Finding time

I need to write today.

There's a lot hidden in that simple statement. Since I joined the Independent full-time, the hours I used to dedicate to creative writing have grown fewer and farther between. Writing is a regime easily broken by obligation, I guess, and when you write 1,000 words or more a week on deadline it's really the last thing you want to spend your precious free hours doing. Prose should never feel like a chore.

I find myself mostly at a loss for material. Moments in life lend themselves to poetry nicely, especially the seedier, hazier hours between dinner and coffee. But longer works? I need to be fully awake and aware, in possession of all my faculties for short stories and essays. More and more I feel this urge to chase down the elusive novel, that bound beast of ink and plot and arch. Or a screenplay. I could write a screenplay. When?

Trucked out to Tarkio for my publisher's wedding last night. Carpooled with the boss. Fun times. The ceremony put most others I've seen to some serious shame. Scores of guests in varying degrees of formal and Missoula-formal (tucked flannel and Carhartts) all milling about a giant white tent. Matt dropped real coin on the deal, down to the fiddle-and-guitar duo bluegrassing his bride down the aisle. Beautiful stuff.

Friday night was anything but. Kyle dragged me to the Top Hat to meet up with some work-related friends, Tricia and Brook. I've become something less than a fan of Reverend Slanky over the years, but they played some awesome funk covers. The Guess Who, Grand Funk Railroad, Mack Rice (or Wilson Pickett, for those not too familiar with the genesis of "Mustang Sally"). Ended up discoing my ass off, working up a sweat, and buttoning down past the nipple line. Of course, Kyle and his savant irresistibility worked magic on both Tricia and Brook. Nothing compares to feeling like the fourth wheel in a gender-balanced group. Eesh.

Still attempting to drum up a date for the approaching wedding back home. Nothing against going stag, but Ann might well kill me for fucking up the seating arrangement if I show up empty handed. Does being throttled by a bride qualify as going out in a flash of blazes?