Augusten Burroughs

Writing update: Things are moving, and I am confident I will have a completed first, rough draft by the end of this week, as was my original goal. So, I'll just leave it at that.

I don't know what drugs are or what they do to you, but I assume that I am addicted to books like coke heads are addicted to blow.

I had to look up a street name for cocaine. Shows how much I was not paying attention to that Johnny Depp movie. Well, today I got my book fix with a huge hit of recent releases. Shit, do you do hits of coke? Isn't it lines? Fuck this metaphor. I'm really happy because I bought books today.

I always like reading, but summertime has, for the past 5 years or so, been especially dedicated to reading. Summer reading when it's not required is incredibly refreshing. I have a few "must reads" of the summer, you know, the classics.

Okay, I read the Sisterhood series over and over every summer. I've also added everything else by Anne Brashares because, well, I don't have a reason.

Anyway, I picked up Augusten Burroughs's new book today. He was one of the first authors I got into who wrote books for adults, like real adults, not girls in high school who think vampire romance is real love. Been there, done that, snuck into the next theater over to watch the kissing scene again.

Burroughs also further deepened my love for the memoir. David Sedaris brought me into the genre with Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and then I sort of back-tracked and bought everything else he had Burroughs had written, and I've been following them ever since.

Sedaris's most recent book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, was a detour from his memoirs. The same is said for Burroughs's This is How. It is essentially a self-help book.

So far, it does not hold a candle to his other works. Although, I would never recommend that because books are flammable. SeewhatIdidthere? Still, there are certainly passages of description or succinct explanations or witty references that scream REALLY GREAT WRITING HERE, PAY ATTENTION.

And I am.

I have always thought that if I wrote a book, it would be a memoir because I think that's a framework that I am comfortable in. However, the more and more I think about it, I would actually have to be talking about other people. Burroughs talks about a woman he met on an elevator in this book. Even that amount of anonymity freaks me out. Things certainly have to get more personal when you are talking about yourself and people you know.

Plus, I'm just not that interesting. Yet. Once, I figure this whole cocaine thing out, though, best seller status. What What.