Some of you will be seeing this info for the second time as I posted it to the SHU boards, but here it is:

I did it! I wrote 25,000 words in a month!

My weekend was crazy, up and down, lots of stories to tell (later), but the one constant was writing, baby! I set my goal of 25k words at the start of the semester, to be completed by the first deadline, and with three days left to go I did it. I stared down that bastard goal and whooped its ass!

More details later, both about the process of accomplishing the goal and the weekend I had. My mind is pistoning so fast right now I can't really think, so I'm going to cook dinner and then plop down for a movie, all in the hopes that I can quiet my brain.

Let's hear it for 25,000 words!

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Most of you know I've been pretty down about my R rating. So I've instituted "sex" breaks to ensure I up myself to a minimum NC-17 (although an X rating would ROCK!). 

Sex, sex, sex, sex.

Mine will be the Tourette's of LiveJournal. Okay, maybe not.

Sex, sex, sex, sex, orgy. 

Orgy's not so much a swear word, I know, but I'm trying to bring it into vogue. 

Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, orgy.

Okay, sex, that's enough sex for now. 

Sex.

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In one of Aubrey’s replies yesterday, she called me a nice guy. I gasped and performed a quick once-over to ensure my masculinity was still intact. While I was only jagging her on my reply, I did confirm there’s a story behind my allergic reaction to the term “nice guy” that needed to be told. Game as we are for stories, I thought, “Why not today?” It’s Friday, after all, and we deserve something fun. (Names have been changed to protect those who don’t know I’m writing this. Also, it's a longer post, but very entertaining and worth it. I promise.)

I was President of the Nice Guy Union from age 14 to 26. My twelve-year reign saw us act nice, take hardly any risks, and lose the girls to the bad boys. Not to mention all the weeping and gnashing of teeth that went on behind closed doors. We excelled at that. Of course, we never got mad at each other, and we certainly never got in one another’s grill about our life/dating mishaps. Instead we stuffed it down and rededicated ourselves to the niceness that we were certain women would someday see as a more desirable quality than the recklessness of our arch rivals, the Bad Boy Fun Club, aka the Bad Boy Tattoo Gang, aka the Prick Commission.

Re-elected as I was to six—count ‘em, SIX—consecutive terms, I ran on the slogan that “Nice Is Nice,” promising victory within our ranks as soon as Maturity met Common Sense and led it into the bedroom of Wisdom. Voter turnout reached record numbers, and I won in a landslide. It helped that the other guy’s slogan was, “Nice Is Nice, I Agree.” But being nice guys and not wanting to hurt feelings, they made him my VP and we moved ahead with bidness.

But it was right around Year Twelve of my presidency when everything went to hell in a fruit basket. I met a dance major named Bonnie. Bonnie was the smokingest, hottest, geekiest, coolest girl I’d yet met (she was also 19 to my 26—yikes!). I took her dancing, we stayed up late chatting, we ate out, we went for walks, I met her brother, she invited me to her dance workshop, we fell asleep watching movies (on the couch! On the couch!)—in short, I showed her all the attention that a nice guy who likes a girl feels he’s supposed to show her in order to woo her socks off (and only the socks; scrape your mind out of the gutter). Where Nice Guy Game was concerned, I had all the right moves and struck all the right chords. Call me Jerry Lee Lewis playing “Great Balls of Fire.” I was so on fire, I had to stop, drop, and roll, baby!

And at first, Bonnie dug me. You can just tell these things sometimes. Reports in the Union sent the membership buzzing. A nice guy getting the hot chick? A geeky cool hot chick at that? It appeared my long-held campaign promises would materialize and I would forever be enshrined in the Nice Guy Hall of Fame. At long last, light at the end of the dating tunnel! I kept up my game, holding steady the same note for which all nice guys are famous. That single key rung loud and clear throughout all the land, pointing down every single bad boy who ever stole one of our prospects while screaming at them, “Who’s got game now, bitch?”

The note continued. One piano key. Keep it up, Chris! Cross the finish line!

Bonnie’s response?

*yawn*

Friends, lead balloons don’t sink faster than I did.

Calls became infrequent. Then down to nothing. She excused herself into other circles. Circles with—you guessed it—bad boys.

Our Titanic had sunk. We were now clinging to the toothpick remnants of our busted vessel. The Union still spoke to me, of course, but no longer from behind smiles. No longer from the warmth of their hearts. The arctic chill of the waters numbed us to the pain. The only pain we’d ever known. The pain of losing out to the bad boys.

Our numbers stayed the same, but confusion surfaced as the order of the day. Calls for a new leader came wrapped in whisper, penned on notes, hinted in emails. Board meetings focused on the big issues, still unanswered after all those years: How to get respect? How to get confidence? How to get the girl? I saw these questions in their eyes, mixed as they were with disappointment and despair. A handful of men swore off women altogether. “I’d rather be celibate,” many of them told me. What response could be adequate for a room full of guys who feel weak and downtrodden? Guys unwilling to change or buck up? There wasn’t a good reply or a solid direction I could take them. I felt the crown of my presidency sliding off my head.

Then, two months later, a hurricane struck. It’s name? Hurricane Cristobal!

In the solitary confines of my office I made a decision: I’ll play their game. I’ll play the bad boy’s game and I’ll ramp it up a notch, leave ‘em as stunned as a monkey doing a math problem. They will see me in action and know that I perfected what they started, that I claimed this land in the name of nice guys everywhere! “I am Hurricane Cristobal,” I said. “King Kong ain’t got shit on me!”

First up: Kate and Melissa. I melded the best of the Nice Guy (considerate, genuine) with the best of the Bad Boy (risk-taking, flirty, real). Both were hooked. I saw them for a few weeks before sensing a deeper connection with Kate, making our exclusivity official. We dated a year and a half.

Next up: Alice and Lisa. Same Nice-Bad Combo. Same sweet results. Alice moved out of town. Dated Lisa for more than a year.

All four of these girls were Bonnies. When Kate and Melissa came into the picture, the Nice Guy Union hummed with excitement yet again. But knowing I had secretly mixed the best of what both sides had to offer, I couldn’t retain the title of President in good faith. So after Kate and I started going “steady,” I owned up to my blatant disregard for Union rules and stepped down amidst scandal. It wasn’t a pretty time for the Union, or for my relationship with the membership. Some semi un-nice comments were made. The Board asked me to clean out my desk in three days. Or whenever was most convenient for me.

I still get the newsletter. My former VP will most likely get re-elected next Spring under the slogan, “Nice Guys Finish Second, Not Last.”

Some things never change.

In the interim, I formed the Good Guy Group. Filled to the brink with honest, flirty, confident, risk-taking men, we treat women with respect and honor, but know how to show them a good time they won’t soon forget, one that highlights the best alternative to the Nice Guys and the Bad Boys. Almost everyone in our club is dating or seeing someone, and for those who aren’t, well, they have enough confidence to know they’ll attract someone soon enough. Some of us are married, too, or headed in that direction. After all, why stop being a good guy once you meet your Bonnie?

Nice Guys kind of like us, Bad Boys try to alpha-male us, but we’re not panicked. We’ve been here before. We know we hold the key, the true dynamic to what makes a real man. And we certainly don’t scare easily.

I’m due for re-election in the fall. My slogan? Borrowing from the Geto Boys and Office Space: “Damn, It Feels Good To Be a Good Guy.”

My mind’s all a-jumble this morning as I determine about what I want to write, so I thought, “To hell with it. I’ll just write about every damn thing.” 

I’m realizing how much of a different person I am at res than at home. I go right up to people, I make more jokes, I’m more group-oriented, more optimistic, more fun, more brash, louder, more confident, etc., etc. All very good things. And not that I don’t display these same traits at home, but I definitely scale back. I don’t loose the full force of my personality on people around here on the assumption I’d be casting my pearls before swine. But now I’m thinking, “Screw them. Let’s just have fun!” 

This hit me yesterday when my boss said something that pissed me off. I defended my work, as we all have to do at this job, but was still so miffed at what she said I had to take a break to my car. Once there, I popped in the Maroon 5 CD that I listened to on my way home from res. Hearing the same songs I heard after the high of res reminded me how much fun I had last week with my bad, unadulterated self, and I shook off my boss’ comments, deciding not to let her or anything else push me back into my half-shell. And I didn’t. We had a meeting later that morning where I just acted naturally, as if I was at res, and it was fun. I actually had fun at work! You can even see this attitude in my comments and replies yesterday. People at work have responded to it, too, saying they like the new Chris better than the old one. Life won’t keep me down!

Yesterday, when a co-worker tried faxing a document to a client and received a busy signal, she asked if it meant the fax was busy (and this is a younger, tech-saavy-ish girl). I convinced her that the fax machine was trying to communicate with her in Morse code...AND SHE BELIEVED ME! File this under my goofy sense of humor and her extreme gullibility.

Funniest moment from res? Tricia taking $20 to grab Will’s ass on a dare. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Worst moment of res? Confusion and drama. ‘Nuff said. 

And now everyone’s thinking, “Ooh, what’s he talking about? I bet I know!” Chances are, however, that you don’t. :)

Ranking this res on the scale of most fun residencies: 3 of 3

Ranking this res on the scale of most challenging residencies: 1 of 3 (I learned I’m in the homestretch now, and as such, must keep my nose to the grindstone)

Ranking this res on both the fun and challenging scales: 1 of 3 (Odd how that works, no?)

Number of days I’ve written since returning home: 3 of 3. I have to keep up the streak!

A good buddy of mine, now married and with his first daughter as of three weeks ago, doesn’t seem to really be growing up with the rest of us. He’s the same ol’ person he’s pretty much always been, out to tell everyone when they’re wrong and when he’s right, getting too competitive during games, letting his wife baby him, not treating other’s time as his own, etc. When he married, the gulf between our ability to relate widened a bit. With the birth of his daughter, that chasm has yawned and stretched and cracked open like Vesuvius. I sometimes forget he has a daughter, mostly because, in my opinion, he doesn’t act like he has one. Still the same ol’ person. This doesn’t seem right, does it?

Contrast this with my other good friend. When he and his wife adopted their twins, everything changed for them, and you could see it right away. Oddly enough, I relate better to them than to my other friend. Interesting.

Provocative closing thought (As with all provocative thoughts, the management does not necessarily agree or disagree; we’re merely the messenger. Don’t shoot the messenger): Men only have to think they’re hot to be hot. Women, on the other hand, must be hot to be hot. Thoughts?

Party on, peeps.

The Funk Doctor is back, baby! Don’t play games; you know ya’ll missed me. ;)

Why did I leave you hanging this way? Well, I got sick, then scrambled to finish my work, had an epiphany or two, handled the big marriage question, rocked the casbah a little, answered the big marriage question (in fact, answered the girlfriend question with it), killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled the trigger, now he’s dead, my body ached all the time, went to SHU, I moved, I painted, I worked out, I upped my wardrobe, I got new glasses, I lost weight, I got game, and I broke all the little girls’ hearts. Sufficient?

But I’m here today and here to stay. Ain’t nothing can keep a good man down. I’ll write more in a bit. I’m out—

After watching the coin perform revolutions in mid-air, it has finally landed. Repeat, the coin has landed. And it is with great pleasure that I announce to you...(drumroll, please)...Suspense wins!

I chewed on the questions people asked and talked to KJ Howe about my genre schizophrenia. KJ told me why Suspense appealed to her more and how she tries to sprinkle elements of Mystery in her writing when appropriate. And then focusing on pure Mystery writing, she said this: "I feel boxed in or suffocated (with Saran Wrap!) with the logical aspects of a mystery.  I like adrenaline and emotion."

That proved to be a resonation bang. Right away I saw myself in those comments, more when I attempt to write Mystery than read it. Again, reading Mys is great, but when writing it I've found I become straight-jacketed at all the logical threads and loose ends of which I need to keep track. Sus deals with strategy, with burying the character alive and figuring a way to Houdini him out. I realized that I really dig that (pardon the pun) more than finding the next piece of a puzzle. Let's call this Revelation #1.

Revelation #2 came later that night when I reviewed some very early notes I had written about my book. Roughly paraphrased, I said, "By the end of the story, my hero can no longer do what he once did. He is a different person." My lightbulbs did not go off, friends, they exploded. White, pulsating light soaked my mental waiting room and I screamed, "This couldn't be more obvious!"

So I got to work on plotting my story as Suspense. Two things happened: 1) Elements of Mystery crept in here and there, just as KJ said happens with her, and 2) Plotting went a helluva lot faster and easier. I can now safely say I'm having a blast plotting my novel and will have an even bigger kick-ass time writing it. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I've found myself. At last (cue Etta James).

If I ever figure how to craft a Mystery that doesn't have holes and is as much fun to write, then I'll consider it. If I can perform the near impossible alien-human hybrid of a Mystery-Suspense novel, then I'll go down that road. But for now, call me Sus, as in Sus Pence. Get it? Because my last name is Pence? I know, corny. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my Suspense novel.