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Until Night Falls Again: Coscomment 2006 Coming Soon
2007-02-20 09:48:00
Just a heads up, folks:There isn't a problem with the blog. All of 2006's entries have been taken down as preparations are being made to publish them as a paperback, with a summer or fall 2007 release date. (Official date to be announced soon.)So get ready--Until Night Falls Again : Coscomment 2006 is coming.(And wait'll ya see the cover art. Some cool things planned.)Seriously, though, thank you for reading Coscomment each and every week for the past 14 months.Stay tuned...
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Human Ailments: Kids and Teens Forget Their Place
2007-02-14 06:48:00
My wife and I have been in our apartment building for just over two years. In that time we’ve seen tenants come and go and have had to say good-bye to those who had grown to become close friends. It’s painful to watch them go, but we’re also glad for them because they’re moving on to bigger and better things.A few months back, some new tenants moved in, two separate families. Both have teenage daughters who have since become pals. You see them hanging around the building, sitting in the halls talking, sneaking off for cigarettes even though they’re only roughly fourteen or fifteen years old.I often pass them when I go out for a smoke and coffee prior to writing. Most of them time it’s a general “Hi,� or “How’s it going?� Just mere pleasantries between the three of us. I even spent some time talking to one of the girls back when she first moved in.Here’s the problem and the current “human ailment� bothering my brain:I was out having my pre-writing smoke a ...
More About: Kids , Teens , Men , Human , Place

Getting a Screwdriver in the Face
2007-02-09 09:56:00
Nearly ten years ago I had my wisdom teeth removed.All FIVE of them.It was one of them two times I got so high I couldn’t remember a thing (the other was one night when I took a few too many extra sleeping pills in the hopes of crashing after being unable to sleep for over a day, before going out with a friend to see Entrapment; to this day I can’t remember going to the movies at all).I was 17 and my parents took me down mid morning for the surgery. All I remember is the nurse hooking me up to the IV, pumping me full of morphine and sedative, and placing a warm cloth over my eyes. All went black. Until......I awoke mid surgery, darkness my only sight, feeling a profound pressure on my jaw. Soft voices spoke jumbled words on each side. I grunted in objection to the pain.Then all was quiet.The next thing I knew I was sitting up in the operating chair, my jaw and cheeks sensitive to the touch. I didn’t know where I was or even who I was. My dad came up beside me, let me sit a few...
More About: Drive , Driver , River , Face , Screw

The Final Mile
2007-01-31 07:39:00
Being on the verge of finishing a new book is like being on the last leg of long a race. You can see the finish line clear before you, you’re tired, out of breath; your heart races and you can almost feel that ribbon break across your chest. And despite your fatigue, the excitement to finish the race gives you a second wind, makes you push yourself a little bit harder and you begin running the race afresh, as if taking off from the starting line for the first time.I’m almost finished a new novel. A little over 4/5 done, give or take a few thousand words. I started October 9, 2006. It’s now almost four months later and I expect to be done within the next week or so, if I keep up my current pace. A part of me wants to finish the novel right away and just get it over with; not for lack of ideas or of story, but because I’m eager to finish the journey. For those of us who are regular readers (and even more so if one is a writer), we live many lives. Not only do we live our own l...
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Figuring Out God
2007-01-25 07:12:00
A friend of mine is an agnostic, which means that he doesn’t believe in God but yet also doesn’t deny the possibility that He is real. In other words, he’s not sure. He and I have had many conversations on God and Christianity in the past, most if not all of which have taken place since I decided to get serious with the Lord back in the fall of 2005. My friend is waiting for a confirmation on the inside, a feeling of “Yes, God is real so now I will believe.� Fair enough. A person should know that what they believe in is true. I’ve also encountered similar sentiments on various message boards from others who are on the same path, ones where they’re either waiting for something or waiting to figure this whole God thing out before giving their lives to Him.This sort of thinking poses a danger on two fronts, the immediate one being that you might die today. Who among us can say with 100% full confidence that we will get of bed tomorrow morning? Who among us can confirm tha...
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Writing Methods: Being a Doer
2007-01-17 05:59:00
I believe writers are a dime a dozen. I also believe nearly everyone has the capability of writing a complete novel. Yet I also believe, in comparison, that very few actually finish what they start or even attempt to begin.It’s about passion.Many folks have told me that they have this great idea for a book, or they say almost dreamily, “I’d like to write a book one day.�My question to them is always, “Well, why not write it right now?�Then I’m hit with a myriad of excuses, many of which aren’t excuses at all. The most common one is the old favorite, “Maybe I’ll write it when I have more time.�The main problem, I think, is that most people look at a book in terms of the final outcome, that is a multitude of pages slapped between two covers. This is the wrong way to look at writing, an act that is in and of itself not only a creative one, but also a process. No writer has ever sat down and suddenly a book has appeared before them. Each and every author out there ...
More About: Writing , Methods , Bein , Being , Method

Appearances
2007-01-11 03:38:00
I will be the first to admit that I’m not the greatest looking guy in the world. If you were to rank me on the scale of “1-to-hot,� I’d be somewhere around a -8. It’s a truth I’ve come to accept after years of seeing myself side by side with other gentlemen and those who look like they belong on the cover of GQ. However, this self-knowledge of mine hasn’t seemed to stop others from pointing it out, out of the blue. I may not have the most phenomenal body and I may not have the most stylish hairdo—but in the end, I also understand the greatest truth, and that is outward appearance amounts to nothing.But tell that to the image-oriented, sex-obsessed world we live in.The truth is, I’m not insulted when someone decides to bring up my looks in a conversation and how if I only cut my hair or shaved my beard, I’d be a good looking guy. I’ve been the victim of such talk from not only family members and friends, but strangers as well.A classic example was a buddy of min...
More About: Appearances , Pear , Appearance

Human Ailments: Crosswalks and Superpowers
2007-01-04 09:41:00
Everyone likes to wish they had superpowers now and then. Some—like myself, admittedly—more than now and then. Either way, we all dream of being capable of something more. For some it’s the wish to fly, others it’s super strength. Some would love to see through solid objects and many would like to read minds (especially guys who have no clue about the fairer sex). Some would like to be invincible. And then there’s those who use crosswalks. They think they are invincible.Every city needs crosswalks, but not every city needs the people who use them.Back when I got my learner’s permit, I was in my parents’ van, the rest of my family with me. It was rainy lightly. All of the sudden, the massive van with the enormous silver bumper in front of me slammed on its brakes. Seeing the bright red lights at the rear of the vehicle, I quickly took my foot of the gas and applied it to the brakes. Immediately I was hydroplaning so I began to pump. Within a second I crashed my parentsâ...
More About: Power , Men , Human , Super , Cross