the love life of joel hoagland (page 32)
January 29, 2005 – 2:20 am“I’m sorry,” she said, “I can’t.”
“Why not?” I asked, switching the phone to my other ear with shaking hands.
“Because I hate folk music.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes.”
“Is that a fact?”
“It is indeed.”
“Well,” I huffed, “it just so happens that I hate…help me out here, I need a retort. What do I hate?”
“Good music?” she offered.
“I hate good music!”
“In all it’s forms,” she added.
“Especially in all its forms,” I rejoined.
“What time does it start?” she asked.
“How would I know? It’s starting all the time. But I don’t pay any attention, because I just hate it.”
“No, silly, the concert.”
“Eight pm. Why, are you planning a protest?”
“If it’s bad enough, yes. Pick me up at seven.”
“Good idea.”
“That remains to be seen.”
[It never happens this way. The only truth in this story is the part about the shaking hands. But this is the conversation I woulda, coulda, shoulda had, or hope I someday will have.]
2 Responses to “the love life of joel hoagland (page 32)”
Where did you go to dialogue writing school? Orson Wells couldn’t have strung together better banter and then played it like a love banjo as you’ve done in these last two Joel Hoagland posts. If you could give yourself time to write extended prose, you could be the next big intellectual capitalist who doesn’t need to code java. Proud to read your stuff. You’ve come a long way since Western Man.
By dabuheebly on Jan 29, 2005
What he said. I say yay! for gonna have. I’m still generating pretexts. (Always happy to help.)
Plus, what’s up, my brudda? You could do one page a day for a year and then edit one page a day for another year and you’d be keeping pace with most regularly published fiction writers. (Hell, you could write half a page a day and stretch the whole thing out to four years and still be way ahead of most writers… that is to say that I think you’re publishable if you get a few characters that capture your imagination.)
And for that matter, Dabu, why aren’t you writing? I puts it to you and I leaves it with you…
By honest + popular on Jan 30, 2005