Dumping my mental notebook

I haven’t written anything for publication since my newspaper, San Francisco Bay Guardian, was sudden shut down in mid-October. Actually, I’ve written a few stories for the Guardian-in-Exile project, the final commemorative edition of the Guardian that will hit the streets on Jan. 20, but those stories haven’t gone public yet.

Mostly, I’ve been taking care of myself, journaling, traveling, reading, working on Guardian-in-Exile, applying for jobs, getting through the holidays, and working on my next book, The Last Guardian, for which I think I’ve finally found the right voice and structure. That’s what I intend to focus on once we give the Guardian a proper send-off, say goodbye to our readers, and put this important institution’s life and death into some perspective.

But I’ve also made a little time to create this website and to start a blog component with it, starting over rather than just adding to my other stagnant old blog: http://sfscribe.wordpress.com. Frankly, I think both that old one and this new one are just placeholders for right now, so please don’t take them as signs of my wring or professionalism.

I’d rather be judged on the 24-year body of work that I’ve done for newspapers in California (you can find some links on this site), or on my first book, The Tribes of Burning Man. Or if I’m really only as good as the last thing I wrote — a standard that I’ve always applied to myself — then you can judge me on the book that I’m now writing, to which I’m applying my best creative and emotional energies.

But then again, you can’t read it yet, so this placeholder tripe that I’m banging out now might have to do. Or, if you’re a member of San Francisco’s exclusive club The Battery, then you can attend a reading of my new material that I’ll be doing next week, on the evening of Jan. 13, at an event organized by my friend and colleague Broke-Ass Stuart.

Maybe I’ll see you there.

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