For My Birthday

The following is an email I sent to myself on the eve of my birthday this past March:

03/10/2010 01:33 PM

Future, wiser Jake,

Here it is, no more excuses, my definitive vow: I am going to write a complete novel before I turn 24. One year from tomorrow, I will finish the draft of my novel. I promise.

I'm going out tonight and I'm buying you a birthday card and I'm writing this in there. Starting tomorrow, I am giving you a full calendar year. Despite our job, the CPA exam, another busy season, hundreds of hours of television on dvd I own or you will own, and any unforeseen life-altering events, we are going to finish our manuscript for a novel tentatively titled Ginger Smoke.

This is my dream. You have to do this.

Past, younger Jake

There it is. Documented on the internets.

Now, I have walkthroughs I have to document for Process Accounts Payable.

Ginger Smoke

Ginger Smoke is the tentative title of my forthcoming, future New York Times best-selling novel. It is also the name of the protagonist's 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 450. Here is the long and short of it:

The One-liner: Ginger Smoke is the story of two struggling alcoholics, a graphic novelist handicapped by a memory disorder and a cagey utility man with a secret, that have to conceive their own support group to remediate their broken lives.

The Short Synopsis: DEREK FINCHER has been living in the past where he was a soon-to-be-father and the acclaimed author of an award-winning graphic novel ever since he was diagnosed with the profound memory disorder, Korsakoff syndrome. Now he leads a life that he can’t remember to forget about and he’s losing everything: his marriage, his vintage muscle car, and his will to live. That is, until he meets JERRY CASSIDY, and they conceive their own support group and a unique form of therapy that will force the two to face their addictions, their deepest secrets, and even death in order to resurrect the lives they lost.

The Pitch: If Fight Club and Memento had a baby, and it was raised by alcoholics, it would grow up to be Ginger Smoke.

See you on the shelves.