More Sun to Come

18 days in Waikiki so far. What's the best part? Total relaxation.

I have been working on my second novel, The Living Dead Don't Get a Holiday, lately and surpassed 60,000 words. I don't think I'm going to finish it on this vacation like I thought I might.

I have just finished a short story as well. It's not fantastic but I am trying to write one every quarter. It's something non-pornographic, non-druggy, and short. I think that might help me get published.

I am remaining upbeat on my chances of selling my first book, The Ultimate Space Hit in England where the language and ideas might be embraced more than in America. I have been getting some good feedback on that one. Of course I get some emails like this too...

Username: Donovan
UserEmail: helmdon@hotmail.com
Comments: YOU SUCK YOU STUPID, UGLY FAG.

Oh well you can't please everyone. And you shouldn't try to either. Sometimes I do feel like a stupid, ugly fag, but thankfully not very often. I guess some people don't get it. I hate it when people write like that and I can't tell which article or story I wrote that made them feel bad enough to write an email like to me. So I could write more like that. Eliciting an emotional response is one of the greatest compliments to a writer.

I have been reading some great books on this trip, some of which are: Kerouac's Dharma Bums, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Paul Auster's City of Glass, some short works of Mark Twain including The Mysterious Stranger which is currently my favorite short story of all time, and an amazing book on the history of coffee called The Devil's Cup by Stewart Lee Allen. Pick up any of them if you need a read recommendation.

So what's ahead for the final 10 days in Oahu? More sun, more mai tais, more boat rides, a dinner show with Don Ho, a luau with a roasted pig, more moped rides around the islands, more hikes, and that's about it.

I have also figured out what the Japanese hipsters do. It was just as I thought. They just strut around and eat and then strut around some more and go home. Japan needs more new beat literary drunks like Pax Acidus if they want to be taken seriously. Seriously though, I have always liked to be in places where white people were in the minority. Oahu definitely counts as such a place and I will be sad when we leave.

One huge surprise was the great Hawaiian food. We have been eating kalua pig, lau lau, and poi at a nice diner outside of the tourist area. Poi is fantastic stuff, its a purple goo made from the taro root. Any food that is purple can't be all bad.