Joe

Now I'm reading JOE by Larry Brown. Just the first chapter so far (over "joe" this morning) but if first chapters are any indication, this is going to be a swell book, a harsh and poetic book. Plus we are moving to Oxford, the hometown of Mr. Brown, and two "Blog" Buddies, in entirely different contexts, volunteered recently that JOE was Mr. Brown's best book. So it seems like the right thing to read. Up until this point I have only read his BIG, BAD LOVE, which had a big impact on me when I was just starting to think seriously about being a "writer." Still I am convinced that no one should care about my opinion. That makes an interview a funny process. I immediately second-guess whatever I say. If I knew anything true, I wouldn't be writing fiction! I "did" an interview yesterday and I believe I said a lot of stupid junk. I remember claiming that the "blog" employed "the non-****** ************ of the trappings of *****." That's the kind of thing I said (not to "scoop" the interviewer, who was very kind and understanding as I ranted and danced around his excellent questions, trying to hide my abject bewilderment with the "writing" "process"). You know what? I'm going to go back and partially censor the thing I said to the interviewer. He may want to use it, and otherwise I will have taken all the juice out of it. I'll come back and fill it in after the interview comes out, and we can discuss what the blankity-blank I thought I was talking about. When interviewers ask me about the "blog" it makes me realize that people can read the "blog" on the "internet" and confuse it with actual "writing." And that ought to make me nervous! But it doesn't make me quite nervous enough, apparently.