I have spent money this week. I bought two pairs of pants, one pair of shoes, a new belt, some books, also ate lunch out twice, one cookie, and numerous cups of coffee. I am not one for spending money on things that don't keep me alive and out of jail. Food, mortgage, utilities, taxes and wine, and that's about it.

I get books, DVDs and music from the library (most of them). I am not growing out of my clothes so it's rare that I wear them out. Traditionally my fashion preference is black, gray or white so my clothing choices seldom go out of style.

An out-of-the-ordinary thing happened to me that brought on this spending spree. Couple of weeks ago I lost a pair of pants in my own home. It's true. There was no changing clothes anywhere, no girlfriend on the side nor do I think my wife tossed them out just to see me wear something new. I think my socks stole them (I also lost a much-loved blazer to my house). Do I live in fear of my socks stealing other things? Do I ask a Priest to cast out evil clothing-stealing-spirits? Do I accuse my wife until she makes a full confession? What to do...

A good thing from my shopping experience was that I discovered that my waist line is an inch smaller. 32-inch waist, 32-inch inseam is how I bought pants in the past. Today I purchased two pairs of 31-inch waist, 31-inch inseam, the missing inch around my waist I will not miss but the missing inch on my inseam has me curious? I am getting shorter...getting smaller only happens to really, really, really old people...I am not old...not even close to being old. The answer came to me.

Can socks that steal clothing from my home also steal the actual length from my legs? At first I thought, "this is dumb", what is a sock going to do with a leg? Then it hit me...socks go on feet, feet are attached to legs, legs needs pants and I am missing pants. Now I am panicking.

What follows is a zygote of an idea. Once a week I will be posting snap shots of my current writing project. All posts will be titled "The Original Whatever".

"When humans know themselves, the rest of nature is right there" - Gary Snyder

It's 4am, the "non-time of day"...an unspeakable point of the day. Picture this: desk lamp on, computer screen at full brightness, the wall clock has stopped. I sit to write. I'm wearing boxer shorts that are 15 years old, a tank top that is well over 20 years old and just experienced that moment when your breath turns into morning breath (my wife is such a lucky person). I smell funny and it feels like there is no oxygen in the air. This is a dreadful mix of when sleeplessness, madness and the creative impulse equals schizophrenia. No wonder why all great writers go insane. Four o'clock in the morning is not meant for the living.

This is my second attempt at writing chapter 3. Chapter 1 and 2 went well. I passed out a zygote draft to friends and strangers and got feedback. Some people even said they found the writing to be motivational. This is not good. Motivational books end up in the discount bin quickly. Motivational books become trendy for an instant and cheesy for a life time. I can see it, my face on a book with an award winning smile and 99-cent sticker plastered on my forehead.

Have you noticed how much people love to be motivated, but hate to follow through on the effort part? Remember, people hate effort especially when it entails that they have to do something.

Motivational speakers, this is something that people love. Again this is not good for me because I am writing at 4am and speaking to no one. There is a definite criteria to being a motivational speaker and if you do not fit the criteria bad things will happen to you.

1. You have to be tall, at least over six feet.
2. Caucasian
3. Must have extremely white teeth.

If you do not have these three attributes then you cannot be a motivational speaker. People who think of themselves as motivational and do not have these attributes are simply people who like to egg other people on. These are the people who think that they are right on everything. I hate these people.

There have been only two people in recorded history that have been motivational speakers without the aide of the three traits. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, but note they were both tall with extremely white teeth, and Jesus. He was motivational as well, but he is tall and white in all the pictures that I have ever seen him in.

Life does not turn out good for people who are motivational speakers but do not have the 3 traits. Jesus, Gandhi and MLK all ask us to place effort into "love thy neighbor" and they got assassinated. Seriously not funny...fuck don't you just hate humanity at times?

The good news is that Jesus told us the "meek shall inherit the earth". This is good news for all humanity. I personally know the Meek family and what they plan to do with their inheritance.

Their plan is quite nice as long as you do not like Mexican food or Austria. The Meeks hate Mexican food and have plans to completely eradicate it from the face of the Earth. Goodbye to Austria, the entire continent has to be removed from the planet to pay off the inheritance tax. The previous owners, the brothers Evolution and Creationism, who by the way could never get along, were just going to give the continent over to the global warming franchise to put the kibosh on all the mixed messages being reported by the media. Goodbye Mexican food, goodbye Austria, say hello to environmentally sustainable living, all credited to the Meek-inheritance-family-plan. I told you bad things happen to those who try to be motivational who do not possess the quality of being tall, Caucasian with extremely white teeth.

Charlotte Rains Dixon is a freelance writer, novelist, copywriter, ghostwriter and creative writing teacher living in Portland. Charlotte has a Master of Fine Arts in Writing and is the editor of "Book Strumpet" and the author of the "Word Strumpet" blog. Dixon graciously agreed to take part in my ongoing "5 Question Interview Series".


What's a Word Strumpet & why name your blog after a Middle English name for a prostitute?

A wordstrumpet is someone who can't get enough writing, or enough words. The implication being that the prostitute can't get enough sex, which is probably an erroneous assumption, but oh well. And thank you for knowing what the word strumpet means, you'd be surprised how many people don't. My inspiration for the name comes from how we say (at least I do) "I'm an email whore" or "I'm a slut for email." Kind of along those lines. Most people intuitively get it. I've also had people think the title means Words Trumpet, which also makes sense so I guess its okay.

Why blog? How did you get started with blogging?

I was actually trying to remember the other day what motivated me to start blogging. I can't remember the exact inspiration. I was doing a lot of copywriting for the internet and I needed a website and a blog seemed to be the easiest way to get one. Now I think of it as sort of a website/blog hybrid, which I think is becoming more and more common. Often I land on traditional websites and get bored, thinking, where's all the new info? The updates? The interesting personal stuff?

What inspires you? How do you stay motivated?

Oh God, that's such a good question. What inspires me? I don't even know. Life, the people in my life, family, friends, the absolute absurdity of the human condition. Love, wanting to figure it out (when really it's very simple), relationships, helping others. One of my writing mentors, Melissa Pritchard, once said that to be a good writer you have to know a lot about life. I think that's true-and I also think that I, at least, figure life out as I write about it. Making up stories about my life gives it meaning. How do I stay motivated? Trying to figure the next thing out. Also, I've reached the point in my life where I don't seem to be able to stop writing. Whether it is for self-initiated projects or for others, I'm writing a lot every day. I've said this a million times, but for me, writing truly is like breathing. I just don't get how people live without it.

On the completion of your novel: How did writing a book that you knew would be read so closely by your blog audience compare with writing the blog?

It's funny, the blog is very free form to me. I get an idea for a post, and sometimes it is just a vague idea based on my writing life, and I start writing and it just flows. Often the posts end up being way longer than I think they are going to be when I've started. In some respects, writing the novel was the same way, at least in the first draft. After that, there's a lot more shaping involved, since the plot has to work and the characters need an arc and all that. I try not to be too specific about my novel in the blog, my idea being that readers want to read about the process of writing it, not the novel itself. So it will be interesting to see the reaction when it is published.

Your life seems to be a journey that is totally expressed by blogging: Do we know the real you or do you keep a private life that is not told to your readers?

I'd probably panic if I went back and read all my past posts and realized how much of myself I've revealed. But in truth, I write so much that I tend to write things and forget about them. I'm on to the next thing. The thought occurs that this could be a self-protective mechanism. I'm halfway toying with the idea of starting a memoir next, so what you don't get from the blog you'll probably get in there. I'd say people get about 90% of the real me. Everybody deserves a few secrets, don't you think?

Last night's conversation was focused around the language of art. Sitting in a well-laid out office with a pair of web/graphic designers I was able to speak fluently in art-ese. It was nice. Often artists have to speak in parables, examples and metaphors to be understood. It's not that the language of art is complicated, but rather it is a language of "feeling", which can be problematic. The syntax of art-academics is easily understood, but the culture of communicating a "feeling" is hard to express to someone who is not involved in a compositional practice.

The polysemous nature of descriptive terms for fine aesthetics are un-definable, specific and dualistic in significance. Slow art, resonate, vibe, groove, pulse, moment, pocket, timing, imagination, color, texture, renewal, flow, classical education, and aesthetic philosophy is the definition of "polysemy" itself; "something having multiple meanings".

Mathew Dallman, publisher and Editor-In-Chief of POLYSEMY.com does a great job at bringing these quandaries to a conversational level. Read "The Nature of Aesthetic Study" by Dallman for a deeper syntax, etymology and real life purpose for talking about fine art.

For me last night was a moment of flow, form and function. All I needed was Chianti Classico and Bach cello suites playing in the background to complete the bliss.