Good morning John, it is Wednesday, September 13th.

Thank you for answering the question that I asked you. No. You didn’t.

You didn’t, you ignored my question, and then you asked me a question so here, I’m ignoring your question. And I’m going to read the first page of my unpublished novel, which is also unfinished, unrepresented, and probably will remain unpublished forever. But since you did it, I’m doing it.

Just the first page. “What do you mean you don’t want bacon?” That’s how I decided to start my book. Bacon. She was looking at him over her shoulder, shaking the pan over the burner while it popped grease all over the stove.

He was probably going to have to clean that up. “I just, I don’t know, Mom. We just don’t have bacon.” That was true. They didn’t.

In fact, they rarely ever ate meat at all, for both religious and financial reasons. Meat hadn’t been cheap since before Danny was born, but it was getting cheaper. Things, on the whole, were getting better. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have bacon.” She was paying attention to the meat now, but he could tell that she was smirking.

He wanted to be strict about it, though. They couldn’t have bacon. “It’s just-” he stammered. He didn’t want to upset her.

She was obviously going to a lot of trouble to make a nice Sunday breakfast for the both of them. “Well, there aren’t a lot of slaughtered pigs on the Buddha path, Mom.” He took his turn smirking. The pan settled down on the burner. Danny traced the wood grains in the table with the knife that his mom had laid out for their breakfast, waiting for her witty reply.

He looked up from the table. She was crying. “No, Mom, it’s fine. I- I love bacon, it’s just been a long time...” He thought of a hundred ways to sensibly end that sentence, but none of them came out.

She turned away and rested her hands on the stove. He was almost used to it by now. His mom had been losing interest in religion, finding bad memories where Danny still managed to find strength.

For more than a decade she’s been a strict Buddhist, since before Danny was born, since she met his father. But then, it had been a long time. A long time since they’d seen him.

She pushed the fried bacon to the back burner, walked to the refrigerator, and took out a tortilla and a can of cheap orange juice, the usual breakfast. She put them in front of Danny and swallowed. Her face was red, her eyes still wet.

She looked at him hard and soft at the same time. “I’ve been lying to you.” What’s Danny’s mom been lying about? Tune in next time to Brotherhood 2.0 to find out! Ok, not really.

If that’s not too annoying, I wouldn’t mind finishing the chapter. It’s not very long. So let me know if you’re at all interested.

As for Paper Towns, the big problem with the flashback as I saw it is that I CAN’T READ THE REST OF THE BOOK! You’re a jerk! There’s gonna be all these people out there and they’re gonna have to wait like a year before they find out what the heck happened!

I’m having a hard time waiting and I’m gonna get it, like, next week! Huhh! So, yeah, no problems except for the fact that cliffhangers drive me crazy.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to talk a little bit about their experiences on September 11th. It was especially interesting to hear about some people who were very young at that time and who are not so young anymore. Seven years is a long time.

John, I’ve been noticing a lot of people asking you, uh, how do you become a writer? I’ll just say, uh, about that thing that I just wrote, it’s about a third of the way through, I’d say, to being like a normal-length novel. And I literally started by writing down “what do you mean you don’t want bacon?” because that seemed like a good thing to say.

It’s very much just like exploring, just like going on a walk through the woods except you’re in your own brain. Don’t worry about being a writer or being a novelist, just, uh, take a walk in your brain. Or a bike ride in your brain, but don’t drive!

Because that’s bad for the environment. I’ll see you tomorrow.