Recommended Reading for Everyone Who Lives in the US

"If you are confused by the notion that those least able to pay are the ones singled out to pay the highest rates, welcome to the American medical marketplace."

Link to the Time Magazine article.

"What are the reasons, good or bad, that cancer means a half-million- or million-dollar tab? Why should a trip to the emergency room for chest pains that turn out to be indigestion bring a bill that can exceed the cost of a semester of college? What makes a single dose of even the most wonderful wonder drug cost thousands of dollars? Why does simple lab work done during a few days in a hospital cost more than a car? And what is so different about the medical ecosystem that causes technology advances to drive bills up instead of down?....

Taken as a whole, these powerful institutions (non-profit hospitals) and the bills they churn out dominate the nation’s economy and put demands on taxpayers to a degree unequaled anywhere else on earth. In the U.S., people spend almost 20% of the gross domestic product on health care, compared with about half that in most developed countries. Yet in every measurable way, the results our health care system produces are no better and often worse than the outcomes in those countries."

Man's Reaction to Falling Meteor in Russia.

Redrafting 1st and 2nd Chapters.

Oh no, I was boothed recently at the Gotham Writer's Workshop Fiction Writers Class I am taking. This is just there way of having the author be silent through the whole critique. Basically, every one in the class has a say in commenting on what you wrote. In light of these recent critiques I will be combining the first two chapters into one chapter, adding changes to some of the characters, simplifying the sentences, and changing some bits in the story that don't seem to work.

I figure its better to revise with these critiques in mind before I start the most complicated part of the story, chapter 3. Stay tuned...

2nd Chapter, 1st draft complete.

Just finished the second chapter. It is 11 pages long. With the first that makes the first two chapters 25 pages in length total. Chapter 3 is already outlined so hopefully it will take a day or two to write when I have the time.

1st Short Story Update

If you go back to the beginning of this blog I attempted to write a short story about CERN and it's Large Hadron Collider. I posted around 3 short chapters and stopped. Currently, I am taking a fiction writing class at Gotham Writer's Workshop. I have restarted the story and will periodically post updates on my progress.

At present I am writing the second chapter-- 5 pages in, with the third chapter already planned out. The first and second chapters constitute around 20 MicroSoft Word pages double-spaced. My goals, when writing, are 5 pages a day with 15-20 page chapters. Looking at my notes there are roughly 20 chapters.

At the end of every first chapter draft I will post a progress update.

MTA East Side River Access LIRR to Grand Central (Sand Hogs at Work)

*Photographs taken from the mta's facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MTA.info

Dialogue with Subtext. Writing Exercise.

Not sure what the subtext is but I tried to create some sort of underlying conflict. 

            “Listen, maybe this isn’t such a great idea,” the man said.

            “I told you about the car, I had a friend rent it form Avis at JFK. Just call your mark. I’ll park the car right by that school on 58^th street coming up here,” the driver said.

            “Some friend you are. Where?” the man said.

            “Right by the scaffolding on the right side of the street,” said the driver.

            “Alright, I’ll text him. Do see any cameras?” The man asked the driver.

            “No.” The driver said. “I can’t really see much with the window tint.”

            “Can you turn the radio down?” the man said.

            “What you don’t like the Notorious B.I.G.? Notorious is a classic”

            “You may be a guini but your no gumba. I don’t wanna hear that shit,” The man said.

            “I was just getting in the mood,” said the driver.

            “There is only one mood you need to be and that’s steady. Are you sure there aren’t any cameras around here. There has to be, it’s a fucking school. These days with all the school shootings they’d probably couldn’t open their doors if they didn’t have some security measures,” said the man. “Couldn’t afford the insurance,” he said to himself.

            “I don’t know its not like I have been here before,” said the driver.

            “You talk too much,” the man said.

            “Did he get back to you yet?” 

            “Yeah, the man said, “He’ll be at the corner of 58^th and 7^th Ave. in 10 minutes.”

            “Can I ask you a question?” said the driver.

            “What like how am I going to do it?” The man said to the driver. “Do I ask you how to do your fucking job?”

            “Hold up. I was gonna ask you where you wanted to go eat afterwards,” said the driver.  

            “Eat?”

            “Yeah, I’m hungry. I was thinking about going to a diner and getting a burger at a diner. And I was going to ask you what part of the city has the best diners?”

            “That’s easy,” the man said.

            “It is? What are you going to say Bay Ridge or Bensonhurst?” replied the driver.

            “For the best diners you have to go where the Greeks are so that would be Astoria. And in Astoria I know a couple of places –Neptune’s on 31^st, Jackson Hole Airport Diner on Astoria Blvd, and Bel Aire on 21^st” said the man.

            “So which one do you want to go to?”
            “I don’t fucking know, why not get McDonalds.”

            “Cause they have cameras” said the driver.  

            “Jackson Hole has the best burgers but Bel Aire puts us north of the Grand Central right by the Triboro or what do they fucking call it now?

            “RFK”

            “Right the RFK Bridge.”

            “Hey, I got eyes on that mook you told me about earlier. That Law School mule who double crossed your friends.”  

            “Hold on I’ll text him again.”

            “Yeah, that’s him.”

            “Hey,” the driver said to the man, “put your fucking hood up before you get out. I don’t want to get caught.”