Perhaps this will be my exorcism of them. As painful as this has become, as I said, this is the best bad guy I have ever written. Maybe some good will come from my pain. Take control of my memories of pain and sadness and build some positive revenge.

The objects shown all relate to the story, but will hopefully catch the book browser's eye and make them wonder what they might mean.

Now I just have do one last proof read, decide on a cover, update my bio, and send the files off to the printers for a proof. Oh boy!

My goal is to ride at least 36 miles, which is 85% longer than my current longest ride.

The company I work for, Blue Shield of California, will match 1-1 donations of $20 or more.

I would appreciate any help you might be able to offer.

To donate: http://www.active.com/donate/tomflanders

For more info: http://www.rfar.org/

Now I'm preparing to self publish my new novella, BROKE DOWN ON THE ROAD TO GLORY. How will I measure its success? I have set what I think are some realistic goals.

• I want to sell 100 copies. That's a nice round number and only about three times the sales of my first book.
• I want to get the book into a least one bricks and mortar bookstore. With all the independent book stores here in San Francisco that shouldn't be impossible to achieve.
• I want to get at least one review of the book, favorable or not, into print or on the web. Perhaps I'm naive, but that doesn't seem like it should be too hard.

So that's how I'm going to measure success. Nothing earth-shattering. Humble beginnings and all that.

And if I fail, then I fail, but the failure will be my own. I don't have to apologize to any publisher or agent or anyone.

"To impress people." answered character two.

That little interchange is from THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY by Edmund Crispin. I'm embarrassed to admit that I could be character two. Much of what I've written over the last few years has been assembled solely to impress people. Who am I trying to impress? Agents and publishers. Strangers whose attention is fought for by the huddled masses yearning to be published.

So what can I do about it? If I want to be published, to have the public read my books, I must play the game. I must persuade them that vast numbers of people will want to read my books. Of course I must first write the book that I believe will interest those vast numbers, and that hasn't happened yet. I've just been going through the motions because it's what I believed I was supposed to do.

So I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm going back to writing what I want to write. Maybe someday I'll have something that people will want to read. Until then I'll just inflict my works on family and friends, at least till they stop summing up my work as, "interesting."

So anyway, the site is http://brokedownbook.com. It contains all kinds of info including; a sample chapter, character bios, story synopsis and much much more. Take a look. If you like it, tell your friends. If you don't, tell your enemies.

Then there is our director. Every email I send him is written in an A-A-B rime scheme. He's never noticed. Messages to the legal department have only one and two syllable words, yet they always respond in their over-blown fluffy language.

So why do I play these games? Well, there's the sheer evil pleasure of subversion. There's the ego-boosting arrogance of getting away with this stuff. Mostly though it really is a cry for help, building a wall in defense of my sanity. I'm not sure it's working.

On the bright side, she wasn't that great a character in the first place. She was merely the bridge between two of the main characters, girlfriend to one and roommate to the other. Now though, in death, she becomes a major source of conflict and launches the story easily and definitely into act two.

The weird thing is that I feel guilty. Not that I killed her off, but how great I feel about killing her off. Her death has helped the story so much that I'm giddy with delight. How sick is that?

How could I have forgotten about this? I searched my memory and seem to recall that i wasn't able to resolve problems with the plot, particularly the climax. i must be maturing as a writer because I now see simple solutions for what was, at the time, insurmountable difficulties.

Encouraged by this gem I spent several hours reviewing all my old work for some other salvageable beauty. Unfortunately all this yielded was the movement of a great many files to the "pretentious garbage" folder. Ah well.

Does all that balance out that their existence relies on my whim or whimsy? Perhaps they must live life out loud in an attempt to find favor with me, their creator. To avoid having some new horror befall them, or worse yet, being left forever, hopes and dreams unfulfilled, on the unfinished page as has happened to so many of their kind before them.

Well, that still sounds better than sitting though two hours of budgeting meetings.

However some advice just can't be ignored, no matter how painful it might be. I've been working on a novel for over a year now. It sucks, but quality isn't mandatory for a first draft. For a long time now my inner critic has been telling me that it doesn't suck because of its draft status. He says it sucks because it sucks. Of course that's just my inner critic talking. It's his job to be an asshole. The problem is, lately my more positive writing forces, the skull of the muse and the dream lizard, are agreeing with him.

I've lost all focus. The book is a collection of unconnected scenes. My villain has lost all his edge. My heroes their whimsy. The story arc has become a slinky in an Escher drawing. It's a mess and I just don't want to play ball with it anymore. Worst of all, I realize that this isn't, even if it didn't suck, a book that I would want to read. I realize that this isn't the book I want to write. It is the book I thought I was supposed to write.

In the midst of my inner critic's victory dance I considered, "What now?" So I sat at my desk, did my meditative breathing, and starting writing out a recent dream. Then I wrote some notes on the possible meanings of this dream and filled a page with "what ifs" and came up with a possible conflict/conspiracy. Looks like I've got a story write.

Can I survive without the inner critic? Sure, he trashes my work and makes me doubt and question everything, but he also keeps me from hoisting confusing and unpolished drek upon the unsuspecting reading public.

Can I survive without writing? Sure, if I don't mind becoming an alcoholic flesh-eating zombie. Such a choice.

The Dream Lizard is no help either. Last night he had me trying to impress a bunch of skateborders by bragging about my clothes only to realize that I was dressed like Herb Tarlek from WKRP. I know there is a message in there somewhere but the allegory escapes me.

Then I started getting better and everything went wrong. Now when I read what I write it's not bad, but it's also not great. There is always something missing, something to add, something to take away, but it's a subtle something lurking unknown in the shadows.

So I try to fix it through trial and error hacking away at characters, plots and scenes, till the whole thing is transformed into something brand new, but equally not so great. Lately all my rewrites seem to take me sideways rather than upwards in quality.

I know this is just my inner critic trying to devalue my writing. Hey, just the money I save on therapists makes my writing worth it. Still, I can't shake the feeling that I'm not serving the world as I should.

I think the main problem is that I enjoy writing, so how could it be of any value? In my underlying belief structure things that are fun are not important. Being important is important. In my school days I was often accused of having my priorities mixed up. Who knew I was listening?