Twang Town Trash

I like the word prolific. Even though it doesn’t really characterize me. I’d like to be prolific as much or more than I like the word itself. I’d like to read the word next to my name in a New York Times book review. Or maybe even a Pocatello book review. I’d like to be thought of as prolific.

I’m amazed by writers who can churn out books to the tune of one or two a year. It takes me a year to come up with a title I think works. I suppose that makes me a bit on the obsessive-compulsive side, but I don’t care. I care about a title that works. If the title doesn’t grip me by the throat and threaten to choke the life out of me, I pass and pick up the one that does. I like visceral titles; titles that speak with authority, that command you psychically to read this book. Now. Your life and a few good hours on the couch depend on it.

Dean Koontz writes a book every month. Seems that way, anyway. And they’re all, like, perfect. Most are anyway. And a lot of his protagonists, a lot of his heroes are writers, or would be writers, or were writers. Writers in a slump. There’s lots of passages describing computers that haven’t been on in a while. Pens that haven’t been put to paper, fingertips that haven’t depressed keystrokes. Monitors that glow mockingly; empty and void of text lines. Books started and left undone, interrupted by some life-changing event that shattered them forever.

© 2007 Jeffrey Buckner Ford