Excerpt: Exercise One: A Series Of Written Exercises With Critical Notes From The Author

Well shit.
Up until but a few short months ago, I was living in a very stressful situation with an equally stressful job. I was also writing regularly. Albums, poetry, books, you name it, I probably wrote in that style. Then the stressful living situation changed dramatically, the job ended with neither mercy nor apologies and I found myself looking for work. What did I find instead?
Love.
That's right, love.
Just in time for National Novel Writer's Month; just in time for me to start editing things so I could send them out; just in time for the worst to be simultaneously be over and begin, I found love.
So I haven't really been able to write a decent damn word in two months. I do not have it in me anymore, the ire, the fire, the passion for living for anything more than walking hand in hand to the market with my wonderful boyfriend. When he's here or when I'm visiting him, the world is all right. Everything is in its right place. There is indeed hope for the future and good things on the way. Therefore... I can't write.
Well, I can't write the way I used to anyway. Happiness takes the space usually reserved for those dark recesses of creativity and adds Martha Stewart Living flourishes. The place once needed for plot and character development has been converted into a space for Ikea catalogues and painting schemes for future homes and a garden with checkerboard.
It's not that I feel bad for having this change of mentality thanks to the introduction of someone who is honestly the most wonderful man on the planet. In fact, I kind of like it. I like the fact that every day is now just a day, not a struggle against roommates, nosy co-workers, irritating customers and loneliness to the point where writing is honestly the only escape that lasts longer than masturbation. I like the fact that I am now in a position where I can write if I want to, not because I have to. It's no longer a compulsory activity but one that is enjoyable in a languid, serene fashion.
Sadly, I no longer remember how to write in such a fashion, nor do I recall ever really being able to. What this means then is that for me to write effectively, I need to re-learn how to write. One day at a time? One moment at a time? Maybe one exercise at a time. Actually yes, that is the ticket. The idea for the series of exercises came as I sat at the computer of captain amazing wondering how the hell I could even think of writing when yes I am unemployed and yes I face the possibility of losing my apartment but still I have him so it's not all entirely horrible.
Still, a compulsive writer in love is a very different fellow from a compulsive writer outside of love. Outside of love's warm hearth, the compulsive writer writes instead to keep warm, staring in at the bit of window that hasn't been fogged up, taking notes of the room's decoration, lighting and the actions inside. The writer outside of love hopes that there's a fight going on, or sex... or both. The compulsive writer in love is no longer looking at the best way to describe the scenery, he's in the scene itself, no longer a narrator but a character whose own pen has stuttered while the hundreds of writers outside of love describe and scrutinize his every living movement. I have indeed become love's puppet, an actor moreso than a writer and a lover moreso than either of the two combined. So this book begins, albeit late, with an explanation.
The pattern is going to repeat itself: The exercise, the story and the critique. I'd like to say at the outset that there is an underlying point to the whole thing, an underlying connective narrative, something all of these stories have in common and maybe when they are all done, they will be. Well, I guess the premise ties them all together: how to write while in love.
Well shit.
This is going to be tough.