Tyranny of the blank page? I don't think so.

Believe it or not, it's not the blank pages in front of me that are intimidating. I know where I'm going, and I have the directions sitting next to me, guiding my fingers across the keyboard.

No, the real problem is the army of words built up behind my blinking cursor. 491 pages. 126,064 words. Waiting to be let loose. Waiting impatiently for these final chapters to take form as ones and zeros. Then comes the inevitable point where I push these digits out into the world, well beyond the small collection of friends and family who have held this nest in their hands.

I am not sure this army ready. I'm not sure I am either. I know there will be rewrites. I know that, even done, it's never done. But, right now, is it good enough? Is it good at all?

There are great opening lines, sentences that grab you, pull you in, and keep you reading till you turn that final page.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. -- Gibson

It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. -- Larsson

All this happened, more or less. -- Vonnegut

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. -- Tyler

When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. -- McCarthy

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. -- Orwell

Will my words make it onto someone else's list?

Some of Chapter 19

Alex trailed off as he thought about the magazines he had hidden away inside the lining of the suitcase. He should have brought them out last night and shared them with Simon just as they had done that time a few years earlier after finding one of his father's magazines. They had been convinced, as all kids are at that age, that their parents were holding out on them, that there must be a secret stash of money that they'd squirreling away over the years. All they came across was a single magazine in a box on the top shelf of a bookcase in the garage. For a few seconds they were quite disappointed at the lack of money, but that quickly gave way to excitement at the prospect of looking through a dirty magazine. It was dusty, clearly untouched for a while, which was the only reason Alex agreed to let Simon slide it under his shirt and slip away upstairs with it, hiding it on a hard to reach shelf at the top of Alex's bedroom closet. Not that Alex would have had much luck stopping Simon, who had initially wanted to start browsing through the magazine right there in the garage. Alex convinced Simon to wait and spend the night. The boys regularly took turns sleeping over at each other's houses during the summer, so Alex's father wasn't surprised by the sudden request that Simon be allowed to stay till tomorrow. After dinner Alex grabbed his own sleeping bag, and his father's, and laid them out on his bedroom floor. If the weather had been nicer, he'd have preferred setting up the tent out back and smuggling the magazine out of the house, but that wasn't an option.

They waited till Alex was sure his father was asleep before Simon grabbed the magazine and returned to the sleeping bag he was using on the floor. The boys spent well over an hour flipping back and forth through the pages of the magazine as they lay in their separate sleeping bags, attempting to subtly shift their positions periodically, hoping to get more comfortable yet still trying to hide the bulges in their shorts from each other. They were looking at the last page of pictures, for the second or third time, when Alex heard the familiar creaking sound of the stairs just a few feet from his door and realized that he'd been so caught up in the pictures that he'd been oblivious to the fact that his father had woken up. Alex grabbed the magazine and shoved it into his sleeping bag. He climbed out of the bag, reaching for the lamp on his desk. He could sense his father just outside the door and had a split second to make a decision. He could either continue for the light and hope he got it switched off before his father opened the door finding Alex in a state that no son wants to be caught in by their father, or he could head right back into the bag. He opted for the latter option and had barely made it all the way back into the sleeping bag when his father knocked gently on the door and pushed it open. Both boys were lying in their bags, eyes closed, pretending to sleep. "Nice try, guys. It's time to turn off the light."

So I'm writing a book.

I'm at just over 100,000 words, roughly 400 pages, probably another 100 pages to go. I thought I'd be done by now. Hell, I thought I'd be done 100 pages ago. So much for that. When I finally do finish I'll go back and revise what I've written, taking out the completely crappy parts and fixing the broken ones. I'd like to think that this scene I just wrote, part of what is now chapter 25, will remain:

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It wasn't the blood. There wasn't much of it, only where the welts crossed over each other, and Alex had never been squeamish about blood to begin with.

It wasn't the pain. The worst had been when the belt actually made contact with Christian's skin. Everything since was just an echo.

No, it was the entire awful scene. The stoned young woman, barely a woman, with cold dead eyes. The boy, Christian, unable to defend himself from some horrific torturer, tiny rivulets of blood rolling down his back. This nightmare that the boy and his sister were forced to relive. And it was the total lack of feeling from those two unwilling participants. The girl so broken by drugs, she didn't know how to feel. The boy so broken by pain, he had given up, at least till the wounds healed, hope returned, and the cycle began again.

It was that scene that caused Alex to lose control of his stomach. He had seen death, his father's and nearly his own. He'd had the most awful thoughts pushed into his mind as he slept. His body had become a toy in the hands of a demon. But it was this scene, man made, horrific, repeated in homes throughout the world... It was this scene that made Alex sick.

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Drivers of New Jersey

Seriously, what is so difficult about "keep right except to pass"? Not only is it the law on the streets of New Jersey, there are very helpful signs all along Route's 42, 295, the Garden State Park, the NJ Turnpike, and every other major highway to remind drivers of this fact. I don't care if you are supposed to exit on the left in ten miles; you don't need to be in that lane now. And stop giving me dirty looks if I manage to slip past you in the right lane as we approach a light because you think I'm trying to pass you on the right before my lane ends. I'm in the lane I'm supposed to be in. Deal with it.

Next up... See that easy to reach switch on your steering column? That controls your turn signals. Use it.

If you come to a red light where you will be turning left, and someone on the opposite side is going forward, you do not have the right of way when that light changes unless you happen to have a turning light. You know... it's one of those green lights shaped like an arrow pointing left. And if you needed me to describe it, then you shouldn't be driving in the first place. People going forward at an intersection have the right of way over people turning left.

Oh, and you left turners... If you aren't in the intersection by the time the light turns red, you are running a red light. This is true for anyone, of course, but I see this all the time with idiots turning left who want to squeeze through. If you're not sure if you can make it through the intersection in time, you can't.

If there is a middle lane on your road, with arrows painted in the middle, pointing to the left, that's a turning lane. Please use it when turning left. It is not a driving lane. Do not cruise down this lane, pass in this lane, or otherwise do stupid things in it. This means that if you are turning left out of a parking lot or side street, you should not be turning into this lane. You are supposed to turn into the closest driving lane. Please learn the difference.

And, finally, the closer you are to my rear bumper, the slower I'm going to drive. It has nothing to do with wanting to piss you off. No, seriously. With someone so close, I just want to make sure that I won't have to brake short and hard, ending up with you in my backseat.

Adam

The I-95 Gap (or Lost in New Jersey)

Interstate 95 is one of the most important highways in the United States. It is the longest interstate highway running from north to south in the United States. You can take it from Miami, Florida to the Maine/Canadian border. It is the single most critical highway along the east coast. And it's a lie. You see, it is completely impossible to drive the length of I-95 between those two locations without leaving I-95. To be fair, though, it's not actually the driver and car that leaves I-95, but it's I-95 that does the leaving.

I-95 enters Pennsylvania between Wilmington, Delaware and Philadelphia. It roughly parallels the Delaware River between Philly and the Scudder's Fall bridge, north of Trenton, NJ, where I-95 crosses over into New Jersey. About two miles into New Jersey, it stops it's north-easterly direction, and heads due east. After another five miles in New Jersey, Interstate 95 disappears. It vanishes. One moment you're on I-95 north, and the next moment you're driving on I-295 south. If you continue on this highway you will mostly parallel the Delaware River on the New Jersey side, heading south to the Delaware Memorial Bridge, dropping you back into Delaware on, you guessed it, I-95. If, on the other hand, you're coming from the north, into New Jersey, and you want to continue on I-95 south all the way to Miami, you stand a much better chance of success, though I-95 will disappear for you as well. Technically this happens roughly where the New Jersey Turnpike and the Pennsylvania Turnpike meet at exit 6 of the NJ Turnpike. One second you're on I-95 (which is concurrent with the NJ Turnpike) and the next second I-95 is gone, and you're just left with the NJ Turnpike. The NJ Turnpike will, in fact, take you all the way to the Delaware Memorial Bridge, where you can go over the Delaware River and hop back onto I-95 south.

There is roughly a 10 mile gap between those two loose ends of I-95. For 10 miles, I-95 disappears. This is nowhere near the NJ Pine Barrens, where you'd expect things to disappear. At the locations where I-95 suddenly disappears there are signs of various sizes declaring “To I-95” and prompting you to follow specific directions. Heading northbound on I-95, you will start to see those signs right around U.S. Route 1. You were on I-95 northbound, and you suddenly start seeing signs “To 95N”. You must drive south on I-295 for roughly 10 miles till you come to I-195, which you will travel east on for about three miles, before hitting the NJ Turnpike, which is also I-95 at that point.

Thankfully, this travesty of confusion will be rectified in the next decade. Construction is set to begin this spring on a new interchange to run between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95 in Bristol Township, PA. It it set to be completed in 2014. Till then, try not to get lost in New Jersey.

Adam