit shorter than it's predecessors.

It's strange working on a full length novel. And sitting here doing so, I look back to the past decade or so, and I've kind of come quite a long way since I was nine years old.

The funny thing is that the writing, at least the content and stuff, a lot of where I was at nine years old as far as politics and things of that nature go.

But I've went from writing these poems or songs, to short stories, to now apparently a full novel.

The first short I wrote was called, and there are three people who will remember this, but it was called "Of Fortune, For Avi".

I may actually post that installments on here one day soon.

But Of Fortune...was inspired from the Comfort Inn I used to work at. Every morning I had to set up the breakfast (I worked the night shift) and after I was finished with that, surfing around on the internet, when I overheard this tiny little Japanese grandmother that was being wheeled away by her granddaughter saying, "The first time I had yogurt, the Americans bombed Nagasaki." I sat there kind of stunned and dumb struck for a second.

To have that kind of attachment to a cultured dairy product...is down right shocking. I mean, if you really, really think about it. Imagine having that kind of association with something. One day your sitting peacefully outside, or going for a walk, and you bend down to smell a flower, and you look up to see a mushroom cloud in the sky.

One day you wind up in that country that dropped that bomb, and you see that same flower there as just some sort of decoration that people aren't paying attention to. But all you see is a mushroom cloud. All you see is a slap in the face.

The short story turned into a six-part installment that traversed back and forth between three generations of Japanese women, starting with the Grandmother, to her daughter, to her daughters daughter.

But even thinking back to it, I can only kind of cringe. When I post it here, I won't edit it because I want you to see how far I've come with the medium of story telling. But it's just not very good compared to what I've done since then.

I knew I wanted to write a full novel one day. I always knew I did, but I had no idea what it would be like, and I couldn't actually see myself having the discipline in doing something that seems like such a daunting task. I could never fully envision sitting here, getting frustrated and not having any confidence in what I was doing, or just rambling incoherently, or I'm not sure. I just kept thinking and thinking and thinking of all the things that could go wrong, or if it would be hard.

My good friend Blue recently told me "If you focus on something and never take no, it is fail proof. You take no to heart all the damn time, my friend. Why validate yourself through these experiences when you could just be focusing on the point that there is SOME sort of outcome, even if it's not what you thought it would be? {...} There isn't a single outcome that you can't get through, Aaron. Seriously. Yeah, stuff hurts, but it's only temporary and things only really hurt while you let it hurt.

I understand some things hurt a lot and last awhile, but there's seriously a point where it stops hurting, and until then days pass you by and what are you doing except thinking about pain? Wouldn't it be a better idea to go out and do something else than think about how much something hurts?"

We were talking about things I wanted to do with my life, and one of them would be to open a performance venue/bar, but I have shit credit and nothing to put up for collateral. But that the time she said that, it wasn't just about business to me. I think she meant it a lot more personally than just expanding HaleCo.

Somewhere recently I got a giant kick in the ass. I just want to write this book, and put miles between me, and what I've went through, and never look back. The past is the past, and the past is bullshit. Not only that, it's old bullshit. I'm ready for new bullshit.

I got the last story from File Under Powerviolence last night. At first I was gonna re-write parts of it, but at this point...I just don't see why. Why edit how I felt? It was written by a key chain flash light (more of a key hole finder) in California, and everything I felt at that time now resides on those pieces of paper. For better or worse, that's what happened then and the story behind the story is just as important to me. It's a last will and testament.

File Under Powerviolence is done. D-O-N-E. I've completed something. Every single thing dealing with it is now gone. And a lot of those stories are things that held me back in life, and now that it's finished...I don't know. I've made peace with the skeletons in my closet. It's time to go make new mistakes, break new hearts, get drunk with new friends. Say goodbye to old bad habits and welcome the new ones.

Making peace with the demons of yesterday is a weird thing. I've never actually done that, and there's still a few lingering ones that I'm face to face with in Open Roads, and I am dreading that. But it feels like an emancipation. I've waited my whole life to life.

"Stop thinking, and just start doing."

Straight to the point. It's so simple, but why is it we view the most simple solutions as the most obtuse and unimaginable? Is nothing simple right? I'm a chronic over-thinker, and I'm starting my twelve steps today.

-Until tomorrow.