Driving Past the Cows was Just Awful

Hello everyone,

I haven’t written on here for a long time, it turns out. Most of my life is just reading, writing and doing all the other stuff in my life (like eating), so I don’t have much time to ruminate on this (that pun was entirely intended). Claudia and I started on our road trip, and we’ve seen a lot of cows.

We left from Boulder and got into North Platte just a few hours ago. Road trips are supposed to be the big thing: There’s On the Road and stuff like that. it’s a part of the American spirit and experience… kinda. The vast expanses of our empty space inspires. In fact, today I was thinking about how I’d write a book where a murderous truck driver was the protagonist, maybe inspired by the Green River murderer. I’ll add it to my list of ideas.

The big highlight of our trip so far was not long after crossing over into Nebraska we came across a humongous cow pen (or maybe slaughterhouse). For about the next mile or so, our car stank like cow farts and general hay/muck. That’s how it goes on I-76.

Also, Omaha is much bigger of a city than I thought it would be. I expected something like Cheyenne, AKA not much.

While driving, I was trying to explain to my wife the difference between pulp fiction and not. As someone once told me (and I never bothered to confirm it or research it because why should I?), pulp fiction was written on paper made from pulp because both the script and what it held up were equally ephemeral. It seems that by far what sells the most (or are the easiest to write) are pulp fiction books.

There is a funny comment in Foucault’s Pendulum that I read recently, the difference between what they call SFA (self-financed authors) and normal ones. The SFAs use vanity presses and so on because they want to show the book off, that they are a writer. And a normal one writes for the pleasure of it. Well, obviously, there’s another type, the ones that seek profits. I don’t think in the 70s or 80s there was such a thing as an author that wasn’t either published by a big house or through vanity presses.

I’d prefer to think of myself as someone who didn’t write pulp fiction, but maybe unintentionally (or because of my inability), I am and shouldn’t think myself above anyone else. As I see it (in a somewhat idealistic way, I guess), I would write forever and ever without selling a single book if that was in any way a maintainable lifestyle. I do need to put bread on the table, and my style of slow releases and not conforming to the conventions (such as designing the book covers in house) are hurting the bottom line. I wonder if there will ever be a day when not only I don’t have to worry about this but a new writer who wishes to create.

And the funniest part? I will continue to produce because I like doing it, but I am forced to care about my popularity. What crap! I wouldn’t have become a writer if I cared about people liking me.

Have fun for the next few months until I post again (or a few days, depending on how inspired I am),

Ben