Earlier this summer I found my Fortress of Solitude. I'm not going to tell you where it is, because there are already too many people there. Just know this. It is a beautiful, magical place where you can forget about silly things like plots and characters and just stare across a lake at a mountain for an entire afternoon.

Today I finished Book I of The Monkey & the Barrell trilogy. Oh there’s still a few things to tidy up here and there. There always will be until it’s published. But it’s basically done.

And, as always, it feels weird. You work on something almost every day for over a year. Starting with nothing and adding a page or two a day. Feeling like it’ll take you a decade to finish it. Sometimes loving what you’re writing, other times hating it. Most times not knowing what to think, as you sit there, writing in your little bubble.

Then one day you realize that you’re at the end. You’ve told the story you set out to tell. And you think, dear Lord. How did that happen? You print out this ridiculously huge stack of paper. It’s a whole damn ream. All 85,000 words of it. And you stare at this stack and you say "I did that?"

It’s kind of like when you take a huge crap. After sitting on the toilet for hours, days, weeks, years. Using every ounce of strength and focus you can muster. You finally stand up, turn around, and see this massive thing that came out of you. You think, that was inside me? How is that possible?

You don’t know whether to be scared, disgusted, or happy that it’s finally out. Part of you wants to scoop it all up and put it back inside you. You think, what if other people see this? They’ll make fun of it and me. Quick! Hide it! Shove it down your throat! Then you say no, no, no. That’s not right. Don’t do that. Just flush the damn thing. Flush it out into the world and let them decide what to do with it. You’ve done your part. Now it’s their turn.

So get ready, folks. Something that came out of me is on its way to you. I’m not sure when yet, but it’s coming. And when it gets there I want you to be nice to it dammit. It’s a little piece of me. And even though it put me through hell, I love the son-of-a-bitch.

Also, this post is disgusting.

There is, apparently, a creeping sideways-walking gnome terrorizing a town in Argentina. This is no joke. And it scares the hell out of me.

Here's a video that a bunch of kids caught of the gnome. It doesn't come out until the very end, but when it does...dear lord. The sideways-walking is what's really going to give me nightmares.

But for the most part I'm just this mysterious creature who spends his days hidden deep within his apartment. People walk by, see me in the window, and they say, "What the hell is he writing in there?"

Here's what:

1. Finishin' The Monkey & the Barrel
The book is coming along well and I hope to finish it by spring. As with anything I'm currently working on, I think it's the best thing I've ever done. Of course once it's done I'll think that it's crap. This is the curse of the fool. Never satisfied with what he's done.

2. Fiddlin' with Lick Your Neighbor
In the year since I finished this book I've had some more ideas pop into my head for revisions. That's what happens when you write a book and it sits unpublished. You keep thinking of stuff to add and stuff to take out. So once Monkey is done I'm going to tinker away on Lick for a couple months, just to purge all the stuff that's been running around in my head.

3. Percolatin' an Unnamed Comic Series
I've wanted to work on a serialized comic for quite some time, but I always put it off because I can't draw. Luckily, I've finally come to the brilliant realization that other people can draw, and that I can work with them on a project. Sometimes it's hard for novelists to remember that a thing called "collaboration" exists.

It's going to be something similar to manga. Or I guess we'd call it Amerimanga, since I'm not Japanese. Yet. I'm going to begin work on this while I do the LYN revisions, so hopefully I'll have stuff to show people this summer.

4. Dealin' with the wild kingdom forming in my backyard
There is a small colony of five feral cats living in my neighborhood. A feral cat is basically a wild, homeless cat. Kind of like a hobo. They look like this:

They're actually just like house cats only they were born in the wild, live in colonies, and don't like people very much. This one colony has taken to using my backyard as somewhat of a playground, mainly because there's a bird feeder out there and they like to stalk and pounce on the birds and squirrels it attracts. And also because I feed them delicious food because I'm a sucker for cats.

Since there are tens of thousands of feral cats in NYC, I decided that instead of just feeding these cats I should do something to help solve the problem. What I did was go to a training at the ASPCA on how to trap, neuter, and return feral cats to their territory. Or TNR for short. It's the in-thing to do to control the feral cat population these days.

So I went to the training, learned all about TNR, then returned home to write a nice letter about what I planned to do the ferals in my neighborhood. I then distributed said letter to all of my neighbors. My Brooklyn neighbors. My Brooklyn "Hey, go fuck yourself" neighbors.

Two days later I check my voice mail and this is what I hear:

In a thick Brooklyn accent...

"Hey Chris, you don't like the cats in the backyard huh? Then why don't you go back where you came from! And while you're at it, why don't you and all you other liberal bastards go spay and neuter yourselves!"

You see, this is what happens when you try to do something good in this world. You get yelled at. You get someone telling you to go cut your balls off. This is why I choose to stay indoors writing all day. It's much safer than going out there and actually interacting with all of the feral people in this world.

He may be drunk as hell, but he'll still kick your ass.

Hi my name is Chris, and I'm a twee-dessertaholic.

Seeing the Monkey and the Barrel drawings is more of a...delight? That's better. Because whenever Daily sends me one I do tend to skip around the house for a bit. Which is different (slightly) from my heart skipping around my chest while the rest of my body stays put and I have to use every once of strength I possess to fight the urge to jump up and shout "O what a dainty treat!" Which is what happens when I eat a petits four.

The first drawing is a monkey. It's from Chapter 1.

The second is a giant. It's from Chapter 2.

Stay tuned for the Chapter 3 illustration, which is a drunk executing a superb flying kick.

I'm going to qualify this by saying that I am a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan. But this picture. Which was in the Philadelphia Inquirer today. Has to be the gayest football picture ever. McNabb is practically clicking his heels. And the throwback uniforms are just ridiculous. That doesn't mean I don't like them. But it's more of a "they're so ugly they're kind of good" thing. But I imagine that people who watched the game in HDTV were partially blinded by that particular shade of yellow.

Oops. I spoke too soon. I just found this picture from the game. It's worse. Kevin Curtis and Hank Baskett decided to do a mid-air modern dance after a touchdown. Baskett is doing jazz hands for godsakes.

Hold the phone. Those pics are nowhere near the gayest football pics ever. This was just brought to my attention:

And this...

And the gayest football picture ever (submitted via Anne Coulter)...

The bit where the cloud guy goes from being an egg to a flower (and the other cloud guy's ridiculous reactions) had me cracking up all morning.

As I've said before to anyone who has cared to listen (namely, my cat) if I ever get sick and tired of writing (or the more likely culprit of the publishing business), I'm going to open my own little pizza shop.

Go ahead, laugh if you want. Call me a fool. A dipshit. A dirty wop goomba. Lay it on! Because I don't care.

Here's why:

The pursuit of the perfect pizza is as noble a pursuit as that of the pursuit to write a great novel.

There I said it. Pizza making is an art form. It takes months or even years of trial and error to perfect it. It's part science, part hard work, part art, and all passion. And just because abominations like Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Papa Johns have sullied its name with their bland grease and cheese-injected pies, doesn't mean that pizza can't be beautiful.

Besides, slop like this is NOT pizza:

Sometime in the very near future, executives at Domino's are going to have the following conversation:

"Guys, Pizza Hut is kicking our ass with this cheesy bites nonsense. We need to get more goddamn cheese onto our pizzas."

"But how! How I ask you!"

"We've already gone too far! Too far I say!"

"This is madness!"

"Everybody settle down! I have an idea. Instead of using dough..."

"I see where you're going with this."

"We'll use a huge round slice of cheese!"

"Brilliant!"

"But what do we put on top of the giant slice of cheese?"

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think so...but I'm scared!"

"Don't be! We'll put MORE CHEESE on top of the cheese! Hell, we'll put more cheese underneath the cheese as well! Then we'll deep fry the whole thing!"

"Now that's what I call a pizza!"

"An all cheese pizza? We'll be gods among men!"

Message to pizza chains: the point of pizza is not to cram as much processed cheese down people's throats. The point is finding a perfect balance between dough, sauce, and cheese!

Places like DiFara, Totonno's, and Una Pizza Napoletana in New York, and Pizza Bianca in Phoneix, are among the lone beacons of light in this country, showing us what pizza is like in Naples, and how it should be everywhere.

Last week I started experimenting with making my own pies from scratch. In the past I'd always by my dough from a local pizza place or the grocery store, but no more! From now on I'm starting with flour, water, salt, and yeast and not stopping until I get pizza perfection.

My first attempt was a bit of a disaster. Transferring the dough from my granite work surface to the pizza peel and into the oven was a huge pain in the ass. The dough got stuck to the peel, and I had to push it off, and some of the mozzarella flew off in the process. That cheese landed on the nuclear hot stone and started burning, which made everything smoky. Then the fire alarm went off. I also burned my hand on the oven door at some point. I cursed quite a bit. Oh, it was also 90+ degrees out that night, so with the oven cranked all the way up, and no A/C, the kitchen felt about 175 degrees. So I was sweating like a pig the whole time.

The resulting pizza was was too charred and mangled to even be called a pizza. But it tasted OK. Sort of. But did I give up after this failure? No! And that is the key. Not just to pizza, but to life.

Today was my second attempt, and I learned a little from my mistakes. This is what came out of the oven this time.

Not bad. Not great either, but pretty good. Especially for a second attempt. I was especially happy with what was on top of the pizza.

Namely...

But the dough isn't where I want it to be. Still too gummy and not enough flavor. Next time I'm moving on to using a sourdough starter like the big boys use.

Like with anything worth pursuing, you're going to make a ton of mistakes on the road to a perfect pizza. It's the same way with writing novels. Foop! was nowhere near a perfect book. But is it good? I think so. Was it worth writing and is it worth consuming? Yes. Will I write better books? Hell yes. Will I make better pizzas? Oh hell yes.

Will I continue to burn myself and smoke up the kitchen and curse a lot and doubt myself and have people tear apart my books along the way? Yes.

But will I give up? Not a chance.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

JC Penney Men's Dress Apparel

Screw writing! I have a future in Menswear!

Now, you tell me. Do I, or do I not, look like a total douchebag in this picture?

I mean really now. It looks like a cheesy stock photo, or something from the Macy's catalog. Was I really THAT happy? So happy that I felt the urge to do the classic stock photo lean.

If I keep this up, when I finish my next book some dude in a tie is going to show up out of nowhere and this will happen:

EDIT: No, that is not my hand holding the flowers in the photo! I only wish my hands were as dainty and smooth as that.

And in this corner, wearing the deformed flesh, mucus, and blood trunks, we have the challenger, Kuato!

Why do little kids love horses and ponys so much? Is it:

A.) Because they want to be cowboys and cowgirls
B.) Because horses are cute
C.) Because horses are fun to ride on
D.) Because little kids secretly love to eat horse meat

The answer is D, folks. D. Here's my proof:

That's the real deal with absolutely no photoshop manipulation. Baby food horse meat from Italy (Cavallo means Horse in Italian). That's I-t-a-l-y. A country that has the best food in the whole world, serving horse meat to their bambinos. What does this tell us? That kids love horse meat! Why else would Italians, people who know good food better than any of us, give it to them?

So next time you see a kid petting a horse, that big grin you see on his face isn't because he wants to ride the horsey. It's because he's dreaming of how delicious horsey puree tastes.

Which makes me wonder...what else do American kids seemingly like because they're fun and cute, when really them just want to mash their flesh up in a blender and eat it for lunch?

Perhaps...

Maybe all those kisses on Grandpa's cheek are just to get a little taste of the meaty goodness which lies within.