Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: blogger

  • Happy Birthday "Book Of Jamez" – 10 Years

    Ten years ago today I started blogging. I started this site out on Blogger and moved it to WordPress when I changed my name as there were issues with changing my email address and linking it to the site. I average about 5 posts a month – sometimes I post up to 15 stories a month, sometimes only 2 – depending on what I’m willing to put out there.

    One of the first stories I blogged was …and it sold comics where I talked about death and dying in comic books and how Supergirl’s death back in the 80s was a significant moment for me. But I went on to talk about the seeming resurrection of all heroes and how it’s just used for sales purposes instead of a good story that touches the heart. I recently cancelled my comic subscription box at the store as both DC and Marvel apparently used up all their ideas and are retelling stories and undoing some of those changes that kept me reading about characters. If they get done with Secret Wars and Convergence in the near future and stories aren’t too complicated to figure out again I’ll start reading them again, but it’s just a mess.

    I also wrote about a trip to visit my good friend Julie in Cleveland OH in the story Fish Pride. She had left DC and moved and I missed her (still do, she’s pretty great). I should go visit again – that was ten years ago and her kids are almost all grown up now. Julie actually lived in Phoenix once upon a time and really liked it here.

    It was the year I quit smoking too – I was often complaining about the smell of smokers after that – still today it’s just nasty to be in an elevator or to kiss one (I no longer date/fuck/make out with smokers no matter what). I was bitching about one of those things that I used to love to do… and I had only been smoke free 6 months when I wrote Ex Smokers Soap Box.

    I went back to college in 2005 and wrote a lot about classes and shared stories I wrote for school. Many months there were 15 – 18 posts a month. Some great things that I wrote that I still love are Foster Home, Race for the Cure, Creepy Guy on the Bike, and My Knuckles are White – I think I’m a little calmer driving now after two years of living in Phoenix.

    I write a lot of stories because I like writing – I love getting the thoughts that are running through my head down on virtual paper and sometimes other people like what I have to write – sometimes they don’t. Whether it’s liked or not I have to get it out of my head – once it’s been put down here I can move on to something else. I don’t publish everything here, somethings are inappropriate and some items I’m working on long term hoping that they become something eventually.

    To all my readers new and old thanks for taking a look – I’m going to keep on doing this thing until my fingers don’t work anymore.

  • Writing

    The earliest things I remember writing for pleasure were stories of Pegasus II and Cygnus with my friend Ted, I think we started talking about them in Spanish class (as we weren’t big on paying attention). We had characters that were partially named after Spanish verbs like “Jorge Dar” was a character. It was our comic book based on ourselves and my practicing religion of the ancient Greek gods. It was interesting to try to write in a way that I found readable – I’m not very good with dialogue still to this day, but I keep trying. I kept writing those stories until I was about 21 or 22.

    Once in a while I’d write a different story – a house fire and all the neighbors come and gawk, the little girls charred doll clutched in her hands and the father drives off in their Buick regal,  I liked that one, don’t know what happened to it; a student struggling to learn something new in class and the teacher who just wouldn’t change the way he taught – it was very rough; the rock and roll band playing in local bars, drinking and causing trouble… stories that kind of reflected what was going on with me and how I lived.

    Then I didn’t write for a good long time.

    In drug and alcohol treatment they suggested I keep a journal and write down my thoughts and actions for the day – I wasn’t a big fan of that idea, it reflected on when my Ma found my diary on my bed and was mad at what I wrote. It was shortly after xmas and I had received underwear, socks and t-shirts (among many other things I’m sure) and I whined a bit… ok, maybe a lot, in my diary about receiving socks and underwear. Her thinking at the time was that I left it our purposefully so she’d see it, but I doubt I was that clever – sometimes I was just a whiny teenager who enjoyed complaining. So keeping my thoughts on paper where someone else could see them didn’t seem like a good idea – I’m often misunderstood. 🙂

    In 1998 I was published in The Grapevine. I had read in the magazine that they needed stories to print from members. So I thought for a good long time and then wrote my piece they put in their wet drunk section. I have that framed as it was the first thing that made it out of my paper and into something else.

    It was 1999 when I started working at Children’s Hospital in Washington DC. I made some fast friends in my department and connected departments – one of those was Staci. Staci is a psychologist, that means she asks lots of questions, and many lunches were spent with her, Christy and others just talking. When I would share stories Staci would listen intently and sometimes she would say “You should write a book.” I never really took her seriously, this was just my life we were talking about nothing that would capture anyone’s attention.

    But that suggestion stayed with me and I started to jot down notes here and there and eventually decided to write where I could keep it always (I remembered not being able to find my old stories) so with the internet being new and blogs not that popular yet, I launched “Jamez in the life” on Blogger in 2005, and I started to write about whatever was on my mind.

    So of course the first story had to be about comic books. I wrote about death in comic books and how one time it mattered and then it didn’t. Then I wrote about a visit to my friend Julie’s (she also always wanted me to write a book) and smoking (as I had recently quit).

    Shortly after that I went to school for a year (just to prove I could do it) and then I began to write for grades and wrote about learning, that was pretty exciting… and I even wrote about the dreaded math… During school I posted 15 to 20 stories a month, usually pretty short.

    I try to get 4 posts a month now and sometimes that’s a struggle. It’s not that I don’t want to write, things get in the way or there are things that I can’t write about for confidentiality reasons and some porn that shouldn’t go here (I did submit it to a magazine though).

    I often have many different stories in my head all rambling around trying to find a place to go and when they coalesce I obsess about them and on occasion can’t sleep until I get them out on paper (or the electronic equivalent as the case usually is – though I did write about a savage beating I stopped, on paper as I didn’t own a laptop at the time.)

    My friend Staci came to Scottsdale this week to talk about some new therapy that she’s really excited about – it includes mindfulness meditation, of which I’m a big fan. So she and her husband had dinner with me and I let her know about my blog, she might even stop in and read a story or two. I hope she likes it – it was her idea after all 🙂 We even talked a bit about her research and meditation being good for you and how it seems so hard to find the time to do it.

    I’m glad I have this outlet – sometimes just writing something out can change my attitude on a situation – seeing it play out across the scenes and help me to see other points of view and become a better person.