{"id":498,"date":"2023-08-05T15:29:08","date_gmt":"2023-08-05T19:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/?p=498"},"modified":"2023-09-11T10:58:04","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T14:58:04","slug":"writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/?p=498","title":{"rendered":"Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I haven&#8217;t written anything in at least a year and a half. I could probably judge by the date of the last version of whatever chapter I was working on in Impaired which is on a different computer. I&#8217;ve been trying to kickstart myself into writing again by reading about writing, by just reading, and by attempting to get rid of the sorry for myself feeling I have. I just reached a point, I think, where I suddenly thought &#8220;Why am I putting so much effort into this when no one cares about what I do?&#8221; And the direction society has gone, especially because of the internet and streaming, etc., books seem like an antiquated notion &#8212; isn&#8217;t that cute, kind of thing. &#8220;Influencers,&#8221; stream themselves posing or playing casino games or doing this or that and everyone is interested, it seems. They get a million followers. And so the Bud Light people decide to send a few cans of Bud Light to a transgendered woman and all the hateful people in the country light up and starting shooting their boxes of Bud Light. It&#8217;s just so hard to believe and unbelievably stupid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I still want to try, and too often I find myself with nothing to do and then some depression sets in and all the usual problems that writers have. So I think I&#8217;m going to try to write a short story about Larry Myers and call it The Fraud. Because that is what he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Update: 9\/11\/23). I thought I&#8217;d call it The Fraud before one review after another came out about Zadie Smith&#8217;s new historical novel called&#8230; &#8220;The Fraud.&#8221; However, I went to my local bookstore (192) after a week since the first review and asked if they had it yet. She did, but she said she wasn&#8217;t allowed to sell it until the next day, but she said she&#8217;d sell it to me anyway. And then when she went to get a copy she said, &#8220;Oh these ones are signed.&#8221; So I got a first edition, signed, of her new book &#8220;The Fraud,&#8221; and now I have to wait until I can buy a second edition so I don&#8217;t spill something on this one!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t written anything in at least a year and a half. I could probably judge by the date of the last version of whatever chapter I was working on in Impaired which is on a different computer. I&#8217;ve been &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/?p=498\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":517,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}