The Lawyer Novelist

For her encouragement. Both on the novel and on the practice.

On the novel, Eileen has been a great supporter since the novel was a three page outline and others were saying (or implying) it was a waste of time. On the practice, she is offering the same support now, where it is the equivalent of a three page outline.

Seldom have I been so fortunate to have such a friend.

I know of many special education attorneys throughout California. If someone needs a recommendation, please email me.

If you cannot find an attorney in your area, I'll travel.

One of the things about the special education "rabbit hole" that has always fascinated and repelled me simultaneously is the personality types of the people who become special education directors. I've dealt with several, and they rank up there with used car dealers and politicians in the level of integrity and honesty that they posses. And, yet, each of them was at one time a special education teacher. And with the exception of a few burnout cases that are inherent in any heavily unionized organization, the special education teachers I have known have uniformly wanted to do what was best for their charges.

Our current special education director is a little different, but her transformation over the last three years has been even more repulsive in its own way. She came from an academic background and still teaches online extension courses last I heard. She came on board as an incredible breath of fresh air. (The nicest thing I had ever heard about our prior special education director was that she liked to play "hide the ball".) She seemed to believe in the fundamental goals of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and truly wanted to help kids to achieve.

I think that the constant shortage of money caused by Congress' refusal to meet its promised funding goal, coupled with our district's overriding priority that it be one of the top districts in California academically at any cost, makes it impossible for her to do her job. And over time, it is my belief, she has given up and has taken the path of least resistance, even when the path is, in my opinion, in direct contravention of the law.

I am reminded of reading about certain Kapos, I think that is what they were called, at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, who became so numb to what was going around them that they were able to do almost anything so long as they lived to see another day.

I'll rant on why this has occurred from a macro point of view later.


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On the novel front -

I can write through almost anything thanks to the support and tutoring of a very special friend. Almost anything, however, does not include when people are hurting my kids. So no pages were edited yesterday. Today will be different.

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On the law practice front -

Just got off the phone with a special education lawyer who is semi retired. He said, don't need to buy me lunch, just send me your card and I'll start referring you business tomorrow.

And he proceeded to spend almost an hour talking about the practice and how there is such a need for attorneys.

Just finished a 3 hour meeting with the school district discussing placement for my elder. The La Canada Unified School District, perhaps like other districts, is using a legal requirement in California to create a little "gimp ghetto" at one of its three elementary schools. The mechanism is the fact that in California, an autism diagnosis requires that the special education teacher hold a "moderate to severe" special education credential. The autistic could be Bill Gates, but the law requires a special education teacher with this credential. Oops, we only have one teacher with those credentials. And he is not at the school your son has been attending for five years, so he's got to go to another school.

Now, in typical marshmallow fashion, the district did say, Mr. Ryals, we'll give you any placement you want, but just realize that he is not going to be receiving the services he needs unless he is at the gimp ghetto.

Don't worry about the progress in social skills he has been making for five years. Regression? What's that?

So, in short, we were offered the choice of losing his progress with social skills or seeing him not progress academically.

But, says I, I'm a brilliant lawyer, I can come up with an alternative - he can split campuses. Oh no, says they, it would be too complicated. It's outside of the box. I insists, says I, he will split campuses. It's not going to work, says they.

And, because they don't want it to work, it doesn't.

My son starts to act up - it's all because he is splitting campuses.

The two campuses, inexplicably, have art, science and social studies taught at different times, so, oops, the only courses your son is excelling in, well, he can't have those because he's splitting. But the fact that he is being denied his favorite classes is not the reason he's acting up. It's all because he is splitting.

Those who cannot do, teach. Those who cannot teach, administrate. And those who cannot administrate, rise to oversee school districts.

If you think I'm a little bitter, you might just be correct.

Adding Michael Schiavo.

Adding Chris Murray. Cause she's that good.

Adding NICHCY, to Special Education side bar. NICHCY now apparently now calls itself National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities. No matter what the name, this site contains a barge load of information about disabilities and educational practices to help kids with disabilities. Worth a look for anyone involved with special needs kids.

I'm spending the non-novel portions of my day either reviewing the laws or marketing. And at this point, the marketing portion is tantamount to cold calling. I call special education attorneys and advocates, primarily just to get to know them and to pick their brains on how to best establish this practice.

That there is a need for attorneys in this field is pretty well stated by one such contact. He states

"Sadly, there are more than enough clients around so I don't feel a sense of 'competition'..."

And he's right. There are more than enough children out there who are not getting what the law says they should be getting.

It's an interesting practice where attorneys hope that they are put out of business some day.

The way things are going though, not in my life time will that happen.

I really should not stay up as late as I do. However, I come up with so many intriguing and often just plain weird ideas late at night. Such was last night. I started thinking about a series of events that happened and people that I knew when I was 13. I fell very deeply in love at that age. We both moved away from the place where we first met the following summer, she was an army brat, I was a navy brat. However,we continued to correspond for the next 8 years. We met again in college and, but for a particularly evil event in my life, I'm convinced we would still be in contact. The mind started asking "what if?"

And when my mind starts asking "what if?", sparks begin to fly.

Now, I have been told that the only person who is particularly interested in your life is you. However, with a few twists, I think this might make for at least a good short story, if not a novel.

So, I'll sketch out a few pages and put the idea in a file some where.

Because I'm not going to let anything get in the way of finishing the current one.

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Thanks to those of you who responded to my request for blogging etiquette. I don't quite feel like such a troglodyte now. Just a dinosaur.

Off to edit.

Caught a typo in the post below, so decided to read it over yet again to see if it was error free. Saw the word "endeavor" and had to chuckle because of the memory it brought back.

I spent several years negotiating international pay television licenses for a motion picture studio. All of these agreements were under British law and we used British counsel to review the documents once they were pretty much done. Inevitably, the documents would come back with comments about my poor spelling.

But for the first time in my life it was not MY poor spelling mind you. It was the British making a hash out of the way they spell. The first word a good friend in Britain pointed out to me was the spelling of endeavor(everyone in British contracts seems to either undertake, endeavour or both). "Supposed to be 'endeavour'" he pointed out in his, I would come to learn, not so upper class accent. Finally, I gave up and turned my spell checker from American English to British English. Problem solved. Except for the fact that after several years of this, I became incapable of spelling certain words in American. Even today, my natural spelling of endeavor is endeavour. These British spellings sit like little land mines in the back of my poor brain waiting to catch me up.

Just have to laugh . . .

1. Finish the novel.
2. Get an agent.
3. Get a publisher.
4. Exercise more.
5. Develop my law practice into at least a 6 hour per day endeavor.
6. Become a better cook (there's a nascent idea here that I may relate later).
7. Start the second novel.
8. Finish the second novel.
9. Get 3 short stories published.
10. Stop hurting the ones I love. (Actually, this one is already checked off.)
11. Learn to play the flute.
12. See if I can write more poetry without it interfering with my prose writing.


Okay, 'nuff said, time for bed.

First, I hope the six of you who read this will give me a blogger etiquette lesson. I've been slowly adding the sites that I like, but without fan fair. However, I've noticed that those of you who have blogged for some time now make note of new sidebar additions. Is this the way it's done?

Second, how does one respond to comments made to a post? On the comments section? By email?

And, just to let the six of you know, I've added Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming to my growing list. This was truly a "doh" moment, as I've loved Mark's poems since I rediscovered poetry last December. I've seen him post on AS/IS, but I did not know about his wonderful blog, though it's been staring me in the face since I discovered Eileen's blog. I'm pleased to have more beauty to read and to share.

My elder son had a soccer match today. For 45 minutes he stared at the clouds. No amount of encouragement could get him to engage. The closest he got to the game was when he accidentally knocked down another player because he was not watching the game.

We have insisted since his diagnosis almost 7 years ago that he not be segregated from other, non-disabled children. We have forced everyone to accept him, or at least deal with him and his issues. I've been aggressive on this issue to the point of obnoxiousness. (And having been an entertainment attorney, I know obnoxiousness.) Watching him today, I started thinking that perhaps this grand experiment was a mistake.

Then, in the 4th quarter (I know nothing of soccer, so it was in the second half just after the water break, but I'll call it the 4th quarter), he just came alive. He was the quintessential defenseman, he stole the ball three times, he blocked a goal kick (with his face,no less) and generally played beyond everyone's expectation. Was a nice thing to see.

He looked at me with great confusion when the best player on the team came up, gave him a high five and said "way to go!"

The fourth quarter was a nice 44th birthday present.

In case you missed it, this is from the Guardian:

After 33 years Mandela's forgotten memories are recovered

Prison notebooks hidden by police agent for decades are handed back

Rory Carroll in Johannesburg
Friday September 24, 2004
The Guardian

For three decades the notebooks gathered dust in a cupboard, unknown to the world, forgotten even by their author, but cherished by the secret policeman who sensed history in their pages. As an apartheid agent Donald Card's job involved the decoding of confiscated writings of Robben Island prisoner 46664, to read between the lines about where the liberation movement was headed.
Except by the time he received the two books in 1971 Mr Card had lost faith in South Africa's white regime and so without telling anyone he locked away the private thoughts of Nelson Mandela in a cupboard at his home in eastern Cape.

This week the two notebooks surfaced when the retired spy handed them over in an emotional ceremony of restitution which Mr Mandela said was the signal for a nationwide "recovery of memory".

The books will remain private until Mr Mandela has read them. However, the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg yesterday revealed the contents of two pages, dated April 1 1971 and addressed to "My dear Sisi", believed to be a sister.

Banned from political commentary, the author reminisced about escapades from his adolescence; whether he was trying to cheer up himself or his sister was not clear.

"Thinking about you and home does me lots of good. For most of the times such thoughts give me plenty of fun ... there was the unforgettable occasion when you scolded me for stealing green mealies from Reverend Matyolo's garden. You turned to me and said: 'Why do you disgrace us by stealing from a priest?' "

Mr Mandela recalled another occasion when his friend Justice fled after infuriating a clan chief, who then mistook the future statesman for the reprobate. "I suddenly realised that I had been left to handle the baby."

The author turned serious in paying tribute to a mentor, Chief Jongintaba. "He inspired me to set goals for myself which I hope will be judged to be in accord with the interests of the community as a whole. Our hopes and aims centre around these ideals above all."

This week the foundation also unveiled a previously unknown photograph of Mr Mandela gardening on Robben Island in 1977. Published here for the first time, the picture shows Mr Mandela with one hand on his hip, the other grasping a shovel. The future Nobel laureate wears a floppy hat, sunglasses and a scowl, furious at what he believed was an attempt by the apartheid regime to take his picture without permission and manipulate world opinion.

The day guards guided journalists around the island the prisoners were given extra cartons of milk and an unusually soft job weeding but no chance to speak to the visitors. Mr Mandela, the star attraction, tried in vain to hide behind a bush.

"The reporters and cameramen stormed down upon us like excited visitors to an agricultural show," the prisoners wrote in a letter of complaint to the governor. Ironically the photograph was never used because Mr Mandela's image was banned and it was stored, forgotten, in the bowels of the state broadcaster SABC.

But this week Mr Mandela welcomed the photograph as part of a trove of newly discovered archive material, especially the manuscripts, which he hoped would galvanise efforts to collect other lost fragments of the struggle.

"What you have just witnessed could be described as one old man giving another old man two old books," smiled the former president, and indeed the books were as worn and creased as their guardian and author. "The history of our country is characterised by too much forgetting. The (notebooks) represent the hope that we can recover memories and stories suppressed by the apartheid regime."

Adding up to 150 foolscap pages in fastidious, neat handwriting, the books comprised drafts of 79 letters written between 1969 and 1971 when Mr Mandela was barely into his 27-year jail term.

"These two manuscripts probably constitute the best primary source of Mr Mandela's thoughts and emotions at that time," said Cornelius Thomas, a historian who is the only person, besides Mr Card, to have read them.

Letters


The remarkable tale of how they were safeguarded, and the reverence with which they were displayed yesterday, bore testimony to Mr Mandela's spell over South Africa.

When contacted by Mr Card, Mr Mandela had no recollection of the red-bound black-covered books confiscated all those years ago. But after reading three letters he remembered.

Letters from Robben Island could be no more than 500 words so Mr Mandela polished drafts in notebooks before sending them. But for security many were destroyed by recipients and others were burnt in a fire in Soweto in 1988, said Dr Thomas, who was commissioned by the foundation to authenticate the manuscripts.

This dearth of documentation meant Mr Mandela's memoir Long Walk to Freedom skipped through 1969-1971 in under five pages, said the historian. "These letters will now help nuance that period," said Dr Thomas. He would not elaborate beyond saying the author emerged as a man of faith and principle.

A firm believer in apartheid, Mr Card was sent volumes of confiscated correspondence after recruiting an informant who offered to decode political meanings in apparently innocuous personal letters.

However under the influence of the campaigning newspaper editor, Donald Woods, the policeman decided Mr Mandela was not a terrorist and resigned from the force in 1971. Because of an adminis trative error the correspondence continued arriving.

Recognising the notebooks' value he hid them and after Mr Mandela's release in 1990 made several attempts to hand them over, finally succeeding when the foundation set up a centre of memory and commemoration and paid attention.

The unspoken urgency is the former president's frailty. His spirits remain high but these days Mr Mandela, 86 and known universally and affectionately by his clan name Madiba, sits when he speaks. Aides have slashed his engagements since his retirement from public life this year. "Don't call me, I'll call you," he said, and meant it.

Soccer season is underway in La Canada. This is the first year that this season has not filled me with dread. Now I’m only half full. Team sports are a mystery to all of the autistic kids I know. My elder son is no exception. On the soccer field, he used to be just as likely to sit down in the middle of the field or to run off chasing a butterfly as kick the ball. This year seems to be a little better. It has to be an unusually large or pretty butterfly to get him scampering away in the middle of a game. I’ve developed a pretty thick skin as I've listened to muttered curses of the very few too intense parents. A coach has to do something pretty severe for me to get me up and give my long overused autism lecture. We persevere. There is always hope.

Our younger son, it turns out, is just the opposite. He is always at the ball. In the moment. He has his mother’s competitive spirit and his grand-father’s athletic ability.

At my younger's practice tonight I watched two of his team mates who were not at all clear on the concept. Who would rather be off chasing butterflies. Their parents seemed to step away just a little bit as other parents muttered.

I straddle both worlds. The world of a budding athlete. The world of a child who might struggle if only he understood the game. I feel for the parents whose children inhabit each of these. For in each world there are problems, pitfalls and pain. But there is also joy and hope.

Raising children is never easy.

Pages 200 to 250 today. There are some problems I see developing. Some time line issues are cropping up. But, at this point in the novel, I don't see anything as insurmountable.

On September 21, the Senate and the House agreed to meet to hammer out differences between the two versions of an amendment to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This is the law on which most of the rights for students with disabilities are found. Unfortunately, both bills curtail those rights.

The House would allow 3-year IEP meetings (the meetings in which services are discussed and progress goals made). Currently, the requirement is annual meetings. Think about it. Does a 5 year old have the same needs as an eight year old? Can one predict progress three years down the road? Currently, the law states that there must be annual meetings.

The House would also get rid of short-term objectives and benchmarks except for the most severely disabled children. This would result in parents not receiving progress reports on their children in a timely fashion and would eliminate benchmarks that parents could use to determine whether their child is making progress.

Both the Senate and House bills would eliminate requirements for Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavioral Intervention Plans. These analyses determine what made a child misbehave so that positive behavioral supports can be implemented. At the same time, the House bill would allow schools to exclude children from the classroom for any school conduct code violations, even if the misbehavior was caused by their disabilities.

The House bill lets state officials cap attorneys' fee recoveries and the Senate Republican Policy Committee has asked Senators to adopt this cap. No limits are proposed on how much school districts can spend on legal fees from your tax dollars. As to this one, yes, I have a vested interest. But fee shifting statutes are a part of all civil rights legislation. Fee shifting is one of the only means by which school districts are forced to comply with the law. It also serves to allow those who are less than financially well off the possibility of finding legal counsel. Administrative hearings are not cheap. They are, in effect, trials. The last one I attended was almost three days long. At $200 per hour, that cost would have been $4,800 just for the trial. No prep. No paying for the expert who charged out at $350 per hour with a 4 hour minimum. I have heard of proceedings that cost parents upwards of $75,000. How can someone who lives on $30,000 per year afford that if not for fee shifting?

I hope that all 6 of you who read this blog will call your Senators. You can find your Senators at http://www.Senate.gov and get their email, phone (local and Washington DC), and fax numbers. You can also call the main Senate and House number, 202-224-3121 or look up local numbers in the blue pages of your phone book.

Don't send letters by regular mail. With the anthrax testing for correspondence, regular mail now takes 2 to 4 weeks to reach senate offices.

Rant off.

Some men collect wine. I do too, but that's another story. I also collect disabilities. By which I mean I am always amazed at the way the mind and body works. And am further amazed by the way that they don't.

My elder son is autistic. My younger son is "significantly speech and language delayed". So these are the disabilities that I have always focused on.

(I am very modestly dyslexic, though I have overcome that through judicious hiring of secretaries with great proof reading skills. None of whom read this blog btw.)

So a friend tells me tonite about her struggles with Discalculia - I was surprised. A disability dx that I had not heard of.

Google is my friend. I researched and found a ton of information. Including the fact that many suffering/contending with discalculia tend towards poetry.

The mind is a wonderful, mysterious thing.

I am curios if the 6 peeps who see this web site would tell me if they could also be, hmmmm, dicalculiaic?

Touch the title to this post and check it out. If you would, I'd love to see your response, either through comments or through a private email. If through email, I will never reveal the source.

For the lawyer, the novelist and the Lawyer Novelist, I cannot over state how great Carolyn See's "Making a Literary Life" is. "Why for the lawyer?" Weary young associates at Milbank Tweed and Proskauer Rose ask. I shall tell.

Carolyn has two rules that are sacrosanct. First, write 4 pages a day, 5 days a week. Second, write a note to someone in the literary/artistic community every day, 5 days a week, don't pitch the proposed novel in this process, just say hello and how much you liked "x" about what they did. The reason for the first one is obvious, practice and progress. The second one may be less obvious at first glance. It is for networking. The odds of getting a novel published are quite high. Networking increases the odds of the wanna be becoming the novelist.

"Ah, but I've been working on a deal for the past three days without sleep, so I don't get how this applies to the lawyer?" Asks a certain near burnout Milbank third year.

Networking and marketing, my tired young friend. Every day, send that letter, make that phone call. Don't pitch anything. Just make the contact. Invite that midlevel executive at your partner's client out to lunch, have the attorney representing that bank over for dinner after the deal is done. Every day, set it up. Every day, make the connection.

I am privileged to know a person who is probably one of the best "rain makers" in the business. He started a similar process when he was in his second year out of law school. This was in addition to working 24/7. It was tough, but he did it. He's now a very prosperous fellow.

I, on the other hand, did not. I'm now a novelist and trying to establish a practice at 43.

I can't emphasize it enough to the young lawyer, or, frankly, the lawyer of any age. If you don't have a book of business you are vulnerable. If you do, you're invincible. Start early. Like any investment, the rewards take time, but they will come.

As for my practice, I'm doing a bit more than one contact per day. But I'm in a hurry and have a lot of catching up to do.

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On the novel front, I did 50 more pages today. Stopped at page 200. I've had this waking nightmare that I would get to this point in my reading/editing and discover that it made no sense at all and the whole thing would have to be scrapped. In my nightmare, it happens in the middle of the novel. Well, I'm in the near exact middle, and it ain't happening.

I'm pleased.

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For those who want a depressing link, er, a realistic look at the publishing side of short stories, click on

Submitting to the Black Hole

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In the disabilities community, it takes so little to do so much.

I've been notified that I'm being given a Los Angeles County Proclamation for my service to the disabled, thanks to Mike Antonovich.

I am humbled. So many have done so much more.

To those who read this, think about trying to help. Even a little means so much to those in need, whether for those with disabilities, or those who have simply fallen on hard times.

As a couple who won't be named tonight have shown me, a little help means so much.

Thank you.

I'm sitting at Higley's, a coffee shop on Foothill Boulevard in La Canada-Flintridge California. I first started writing/editing here after my "friends" in the Angeles National Forest gave me a bit of a scare. A couple of days ago, I noticed a little sticker on the door advertising "AMD Wireless". Shortly thereafter, I realized people were on the internet. Yes, Higley's has a wireless network installed.

I'm just amazed!

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm at the sunset of my 43rd year. I remember Commodor 64s and Pong being big deals. I used an IBM Selectric for my finals in law school. (Wish I had that behemoth now, would love to check into the whole proportional font debate.)

I'm a dinosaur. But I have lived in a very interesting time.

50 more pages edited today.

Plunging into another vein, I'm not sure if my "growth" as a writer is being helped by this editing process. I'd be interested in hearing from other writers if the process of editing makes for a better writer. I'm going to start to write again, albeit on a more abbreviated level, starting tomorrow.

50 more pages edited today. But this is the easy part as it was part of a class and a lot of editing has already gone into it.

Sometimes the obvious is just impossible to see since it is always right in front of you. I have been litigating and negotiating with school districts over services for my two children, both of whom have disabilities, for 7 years now. I have also counseled other parents about their rights, normally in the waiting rooms of various purveyors of autism related therapies. I have helped a small business to come into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. I never thought about this as anything other than helping folks out. I hadn't really thought of making a career out of it. But an acquaintance called me today and told me that I really should do this.

Even my novel is autism related. As will, probably, my second novel.

As my first son was diagnosed with autism, I watched as it became a pervasive part of my life. Until the novel, I had always viewed it as a viciously negative part. Perhaps that was a mistake. Life is what you make of it.

So the law office of James W. Ryals is open for business. Emphasis shall be on assisting parents to obtain services for children with disabilities.

I've added Guillermo Parra's link to the "Poets Links". I do this less because he is a poet (and a very good one in my novice opinion) but more because his blog is slicing open the underbelly of the facist takeover of Venezuela. Only the Los Angeles Times and Jimmy Carter can doubt now that Venezuela has been hijacked by a Mussolini-esqe dictator. I applaud Guillermo for his efforts at showing the truth.

Too often the United States has ignored what was going on south of San Diego. It does so at its peril.

As an aside, Jean's blog is one of the more beautiful on the internet, in my opinion.

For some reason, I've viewed editing the novel with trepidation bordering on terror. Hence, yesterday, I wrote one short story and edited another. I've submitted them both (fingers crossed). Realizing that I was procrastinating, I dove in today. Fifty pages read and edited. I'm rather pleased with what I'm seeing.

However, I am reminded of something that Roberta Morris admonished me on very early into the novel writing process. Almost every author has a few words that they use repeatedly. In most cases this repetition becomes a distraction for the reader, particularly if the word/s are unusual. As a result of this, I banned the word "feral" from any form of my fiction writing. Despite having taken Roberta's words to heart, I still found a bit of repetitious word use. I was merciless with the blue pencil.

Thank you, Jean.

"While you are reading this page, if someone appears in your mind, then u are in love with that person."


From Paolo Joseph's post "R U in Love"

Or something like that.

Ah, to be in love again . . .

but am I too old?

For some reason, I looked at this massive notebook of paper with dread today. So I spent my afternoon hammering out a short story, actually flash, that has nothing to do with the novel. Was a fun diversion. I'm going to submit it to Ideomancer - see link- and see what happens.

Tomorrow afternoon the editing will begin.

I just finished printing out my entire novel. I had not seen it in print in about two months, so this was a huge surprise. Unfortunately, it printed with page 1 on the bottom, so I'm going to have to spend some time getting it organized.

I did this, not out of any real desire for a tactile sense of accomplishment. Though, I must admit that I do feel an added complexity to my sense of accomplishment now that it is printed. I did this because I learned the hard way that I cannot edit on a computer. So I need to have this thing in hard copy in order to make the myriad revisions so as to get the m.s. in a position to send it to my first editor.

I wonder how someone like Tolstoy must have felt, watching a manuscript grow. Now, I'm not comparing myself to Tolstoy, I'm just pondering on what he must have thought watching the development of a novel that might be, say, 3 times the size of my little bit of fiction. Though, he would watch the growth every time he wrote, and hence it was probably not the shock that I got.

Do we lose some of the "organic process" of writing by doing it on a computer?

I should be sleeping, my sons have soccer games tomorrow. But the ending of the novel has brought with it a bit of insomnia.

The old friend who forced me to come face to face, and yet again to embrace my too often ingnored muse last December found my blog this evening. My friend pointed out that I also write (wrote) poetry. I put wrote in parenthesis because I don't think that anyone who has ever written poetry ever completely gives it up. Poetry is like herpes - it never goes away; it just lies dormant.

That said, I'm adding three links to poetry zines that have done me the honor of publishing my poetry.

In no particular order are:

xStream - Jukka-Pekka Kervinin published one of my first, and wierdest, poems. One night, I went insane in front of the keyboard. The result was "The Insomniac's 404 Message". Jukka has been kind enough to publish some other words of mine and has offered to do an echap. Jukka is a prince.

TMP Irregular - Ken Gurney published a poem of mine. I think it was my first. Ken was also nice enough to reject my second poem and in so doing give me some very constructive criticism.

Finally, Rocking Horse Couplet - John Marshall was nice enough to publish a group of my poems very recently.

Each of these folks has a love for the word, and poetry is truly the ultimate love for the word, that I hope to emulate some day.

To each of them, and to their publications, I give praise and thanks.

Links to their sights will be forthcoming.

The first draft of the novel appears to be done at just over 95,000 words. I had expected to feel some kind of monumental emotional release. But I wrote the ending a couple of weeks back and the rest of the novel was sort of catching up. Suddenly, it's over.

I don't feel any exhaltation. I'm not sure what I feel. We are all kind of numb. The characters in my novel are now so real to me that we are just looking at each other as if to say, "what now?"

Editing.

A friend sent me a chapter from her novel. She has a writing style that brings me to tears, it's that good. But in the middle of the chapter, there was a paragraph that made no sense to me. I told her so. She replied that she was constantly "straddling with distillation -- saying things clearly via implication. Though, here, is it okay to be this confusing if it's explained later?"

Interesting question. I guess my response would be no, because the paragraph made no sense as written, at least to me, a reader. I guess it's a lesson for my writing. In the beginning of a novel, you want to draw the reader in. Titillating the reader's curiosity does it. Obfuscation doesn't.

I'm quite willing to hear differently.

Off to write.

I was emailing with a friend last night. She has over the years tried repeatedly to write a novel and has always failed, though she has published numerous volumes of poetry and short stories. We got into a discussion about what is a "chapter"? One classroom definition that I've heard is that it as a segment of a novel, 7 to 10 pages long dealing with the same set of characters. We both decided right away that this is silly. So she asked me - you've been writing chapters for 4 months now, what's your definition? To which I replied

"I'm not sure what a chapter is, but within the context of the novel it is a subnovel. A couple of characters, or group, have an orgasm.

By which I mean that there is a mini plot with a climax that changes things a bit. And that change propels the novel forward."

Frankly, that seems rather profound, or rather it did after several glasses of wine.

Hmmm.

Higley's is too distracting, so I found myself back up in the Angeles National Forest. I drove . . . for a long time I drove. Then I found one of the rare side roads that is actually paved and open (though the term paved is used loosely here), so I drove until this road ended. A short hike and I was on a bench near a group of abandoned buildings. The only sound was the twittering of birds and the roar of the wind. I wrote my 5 pages in utter peace. Well, almost utter. At one point, I looked up and found myself face to face with a very large grey squirrel. He was clearly more shocked at my presence that I was at his.

California has a horrible crisis on its hands - the bark beetle. It seems like 1 out of every 20 trees up there was dead. And twice to three times that number looks sickly - lots of brown needles. It is sad to see close up this tragedy. It is also frightening given what this vast number of dead and dying trees would do if they caught fire.

The novel is at 368 pages. I started it the third week of May. I've now shown 170 or so pages to Caroline Leavitt who seems excited about it. I've shown 75 to the poetry-goddess, who also is excited.

Despite this, there is that little voice inside of my head that says - "It's just not quite right."

And within the last week my second novel is knocking impatiently on my skull wanting attention.

Reading Natalie Goldberg's "Thunder and Lightning". Not sure how I feel about it at this point. I've read a number of "how to" type books on novel writing. I may just be getting saturated on the whole area. It is an amusing read, however. http://www.nataliegoldberg.com/

Received a quote on malpractice insurance today - almost $3,000. And this is bare coverage with a high, at least to me, deductible. Not dime one in business and . . .

I also decided to join a local bar association, which has a referral service. On the agreement form, it requires one to agree that they have at least two sets of law books from a long list. Now, I live 5 minutes from two very nice law libraries and my alma matter, Loyola Law School (http://www.lls.edu/), is just a quick jaunt down the freeway. Said books aren't cheap by any means.

I've heard it said repeatedly over the years - most start up businesses fail because of under capitalization. I'm starting to develop a better understanding of this fact.

Ah, well. Time to write.

I had my first idea for a novel when I was 11. However, it was not until an old friend last December asked me in an email - "Didn't you always want to be a writer?" - that I found myself back into the less than tender mercies of the muse I had fought off for more than a quarter century.

Figuring that I needed some instruction, and knowing that I would need some structure, I enrolled in a novel writing class online through the UCLA extension program. I've now taken three such classes. The first one was taught by Roberta Morris. The second two were taught by Caroline Leavitt (http://www.carolineleavitt.com/). Both instructors were great. But Caroline is without a doubt an inspiration. She is teaching again this semester and also gives private instruction.

Other sources of inspiration are of course books on writing. I have several, but my favorite is Carolyn See's "Making a Literary Life (http://www.carolynsee.com/). She has two overriding commitments: first write 4 pages every day, 5 days a week; second, write a note to someone in the field every day. Writing every day seems like a no brainer. But the notes struck me as odd. Nonetheless, I decided to give it a try. And, surprisingly enough, people write back! I've received correspodence from some of my favorite living authors. Getting an email or a letter from someone you see as a success in the field of your dreams sure keeps the motivation fires going.

Back to the novel.

Lee Harrington has a very cute article in the Sept/Oct 2004 issue of Poets & Writers (http://www.pw.org/mag/contents.htm) about the odd things that writers do in order to fall into that "creative zone." I would recommend it to both of the folks who have dropped by my site. Unfortunately, you cannot read it at the web site, so a trip to the book store may be in order if you don't subscribe.

Oddly enough, at this point I have the opposite problem. I am so immersed in my novel that it is almost impossible to get it out of my head. I find myself in the creative zone at odd, and occasionally bad, times. Recently I fell down a flight of stairs because I started thinking of what a particular character was about to do. I got in such a hurry to get back to the computer that I tripped . And tumbled. Fortunately, I managed not to break the glass in my hands and suffered nothing more than a few bruises.

Until yesterday, I'd been spending my afternoons in the Angeles National Forest writing away. The danger of this location had never dawned on me. There I was, laptop on and typing away when a smallish, dark blue SUV drives by. Windows open, music blaring. The music increases in intensity and begins to fade. Tires squeel. The music increases in intensity. The SUV stops. Three men stare at me and then waive their arms at each other. Off the SUV goes. Back the SUV comes. The men stare at me. They gesticulate at each other, apparently talking . . . about something. One of them opens the door. Then shuts it. Off the SUV goes, taking with it the music.

Was I about to be mugged? Shoot, as remote a location as I had found they could have shot me, carried the body a little distance and some hiker would have found my bones in ten years.

My writing abode is now Higley's coffee shop in La Canada.

I'll leave extreme novel writing to the younger set.

Welcome to my blog. My name is Jim. My passion is my novel. I'm also a lawyer in Los Angeles who is about to set up his own practice armed only with a rolodex, a computer and Jay G. Foonberg's "How to Start and Build a Law Practice".

The novel is within 3 weeks of being done. I'm at approximately 90,000 words. Then comes the editing.

I am also a political animal, so I don't doubt that I will rant from time to time.

Feel free to email me at jwryals@earthlink.net with any comments.