Matthew Dexter

“I quit my job just to quit. I didn't quit my job to write fiction. I just didn't want to work anymore.” ―Don DeLillo

I blew a ton of the purest fish scale cocaine at age 19 in Tucson, Arizona. Uncut product directly from cartel kingpins. Blow that would make the drop-dead gorgeous Hoover vacuum rich college girls praise Jesus when we sold it. I never snorted a line of ants like Ozzy Osbourne.

Last night, I blew three fingers off my hand with a powerful firework. My left thumb too! I'm at the hospital. They can't reattach my appendages. Excruciating. Nightmarish. This is a fictional tale. I don't touch pyrotechnics...but I'm injured as usual today from too much typing.

Please pray for me. Even atheists, agnostics, and Satan worshippers. I need to be longlisted for a short story competition next week. I killed myself writing and editing the piece during a 36-hour marathon writing session. Furthermore, I irrevocably injured tendons in both hands.

"Always be a poet, even in prose." ―Charles Baudelaire

Everybody's dying except Donald J. Trump.

I prefer to get the serious writing and editing well underway before sunset. Unfortunately, today I wrote 11,198 meaningless words, read 300,789 words, and went swimming with my son—so might not delve deep into the serious work 'til midnight. Which means: up 'til dawn or beyond.

🧑‍🎓 👩‍🎓 🎓🔮📚

There was a person who didn't follow back within three days. They're dead now. I would say, 'Swimming with the fishes' except these bitches are actually dead. Decomposed.

Everybody's enjoying summer vacations in beautiful beach destinations and European villages. Here I am, stuck writing and editing my ass off in—checks notes—Los Cabos, Mexico. Life is unfair! It's arduous being the greatest writer in the history of Los Cabos. Somebody must do it.

Suffering and starvation can be edifying experiences. By my late twenties, I'd starved 500 days penniless and was well into a two-decade stretch without health insurance. I stopped stealthily shoplifting food with my lover every afternoon from the same supermarket at nineteen.

"If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up." ―Hunter S. Thompson

I don't think I'm going to submit short stories to publications that don't pay. Unless their editors solicit me or the literary journal or magazine exudes a great aesthetic, stellar reputation, or large readership. I'm going to pay to enter story contests and win the prize money.

Best beach is an empty beach. I'm still alive. I sporadically post ethereal videos from my tropical beach. Follow your dreams. You don't need to write yourself to a private beach at a young age, but it's possible. If I did it, you can. Sky's the limit! 🏖🇲🇽🪅💯☀️🎏📚💙🌊⛵🐳💦

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)

You should create your own lane and always make your first sentence seize the attention of the reader. Do something weird and different. If nobody else is in your lane, the sky is the limit! I'm marooned in an absurd lunatic literary lane that's usually dark as hell but humorous.

I live differently. I could have an MFA or be an English teacher or creative writing professor in the PhD program at Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, or Harvard. I prefer having 24 hours every day to stay home and write, and live in the tropics. Anything else isn't optimal for my art.

I'm finally reaching my peak as a writer. I've been trying to get here every day for 30 years. It was a serious struggle with illimitable sacrifices. I sold my soul to the devil at age 16. I still need to improve weekly, but it's beautiful to see how luminous the future is.

"Sometimes I see something so moving I know I'm not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave." —Don DeLillo

My aeronautical perks as a writer only work in Mexico. I can convince editors and publishers in Mexico to fly me anywhere in the country for a week to write an essay and comp all my expenses: resorts, hotels, food, alcohol, rental cars, et cetera. Mexico is enormous and gorgeous.

Substantial waves today at Land's End at the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula. Swells borne by Hurricane Flossie drifting far to our west. Marina is closed. Weird to see the Sea of Cortez and Pacific without her usual innumerable boats, Jet Skis, and parasailers.