If you know anything about me, it’s that I hate being late.
HATE IT.
I’m late for one thing and it’s like a Rube Goldberg machine of frustration, a fucked-up domino of cascading destruction that leaves me absolutely fucking enraged.
And I’m the chill one.
Target: 500 words
Written: 549 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 45-48
Music: Vivida Vis!, Against Me!
Sometimes, I wonder, why is this my life?
Why am I sitting on a couch, searching French asparagus recipes in a pair of swim trunks and an old St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt?
I should be sunning on the beaches of Ibiza or sauntering around Vienna or Santorini, or sharing drinks with Jimmy Buffett on St. Lucia. I should be enjoying the isolation of Lapland or the bustling, noisy markets of Marrakesh or the flowing drift of the Yangtze.
I should be surrounded by people I love, not people I haven’t let get close enough to really truly be myself with.
But, then… asparagus is pretty good. I’m a big foodie, I have a nice family, I’ve done plenty of travelling, to beaches and rivers and cities and tundra and so forth.
And Jimmy Buffett is dead.
Today is about wanting what you don’t have. Today is about appreciating what you do.
And thinking the world is a worse place without the margarita man. Rest well, Mr. Buffett. I too don’t know where I’m’a gonna go when the volcano blows.
Target: 500 words
Written: 400 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 41-44
Music: Vivid, Living ColourI used to be a party person. I could go until all hours, consume copious amounts of drugs and alcohol and make an unbearably obnoxious fool of myself.
It’s a wonder I ever had any friends at all.
Pity, I assume. I’m not blind. The cool kids all had deep connections; I was just kind of there, filling space and being an idiot.
That said, now, I made it to midnight last night and today, I’m a wreck.
Getting old is the shits, which is different than being the shit.
Much, much different.
Target: 500 words
Written: 873 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 37-40
Music: Viva Wisconsin, Violent Femmes (I don't know what it is about these guys, but I connect so completely with literally everything they've ever done, except Vancouver, which sucks)I’d like to spend most of my days that way. An empty room with nothing but me and a good book, a laptop for writing, maybe a corkboard for plotting and visualization. Access to a beautiful woman for companionship. The ability to leave whenever, but the ability to get lost entirely in whatever I’m doing, without interruption.
The ability to be fully and completely present within my little empty box, with the option to go outside on occasion and visit the good parts of the world, and leave the shitbags behind.
Target: 500 words
Written: 127 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 33-36
Music: Vitalogy, Pearl Jam (still an all-time favourite - every word floods back like total recall)I think I’ve earned it – a first draft complete, writing up my notes for the second run? That’s not a small thing; completion is an elusive, moving target in art, particularly when you’re one of those nervous, depressed artists like myself. It’s very easy to scrap the lot and go back to scratch.
I’m saving the Gran Corona for the publication date, but I believe in the art of the small reward. Plus, The Mungk is a novella, a tiny project, and therefore, its rewards should be appropriately sized.
I don’t smoke as a matter of course – I quit cigarettes years ago, but I love the smell of a good cigar, so a cigarillo every couple of months probably isn’t going to hurt me.
My liver or my heart will give out far before my lungs, after all.
Clean livin’, y’all.
To the next one.
Target: 500 words
Written: 256 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 29-32
Music: Virus 100, L7, Vision Valley, The VinesI guess censorship doesn’t require a response in Wattpad’s world. It’s been over a week now since I filed an appeal with them regarding Get Back Again, and crickets.
What a nice world they must live in, to pull any story they feel like or don’t understand, and then just ignore the cries of the creator.
I’m a lefty McLefterton (with caveats), and in my world, the censorship of art is a no-fly zone. I know Wattpad thinks it’s protecting people from outrage and offense, but to not even respond to their own appeal process?
That’s straight authoritarian bullshit, and anyone with a true desire for freedom and justice would never engage in such tactics. Do something wrong, then pretend like it never happened, while maintaining the new status quo? That’s some cowardly energy right there.
Avoiding the consequences of your ill behaviour is not a becoming trait, supposedly forward thinking company.
Target: 500 words
Written: 570 words, novella: The Mungk
Read; High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 25-28
Music: Violent Femmes, Violent FemmesA hundred days into this year and we’ve already had multiple collapses, blood issues and a totality.
Sometimes, I’d like there to be a totality inside me, either to end it all or to burn away all the shit. Blind it with a shining aura, a brilliance unendurable except with the darkest glasses.
But the world keeps turning, a disturbing number of people think a man who thought it was intelligent to stare directly at an eclipse is a genius and hate seems to creep further into our lives each and every day.
We need another revolution. Another love-in.
Where’s our John and Yoko? Our sexual revolution appears to revolve around people making sex tapes, where wearing bikinis on your social media is a viable career path.
Where’s our screaming punk? Where’s our Kurt Cobain, hitting the nerves of a generation so raw that it changes entire cultures?
Where’s logic? Where’s freedom? Where are hearts and connection and compassion and a basic understanding of kindness?
Where’s the less ineffectual left? Where’s the sober right?
Where the fuck is everybody?
Social media is madness. Our world is mad.
This has been your daily agonized howl into the void, unable to stand anymore.
Target: 500 words
Written: 191 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 21-24
Music: Villains, The Verve PipeThere’s a phenomenon I haven’t seen since I was a child, and never in the full totality as we’re getting today. I hope it remains unclouded as it has been the last couple of days.
Unfortunately, as with most things in my life, circumstance and poor planning and dedication on my part will likely render it a disappointment, and I, like so many others, will find myself holding the bag of my own responsibility.
Depression in full swing; universe, grant me superpowers.
I’d rather be a hero.
Target: 500 words
Written: 309 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 17-20
Music: Victrola, Veruca Salt, View From A Backstage Pass, the WhoI finished my first draft of The Mungk a few days ago.
It’s an outline, glorified and in extreme detail, which is what all good first drafts should be, in my opinion.
You can write character studies and scene settings and world build all you want. You can play connect-the-dots, map out plot matrixes and timelines and motivations and whatever, but at the end of the day, all you have is a blueprint. At some point, you have to start laying foundation and raising beams and running wires.
And unless you’re building something entirely formulaic, that never truly goes as planned, not in a work of art.
So, we write a first draft. And in the draft, our characters begin to tell us who they are, what direction they want to go. Motivations and reactions you didn’t expect rear their ugly heads. Plot holes you didn’t catch in the outline sideswipe you, throwing the whole thing off track.
It’s rather like birthing a child and living a life; you have a plan for it, but you can’t control other people or whatever circumstances the world likes to throw at us. You can’t break the laws of the universe, whatever that universe may be.
In the end, a first draft is nothing more than a prototype; a raw, unfinished thing with quirks and bugs and massive failures that need correction.
A outline/novel hybrid, bleeding, organs in places they shouldn’t be, begging to be put out of its misery, or repaired in mercy.
Target: 500 words
Written: 433 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 13-16
Music: Vessel, BjorkI’m seeding herbs today, and it makes me think that maybe I’m seeding stories, little poems and things to grow my writing career.
However, like seeding, one needs the right fuel and the right ground, the soil, the nutrients, in order to sow the ground with something fertile enough to allow things to grow.
And I’m not a green thumb.
But I think that’s how I need to start thinking of my writing career. Create fertile ground. Find the right nutrients, the right level of sunlight, water as needed.
Pay close attention if the leaves are wilting.
Pray for little babies to push the soil.
Target: 500 words
Written: 818 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 9-12
Music: Vespertine Live, Bjork