Bar Scrawl: Return to Botanica

I hit Botanica last night — one of my all-time-favorite dives, and the bar where I did most of my writing and drinking back in ’97 and ’98 — with a head full of vague ideas that I needed to let loose onto the pages of my marble cover notebook. I’ve gotten so used to writing on the computer over the years I’d forgotten how liberating it can be to do a little old-fashioned pen-and-paper, stream of conciousness writing, especially sitting in a bar, beer close at hand, and potential stories all around you. Last time out was an unexpected fluke, but this time, though I didn’t have anything solid in mind, I was ready to write.

The writing part of my brain has seemingly reawakened over the past month or two, perhaps recovering from the self-induced coma necessitated by the mind-numbing experiences at my old job. Whatever the reason, I’m glad it’s coming back to me because I’ve realized how far away I am from getting to where Salomé is and while I’m comfortable with the compromise for now, I don’t want to get so comfortable with it that I either forget what I’d much rather be doing, or resign myself to its never happening.

On my way down, a hook for a poem that had been rattling around in my head decided it couldn’t wait until I got to Botanica, so I ended up writing the first half of it on the train, trying to get as much of it down as possible before it faded. Once I settled in with a pint of Rogue Ale (not sure which one it was, but I imagined it was their Dead Guy Ale to humor myself) I added to it and ended up with a solid first draft that I’ll probably read next time I’m at 13.

I believe in truth, lies
and avoiding the videotape
which never lies
unless it’s been edited

I will edit this poem
at least three times
before I move on to the next one.

I believe in telling the truth to your friends
and lying to your enemies
as long as you know
who’s who

until then
lie
to everybody
flagrantly, extravagantly, often
call them poems
and they will love you for it.

I also ended up writing 5 character sketches; brief snapshots of an imagined moment, 4 of which were inspired by my first impressions of random people in the bar. That’s something I’ve always done in my head, imagining the stories of random strangers, but have never written down, and it was a great exercise to wring as much as I could out of a quick scan of a person and turning it into a brief scene.

With one of them, I tried to work on a specific descriptive voice, without overthinking the moment, and came up with a weird, soft-boiled bit of prose that ended up being my favorite of the bunch.

As dames went, she wasn’t remarkable, but you wouldn’t kick her out of bed, either. Her dark, curly hair was cut short into a white girl afro, and her face, all smooth angles and soft features, was the kind you kissed for a long time before taking it any further. She had dark eyes, probably brown, that hid beneath manicured eyebrows, and her smile was as innocent as a babyfaced killer’s. She had a slight involuntary smirk that suggested she’d happily put a bullet in your head when was done with you, to put you out of the misery your life would be without her.

She was the perfect woman disguised as ordinary, and he knew it with every fiber of his being.

The guy she was with, though, had no clue.

Now that it’s warm out, I think I’m going to sit outside a couple of times a week for lunch and do some more of these because it’s a great exercise and will be a perfect warm-up for my tackling NaNoWriMo this year. I also need to not fall back into the habit of only being able to write with a beer handy…

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Written by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez is the Chief Content Officer for LibraryPass, and former publisher & marketing director for Writer’s Digest. Previously, he was also project lead for the Panorama Project; director, content strategy & audience development for Library Journal & School Library Journal; and founding director of programming & business development for the original Digital Book World.