Thanks, Laura.

Caroline wounded me unto my very intestines when she commented about middle-aged men dwelling on the past, when I remastered the Tappan King song, a relic of glorious days gone. It was awful, and I’m sure that she was appropriately remorseful the moment she posted it.

I quote:

“Hmmmm, Rory, I think navel-gazing absorption in past activities is the very definition of middle-aged goofiness.

And female bass players do rock. Our cross is that we just have to put up with the guitarists’ wanking.”

So, I decided it was time to do some new wanking.

I spent the entire evening making a song, just for her. But not about her.

As writers, we don’t show our first drafts around much, because the voice in our head tells us just how bad we suck. This can degenerate to the point that we don’t show last drafts around, either. Because, if we do, our friends and colleagues will suddenly realize just how stupid and talentless we actually are. And we will no longer even be able to deny it to ourselves. My Inner Critic got so strong for so long that I quit writing for nearly a decade. My Inner Critic was powerful enough to stop me before I even began.

I’m over that now.

You’re supposed to play it loud.

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 The Metaphor Song [4:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Kick-Ass Mystic Ninja’s Podcast (Talking Old School Sci-Fi and Fantasy: The Past Is Always Present), did a show on my book Jumper last month which I blogged. Two weeks ago, they did an interview with me and it is now live. We talk about why Jumper was one of the top 100 banned books in America, 1990-1999 (per the ALA Banned Books List) and why I wrote it in the first place and what they’re doing with the movie (as much as Non-Disclosure Agreements let me.) And I learn that, as least for one specific segment of audience, having Rachel Bilson in one’s movie is a good thing.Well, she may be hot, but she’s no Caroline Spector. Link (26 minutes).

(By the way, it was number 94, near the bottom of the list, between Stephen King’s Christine and a non-fiction book on sex education. And then that gosh-darned Rowling woman came along and knocked us all off the list in 2000, anyway. Who knows? If the movie gets enough new people to read the book, maybe, just mabye, it’ll chin-up its way back on to the list.)